[Triode User]

Good idea mike but it's not for me, I just googled and it's a few hundreds bux for a digione setup, cca was only £20 and no doubt is a lot less hassle to setup and get working, even if it is at 44.1khz.

What I meant by a replacement, I keep seeing chinese made and named ripoffs of chromecast, I was hoping wthat someone had one of them and could confirm that they work for hires tracks. If not those, something similar to what cca can do, but hires is a must.

Amber, I am listen as I type to a Chromecast Audio playing HiRes 24bit 192 kHz through an optical cable into my Chord DAC. It is working perfectly and sounds great.

So I would say no need to go after cheap Chromecast rip offs, go for the genuine thing which are still for sale new from sellers on ebay. In fact I think I bight buy a couple more myself for future needs.

 

[Amberlamps]

Amber, I am listen as I type to a Chromecast Audio playing HiRes 24bit 192 kHz through an optical cable into my Chord DAC. It is working perfectly and sounds great.

So I would say no need to go after cheap Chromecast rip offs, go for the genuine thing which are still for sale new from sellers on ebay. In fact I think I bight buy a couple more myself for future needs.

I and many others can't get it to play hires without it stuttering and skipping. I bought 2 for £40 quid not long ago and on 44.1khz they work perfect, anything above that and they stroke out.

I even bought the ethernet adapter for one incase it was a wifi problem and it still has hires problems. I have to limit qobuz and other apps to cd quality if I want to listen to tunes using them.

I have tried streaming from my now stolen iphone, android phone, ipad and it still wont play nice, but every other device that I use for hires tunes works perfect, example my pc with roon and qobuz on its own.

I've reset my router, flashed it twice to two new FW versions, tweaked just about every wifi setting imaginable and then normal settings except upnp and, whatever the cause is, it's alluding me. Loads of folk have the same problem and I'm at a loss to what the cause is, bad batches of cca's, different components on later models etc etc.

It's so bad that I won't use it on TT2 & HMS as when it freaks out the sample rate indicator goes from say green to red to green to red multiple times in 2 seconds, getting scared it damages hms or tt2. Locked at 44.1khz they work fine. I see you mention 192khz playback, cca's only go upto 96khz, so was it downsampling your 192khz track to 96khz or 44.1khz before it got to your dac ?

I've tried 4 different optical cables also, mini toslink type, I'm really at a loss as to whats causing it, watch this I will go enable upnp which I REALLY don't want to do and it will fix the problem.

It will be something stupid like that.

I got them from mymemory.co.uk or something like that for 20 quid, if you are looking to grab more try them, if thats not the correct name I can look up emails for you and get the correct url.

 

[AndrewH13]

Amber, I am listen as I type to a Chromecast Audio playing HiRes 24bit 192 kHz through an optical cable into my Chord DAC. It is working perfectly and sounds great.

So I would say no need to go after cheap Chromecast rip offs, go for the genuine thing which are still for sale new from sellers on ebay. In fact I think I bight buy a couple more myself for future needs.

What firmware is that? They certainly broke consistent hi-res playback some time last year, and I hadn’t heard it had been fixed? I’ve got two and considering a spare, such a bargain, save for the hires problem.

 

[Amberlamps]

What firmware is that? They certainly broke consistent hi-res playback some time last year, and I hadn’t heard it had been fixed? I’ve got two and considering a spare, such a bargain, save for the hires problem.

You also have the hires bug, it's weird, if hires worked the things would be excellent, at the moment its sitting at "fairly good".

Maybe google pumped too much crap into it like your location, shopping, hotels and plane tickets, why would anyone want to use a cca to order plane tickets and hotel rooms and deliver my shopping at the same time. Numptys.

 

[rkt31]

Allo digione will provide spdif coax as default, then add a $20 coax to optical converter.

Allo digione signature coaxial is extremely clean still someone want optical out,there is a very cheap yet very effective solution in the form of ifi spdif purifier. It takes both optical and coaxial and outputs both coaxial and optical after reclocking. It operates on 5v usb power, for which you can even use power bank or 5v battery pack. Imho foobar's bit perfect out via usb with ifi idefender and audioquest Jitterbug is very very clean and in some areas it betters optical . Plus you get all format advantage.

 

[rkt31]

I use Foobar asio,playback from memory, no replay gain, higher buffer, three Jitterbug, one each in usb out of laptop, after Jitterbug there is ifi idefender which isolates laptop power and I feed 5v battery pack power to ifi idefender. Usb cable is 1m oyaide A class pcocc cable. Foobar can even be operated through android remote. Chord asio driver works like a charm, you set asio dsd output I'm foobar it automatically takes care of DOP etc. I tested almost all bit perfect asio enabled players but found foobar to be warmest ( less distortion sounds warmer )

 

[Triode User]

I and many others can't get it to play hires without it stuttering and skipping. I bought 2 for £40 quid not long ago and on 44.1khz they work perfect, anything above that and they stroke out.

