[ArmchairPhilosopher]

Longshot question: Will Cog meet those criteria?

Don't know for sure. The web site isn't clear about that.
But if you are using it, it's easy enough for you to tell:
Does your Bifrost, Gungnir or Yggdrasil click between tracks of unequal sample rate? Then yes.
If not, then no.

 

[Godaisan]

I've looked into a bunch of streamers earlier this year. For reasons I won't go into beyond what I already wrote in the occasional post in this tread (tl;dr: the cheapest hardware you could think of, little to no shielding, questionable privacy policies, horrendously bad software that you're forced to use), most of them I wouldn't let anywhere near my home, much less any of my audio chains.

The best "value for money" streamer you can get is the cheapest Mac mini. That gets you the highest quality hardware and the highest flexibility in terms of software, it can be used head-less, draws very little power, doesn't look bad, and the thing is dead quiet when used as a streamer. The only caveat is that you need to run something like Roon on it, meaning some playback software that bypasses macOS' own audio pipeline so that your tracks get sent out the USB port without any forced resampling.

An iPad is OK, but you don't get the same flexibility in software and you'd have to keep it plugged in for a long time, which will eventually destroy the battery. (It'll bloat up on you after about a year and, if ignored for too long, could rupture.) But it does stream bit-perfect, so it's got that going fot it.

Forget about Android tablets and phones, most of them can't stream your tracks without resampling, period. Not for love or money.

A home-brewed Pi would be an acceptable alternative, if (and that's a big if!) you know how to set it up exactly the way you need instead of having to rely on software packages that some third party cobbled together for you.

+1 for Mac Mini streamer.

 

[adydula]

Okay, so I've thought about this more, and I considered getting one, but at the end of the day... The 500 dollar bespoke schiit x nitsch amp only has a 2 year warranty for a product size that schiit gives a 5 year warranty to (Asgard 3)--I am sure the Pietus Maximus sounds great, but I think I'll just wait for Jason to release an update to the Asgard if I'm going to upgrade my Asgard 3. That said, I look forward to the feedback from buyers on how it sounds, how people like it, etc. And I don't have anything negative to say about Nitsch, it seems that they do dope stuff, and I know the Piety is well thought of. Enjoy your Pietus Maximus if you bought one

Schiits 5 yr warranty on a lot of its stuff is really decent IMO.

Some of my stuff that costs way more is only 12 months and in reviewing this I often state this..

Hmmmm...

 

[Erratic Gravy]

I am not a Boomer (Gen X), but agree 100% with you. This is why I went back to vinyl. I jumped on iTunes when it came out, then they changed models so I went to Spotify, they increased price, and then Tidal came out - which was better but then got more expensive, then Amazon Music because it came with Prime, and finally I said the hell with it. I spent thousands buying music (and movies) on Apple that I can't even access anymore (because all the Apple password/upgrade bs) and probably a grand more on streaming services that can be shut off or "amended" at any time. I stopped all that and use the "free" Amazon Music when I am on the go with my phone, but at home it's vinyl.

Sure I have spent a few grand on records, but to your point I own them. Nobody can take them away, update the terms of using them, change formats, or anything else - they are mine. A good modern vinyl system like I have (VPI -> Skoll -> McIntosh preamplifier -> McIntosh power amplifier -> Sonus faber towers) sounds just as good if not better than most folks digital systems. Also, in my second system (PC with Amazon Music -> Bifrost -> Lyr+ in tube mode -> Lokius -> Aegir -> Piega towers) the Bifrost cleans up the Amazon stream nicely and sounds fine for "exploring" new stuff before buying the vinyl.

The other bonus is I believe most artists get paid more when you buy a vinyl (or CD for those of you doing so) so you are actually supporting the music a little more.

Many Artists have a facility for ordering Music ( CD , DVD , Downloads etc etc ) directly from there own publishers and this ensures that the royalties go to the right people , Plus many Artists will do signed copies of pre- orders which is a bonus ! I recently used the Steve Hackett site - https://store.hackettsongs.com/ - for a Blue ray concert and got a signed copy !!

 

[Daniel Johnston]

I've looked into a bunch of streamers earlier this year. For reasons I won't go into beyond what I already wrote in the occasional post in this tread (tl;dr: the cheapest hardware you could think of, little to no shielding, questionable privacy policies, horrendously bad software that you're forced to use), most of them I wouldn't let anywhere near my home, much less any of my audio chains.

The best "value for money" streamer you can get is the cheapest Mac mini. That gets you the highest quality hardware and the highest flexibility in terms of software, it can be used head-less, draws very little power, doesn't look bad, and the thing is dead quiet when used as a streamer. The only caveat is that you need to run something like Roon on it, meaning some playback software that bypasses macOS' own audio pipeline so that your tracks get sent out the USB port without any forced resampling.

An iPad is OK, but you don't get the same flexibility in software and you'd have to keep it plugged in for a long time, which will eventually destroy the battery. (It'll bloat up on you after about a year and, if ignored for too long, could rupture.) But it does stream bit-perfect, so it's got that going fot it.

