Anyone got real life experience with Neat Iota Alphas?

[Benedict_Arnold]

^ Absolutely needed for the nachos, hot dogs, crisps (banned because of all the crunching munching), her two bottles of vino collapso (I quit completely three years ago), not to mention somewhere to keep all sixteen remotes, the mouse and keyboard for the HTPC....

Over here they have cinemas where you sit at tables, or have those little desk things screwed to your chairs, so you can pig out while watching the latest Batman vs. Wonderwoman CGI cartoon. The food's crap, but it helps...

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

Oh. I had a look at the Parasound offerings on their website. As far as I could see, no ethernet socket, which may be a drawback for streaming over our (wired -put in by the builders at my request) home network.

Plan B would be to load all the music onto a 1TB USB hard disk and plug that in directly, but a PITA to maintain....

Thoughts?
Thoughts?

 

[Pedro]

It all boils down to your budget and the kind of system you're trying to put together. You can stream using from 30 quid devices (chromecast) up to über audiophile ones. If you already own an external HDD and don't want to use streaming serviced like tidal or Spotify maybe you can pass on the NAS. Just plug the HDD to a media centre with a digital output, connect it to an amp with a built in DAC and you're sorted. I did it with an asus o play and a cxa80 amp. Got fed up with the amp though.

 

[nopiano]

I replied over on the cd cleaner thread about my amp, as requested!

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

To Pedro:

Not really interested in streaming services, nor so-say high resolution stuff either TBH, as my musical tastes stopped evolving around my 40th, like most old f#rts :-(

But as I have nearly 400 (old) CDs and counting ripped onto a HDD attached to my HTPC, it would be nice to be able to use that as a single storage point rather than lots of portable HDDs around the house needing updating every time I add a few more CDs.

I had our entire house wired with Cat6 ethernet when it was built too, so I can access the files in just about every room in the house except the downstairs toilet - which has wifi but not yet a TV on the wall ;-)

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

To nopiano:

Cheers!

 

[Al ears]

Oh. I had a look at the Parasound offerings on their website. As far as I could see, no ethernet socket, which may be a drawback for streaming over our (wired -put in by the builders at my request) home network.

Plan B would be to load all the music onto a 1TB USB hard disk and plug that in directly, but a PITA to maintain....

Thoughts? Thoughts?

Add something to give you a wired connection? Auralic Aries mini or the like?

I simply connect a USB solid state hard drive it's not a big hassle.