I even bought the ethernet adapter for one incase it was a wifi problem and it still has hires problems. I have to limit qobuz and other apps to cd quality if I want to listen to tunes using them.

I have tried streaming from my now stolen iphone, android phone, ipad and it still wont play nice, but every other device that I use for hires tunes works perfect, example my pc with roon and qobuz on its own.

I've reset my router, flashed it twice to two new FW versions, tweaked just about every wifi setting imaginable and then normal settings except upnp and, whatever the cause is, it's alluding me. Loads of folk have the same problem and I'm at a loss to what the cause is, bad batches of cca's, different components on later models etc etc.

It's so bad that I won't use it on TT2 & HMS as when it freaks out the sample rate indicator goes from say green or blue to red to green/blue to red multiple times in 2 seconds, getting scared it damages hms or tt2. Locked at 44.1khz they work fine. I see you mention 192khz playback, cca's only go upto 96khz, so was it downsampling your 192khz track to 96khz or 44.1khz before it got to your dac ?

I've tried 4 different optical cables also, mini toslink type, I'm really at a loss as to whats causing it, watch this I will go enable upnp which I REALLY don't want to do and it will fix the problem.

It will be something stupid like that.

I got them from mymemory.co.uk or something like that for 20 quid, if you are looking to grab more try them, if thats not the correct name I can look up emails for you and get the correct url.

Ok, I admit that it is using the CCA as a Roon endpoint (or 'Audio Output' as it now calls them) connected wirelessly to my Innuos Zenith as a Roon Core. The CCA is connected by wifi to the router and the Zenith Core is hard wired to the router (Zeniths do not use wifi).

I was only trying to see if the CCA worked with hires and that is why I deliberately looked out a 24 bit 192kHz file to play. I perhaps assumed that if it worked for how I was using it then it would work however it was fed the same file.

The optical cable I am using is FOSPOWER 1.8m length. (see attached picture, click on it to see it clearly) ie, 'cheap as chips'.

 

[rkt31]

For playing local files on a msd card ,xduoox via optical is one of the cleanest.

 

[Rob Watts]

I and many others can't get it to play hires without it stuttering and skipping. I bought 2 for £40 quid not long ago and on 44.1khz they work perfect, anything above that and they stroke out.

I even bought the ethernet adapter for one incase it was a wifi problem and it still has hires problems. I have to limit qobuz and other apps to cd quality if I want to listen to tunes using them.

I have tried streaming from my now stolen iphone, android phone, ipad and it still wont play nice, but every other device that I use for hires tunes works perfect, example my pc with roon and qobuz on its own.

I've reset my router, flashed it twice to two new FW versions, tweaked just about every wifi setting imaginable and then normal settings except upnp and, whatever the cause is, it's alluding me. Loads of folk have the same problem and I'm at a loss to what the cause is, bad batches of cca's, different components on later models etc etc.

It's so bad that I won't use it on TT2 & HMS as when it freaks out the sample rate indicator goes from say green or blue to red to green/blue to red multiple times in 2 seconds, getting scared it damages hms or tt2. Locked at 44.1khz they work fine. I see you mention 192khz playback, cca's only go upto 96khz, so was it downsampling your 192khz track to 96khz or 44.1khz before it got to your dac ?

I've tried 4 different optical cables also, mini toslink type, I'm really at a loss as to whats causing it, watch this I will go enable upnp which I REALLY don't want to do and it will fix the problem.

It will be something stupid like that.

I got them from mymemory.co.uk or something like that for 20 quid, if you are looking to grab more try them, if thats not the correct name I can look up emails for you and get the correct url.

I had a reviewer complaining of the same issue - it turned out that the optical cable hadn't been inserted properly. The indent for the optical rx is a bit big, you need to ensure it clicks when the plug goes into the receiver - some force is needed. Make sure you hear a click. Also, plastic fibres of longer than 0.25m sometimes won't work well with 192kHz too - but the cables supplied by Chord are OK at 192k.

Don't worry about damaging TT2, sample rate changes can't possibly do that...

 

[AndrewH13]

You also have the hires bug, it's weird, if hires worked the things would be excellent, at the moment its sitting at "fairly good".

Maybe google pumped too much crap into it like your location, shopping, hotels and plane tickets, why would anyone want to use a cca to order plane tickets and hotel rooms and deliver my shopping at the same time. Numptys.

Yep, replaced a £1000 AK DAP with £25 Chromecast Audio, into Hugo II, then into Tag Maclaren hifi & speakers. Both using iPad control, the AE100 using the AK Connect App, the CA as a Roon endpoint.

Like you say, simplicity, good optical sound into Chord DACs, tried H1 and H2.