Forget about Android tablets and phones, most of them can't stream your tracks without resampling, period. Not for love or money.

A home-brewed Pi would be an acceptable alternative, if (and that's a big if!) you know how to set it up exactly the way you need instead of having to rely on software packages that some third party cobbled together for you.

My homebrew Pi has been an amazingly flawless streamer. I use RooExtend for the OS. My SoTM also has been flawless, but it was 3x more expensive.

My server is a QNAP NAS with roon that also doubles as a movie server and cloud storage. Works great.

I have a mac mini running headless as a VPN/media endpoint to my HT. Agree 100% that it is the most cost effective and reliable streaming server you can get today.

 

[Iowan]

I just want to say thanks for the info on streaming . A lot has changed since since my music hobby was mothballed.
I'll never quit buying physical media, but i might try streaming for new music discovery.
Hmmm, I need to organize my media storage better, and I see some suggestions here for doing that as well.
Great thread-forum.

 

[wout31]

Yep - its the tape like appearance I was comparing - but yes Nordost and Dnm cables have a similar design principle and a somewhat different price structure !! I do like the idea of air as an insulator with the Nordost cables and it does work really well but can be expensive to produce - both use the principle of keeping the conductors away from each other and again that seems to work well for me and my musical tastes -

Surely not Nordost. I would never spend that amount of money on speaker cables. Think 1/32 of the price. But according to my measurements, despite the price difference, exactly the same numbers.

 

[Erratic Gravy]

Surely not Nordost. I would never spend that amount of money on a speaker cables. Think 1/32 of the price. But according to my measurements, despite the price difference, exactly the same numbers.

Ahh I see !!!! I think ??

 

[Derrick Swart]

I never thought about configuring a Yggy like this. Can you share what active speakers you used? I have another room and your idea might be the best way to handle.

Aside: I bought a Yggy GS a couple years ago for my headphone system. It has been an amazing dac and a steal at the time. The GS2 is even more so today. If you're considering a Yggy on the cheap - jump on this opportunity. You won't regret it.

I always wonder about the volume control in a set-up like that.

 

[cricket]

All this talk about streaming services, bit-rate changes between tracks on the same album, variable quality etc. (plus a story I just read about Discovery removing paid-for streamed content from devices because parent Disney says to - it's not music but it's the same theory) demonstrate why I do not use streaming services as a primary listening source, except perhaps for background noise. Call me an old Boomer if you like but to me, I will not rely on and pay for something where you get what you get and have no control, and if they decide to pull the plug on you too bad. When I want music I pay for it, buy the CD, or download the file to my server.

Any streamed music should be considered rental, as far as I'm concerned. I'm more likely to stream an internet radio station when I'm at the electronics bench or in between running woodworking equipment. Streaming works best here because it requires no intervention and there's no gear affected by dust. I'll make note of something I liked and go to Amazon Music later to find out if the CD is worth owning.

I find streaming from my own ripped library a pain: Wake up the phone, enter the PIN, start the app, select one of the two endpoints, tap the screen about five times to select playback type and source and sort category, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll (and add a few dozen more) until getting to the folder I want, then scroll to the album, then press play. All on a ~12 square inch screen. Easier to grab a CD, open case, remove disc, and insert in player. Yep, I'm getting cranky...

Many Artists have a facility for ordering Music ( CD , DVD , Downloads etc etc ) directly from there own publishers and this ensures that the royalties go to the right people , Plus many Artists will do signed copies of pre- orders which is a bonus ! I recently used the Steve Hackett site - https://store.hackettsongs.com/ - for a Blue ray concert and got a signed copy !!

I'm hesitant to use Bandcamp anymore. We'll have to see how many artists continue supporting them. I did order a CD bundle from https://manzanera.com/new/ at the end of October and had to contact them since it hadn't shipped in over a month. Got notice today it shipped. It's probably shipping from England, so the album of Christmas music won't have much relevance for a year. My point is you may have to be patient if you go directly to the artist.

 

[Derrick Swart]

All this talk about streaming services, bit-rate changes between tracks on the same album, variable quality etc. (plus a story I just read about Discovery removing paid-for streamed content from devices because parent Disney says to - it's not music but it's the same theory) demonstrate why I do not use streaming services as a primary listening source, except perhaps for background noise. Call me an old Boomer if you like but to me, I will not rely on and pay for something where you get what you get and have no control, and if they decide to pull the plug on you too bad. When I want music I pay for it, buy the CD, or download the file to my server.

Same hear and in general they are there to earn money for themselves on a relatively short term - i have a hard time to understand how Spotify did not 'file' any profit; doesn't make sense. The artist is not making money on those platforms, the company is not making profit the subscribers are paying - are there too many free users?, are we just not paying enough fee?, are we fooled? After reading the latest Spotify policy change ... I think it is a doomed business model (except for the one that can sell it on-time)

 

[NoBodyNoWhere]

I've looked into a bunch of streamers earlier this year. For reasons I won't go into beyond what I already wrote in the occasional post in this tread (tl;dr: the cheapest hardware you could think of, little to no shielding, questionable privacy policies, horrendously bad software that you're forced to use), most of them I wouldn't let anywhere near my home, much less any of my audio chains.

The best "value for money" streamer you can get is the cheapest Mac mini. That gets you the highest quality hardware and the highest flexibility in terms of software, it can be used head-less, draws very little power, doesn't look bad, and the thing is dead quiet when used as a streamer. The only caveat is that you need to run something like Roon on it, meaning some playback software that bypasses macOS' own audio pipeline so that your tracks get sent out the USB port without any forced resampling.

An iPad is OK, but you don't get the same flexibility in software and you'd have to keep it plugged in for a long time, which will eventually destroy the battery. (It'll bloat up on you after about a year and, if ignored for too long, could rupture.) But it does stream bit-perfect, so it's got that going fot it.

Forget about Android tablets and phones, most of them can't stream your tracks without resampling, period. Not for love or money.

A home-brewed Pi would be an acceptable alternative, if (and that's a big if!) you know how to set it up exactly the way you need instead of having to rely on software packages that some third party cobbled together for you.

I really agree with the Mac Mini approach. I am doing exactly what you describe - an M2 Mac Mini run headless that I can access through the network from any computer. I run Audrivana Origin for bit perfect output. I chose Origin because I could buy the software without a subscription and while I might like to use streaming services, I don’t use them enough to warrant the price of Audrivana studio. I just switch to Apple Music temporarily for streaming.

I mostly like Audrivana’s software, although it can be a bit buggy at times and I recently had to just give up and throw away my database and start fresh because it started creating duplicate records of music tracks causing a lot of confusion. I think the feature of allowing you to connect to the Apple Music database only made things worse.

I also have a couple of Raspberry Pi - Volumio streamers but there is way too much latency to use them as my main system. It can often take a minute just to connect my ipad to the streamer software and often several seconds to pause playback if Volumio is doing something in the background. Additionally I don’t particularly like the interface and limited playlist capabilities.

i keep looking at dedicated streamer boxes but none of them seem to have the flexibility I am looking for. And if I need and additional render node for graphics I can always hijack the Mac Mini for that.

 

[Ripper2860]

Same hear and in general they are there to earn money for themselves on a relatively short term - i have a hard time to understand how Spotify did not 'file' any profit; doesn't make sense. The artist is not making money on those platforms, the company is not making profit the subscribers are paying - are there too many free users?, are we just not paying enough fee?, are we fooled? After reading the latest Spotify policy change ... I think it is a doomed business model (except for the one that can sell it on-time)

Spotify seems to be hanging their future successes around PODCASTS. Not really sure how that will play out, but a lot of emphasis seems to be going in that area.

 

[Mumbles06]

On the streaming thing, I agree with the consensus here, I don't trust streaming. It's renting, and I'd rather pay to own. I usually buy CD first, rip it to NAS and listen digital for a while. If it's a great album, or an okay album that gets it's hooks in me, then I invest in a copy on vinyl. This has been my model for 20-ish years now since I bought my first turntable in 2002-ish (I'm young enough to have been raised on cassettes then CD's, then vinyl last, not first).

But this led to an interesting counter point to the "owning my music" train of thought. Theft. My last move when I left active duty navy and moved from Seattle to Houston in 2019, I let movers take most of my stuff, but the high value stuff I put in a u-haul trailer and towed it behind my truck. I have learned my lesson with movers and sticky fingers. But then in Oklahoma City, I took my family to get dinner at a nice burger joint and after dinner walked back out to my truck to find the back door of the uhaul had been pulled off at the hinges. They got my TV (insurance paid for a nicer upgrade for the same purchase price) and some other misc electronics that were easily replaceable. But they also got a few boxes that were loaded into the trailer last, to include cleaning out over a third of my vinyl collection. They also got a box full of all my 6922 type tubes for my MJ2 and Vali2. I was devastated. Insurance wouldn't pay any more for the records than 20 bucks per. They said they weren't insured as "antiquities" so 20 bucks was max. I lost out on some really nice jazz to include a prized Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong Porgie and Bess original issue, as well as some indie rock bands that only did one run of their record and couldn't even be found on ebay/discogs.

So now I realize, we really don't own anything, we are just stewards. But as a steward, at least I can make an insurance claim if someone takes it from me, but if amazon decides to de-list it for whatever reason, I'm left with no recourse.

The tubes I was SOL. I had some really nice RCA's, Tesla's, Westinghouse, various JAN stuff, all gone. But it made it an easier decision to move to 6SN7 gear at least since I don't have a carefully curated collection of 6922's going to waste. So now I have a reason to hunt for more and more 6SN7s to build up that collection, which is part of the hobby, I guess.

 

[adias]

...

An iPad is OK, but you don't get the same flexibility in software and you'd have to keep it plugged in for a long time, which will eventually destroy the battery. (It'll bloat up on you after about a year and, if ignored for too long, could rupture.) But it does stream bit-perfect, so it's got that going fot it.
...

The latest iPads (2019 on) manage battery well. They claim that they do not overcharge the battery of a permanently connected unit using Apple's Camera adapter with charging.