I don’t think you will solve anything by cables, settings, or kissing it goodnight! Just needs Google to want to correct firmware as they had hires working then fudged it.

 

[Amberlamps]

I had a reviewer complaining of the same issue - it turned out that the optical cable hadn't been inserted properly. The indent for the optical rx is a bit big, you need to ensure it clicks when the plug goes into the receiver - some force is needed. Make sure you hear a click. Also, plastic fibres of longer than 0.25m sometimes won't work well with 192kHz too - but the cables supplied by Chord are OK at 192k.

Don't worry about damaging TT2, sample rate changes can't possibly do that...

Hey Rob, the optical cables are firmly inserted into TT2 and HMS, this is solely a Chromecast Audio problem, not anything to do with Chord products, it's just when streaming hires using the chromecasts, it will skip/stutter and during that 2 or so seconds, you can see the sample rate light freak out and changing from red to green about 10 times in 2 seconds.

If I limit chromecast to only playing 44.1khz, they work perfectly. There is a big thread about the problem on google somewhere. I've tried the supplied chord optical cable with an adapter, the mini toslink ones that come with hugo 2 and mojo accessory pack and 4 different kabel direkt cables, when using my pc and using optical cables, everything works great at 192khz and below. It's just a chromecast audio issue.

It is good to hear that the flickering between sample rates so fast won't damage H2, TT2 and HMS.

 

[AndrewH13]

Hey Rob, the optical cables are firmly inserted into TT2 and HMS, this is solely a Chromecast Audio problem, not anything to do with Chord products, it's just when streaming hires using the chromecasts, it will skip/stutter and during that 2 or so seconds, you can see the sample rate light freak out and changing from red to green about 10 times in 2 seconds.

If I limit chromecast to only playing 44.1khz, they work perfectly. There is a big thread about the problem on google somewhere. I've tried the supplied chord optical cable with an adapter, the mini toslink ones that come with hugo 2 and mojo accessory pack and 4 different kabel direkt cables, when using my pc and using optical cables, everything works great at 192khz and below. It's just a chromecast audio issue.

It is good to hear that the flickering between sample rates so fast won't damage H2, TT2 and HMS.

Heres one of the Google CAudio threads, 150 posts, latest yesterday, no action from Google.

https://support.google.com/chromecast/thread/356030?hl=en

 

[Amberlamps]

Ok, I admit that it is using the CCA as a Roon endpoint (or 'Audio Output' as it now calls them) connected wirelessly to my Innuos Zenith as a Roon Core. The CCA is connected by wifi to the router and the Zenith Core is hard wired to the router (Zeniths do not use wifi).

I was only trying to see if the CCA worked with hires and that is why I deliberately looked out a 24 bit 192kHz file to play. I perhaps assumed that if it worked for how I was using it then it would work however it was fed the same file.

The optical cable I am using is FOSPOWER 1.8m length. (see attached picture, click on it to see it clearly) ie, 'cheap as chips'.

I'm solely using it as a pc replacement, my pc's run away with too much electric and give off too much heat, hence why something so small, always on and supposedly capable of hires appealed to me.

I'm not sure if using it as a roon endpoint works properly as I haven't tried that since I got them, but I will go try now. Even if it does it won't help, as I need my pc to be on, and if its on, I would just use roon straight into hms via usb.

I just wanted to break free of the pc, as it's like a mini chernobyl, especially in summer.

EDIT.

Same problem with it in Roon, I'm positive it's something to do with our routers as some peoples cca work and others don't. Atleast we have Robs Mscaler to upscale cca's 44.1khz output to 705khz.

I wonder which would sound better, 16 x upscaling for 44.1khz or 8 x for 96khz ???

 

[Amberlamps]

Heres one of the Google CAudio threads, 150 posts, latest yesterday, no action from Google.

https://support.google.com/chromecast/thread/356030?hl=en

Yup, same one I posted in, still no joy from google and now that they have cancelled it, it will probably never get fixed. I wouldn't of put it past them to cancel it knowing that they can never fix the problem without removing the majority of their info gathering crap, like location, shopping paying bills etc.

Thats too valuable for google to simply dump and make hires work again.

 

[Gibson59]

Is anyone who upgraded to TT2 from Qutest using it with their speaker system as well? I ask because to my ear the TT2 had a touch more warmth and smoothness (with no loss of detail I might add) than Qutest and I’m not sure how this would play with my speaker system which leans slightly towards warm already. The Qutest which is very neutral has great synergy right now with my speakers (Martin Logan Motion 40). If I upgraded to TT2 it would need to serve both my headphones and speakers. Btw if I upgraded to TT2 it would serve as a DAC only for my speakers, I have an external power amp to drive them... the Peachtree Nova 220se which is solid state but a bit warm, very musical and very powerful.