Best way of playing spotify through my amp

[adamwillan]

Hi

I have got a Rotel RA-12 amp which has a built in amp and bluetooth connectivity. I have always played spotify from my phone through bluetooth directly to the amp, but I dont think this is getting the best out of the amp or my premium account, especially with the dodgy connection when moving away from the amp.

What is the best method of being able to play spotify through the amps DAC, without spending a fortune. I don't have a working laptop, so my current sources are all android (phone or tablet), but there is a network point next to the amp if useful.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Adam

 

[Vladimir]

Hook it up to the Aux 1 on your Rotel with a 3.5mm to RCA Y-cable and you are good to go. You control it via the Spotify App on your phone or the Chrome browser of your PC. It has it's own Google Home app for initial install but you use it for playing music with your streaming app, in your case Spotify.

 

[DocG]

Google Chromecast Audio - 30 quid - superb

... If your wifi is decent. I had plenty of drop-outs with mine. But at the price, it's worth the shot, I agree.

 

[Vladimir]

Google Chromecast Audio - 30 quid - superb

... If your wifi is decent. I had plenty of drop-outs with mine. But at the price, it's worth the shot, I agree.

My wifi is rubbish yet it works flawlessly. I guess its a spin of the wheel untill you try it. Good thing it's cheap.

I never had bluetooth that worked great untill I had the Roksan K2BT. WiFi should be more rock steady solution, but ... you never know. *unknw*

 

[Pedro]

You can get a mini toslink to toslink cable and plug the CCA to the Rotel's optical input. That way you'll use its built-in DAC.

I never used a CCA, though.

 

[Pedro]

Google Chromecast Audio - 30 quid - superb

... If your wifi is decent. I had plenty of drop-outs with mine. But at the price, it's worth the shot, I agree.

My wifi is rubbish yet it works flawlessly. I guess its a spin of the wheel untill you try it. Good thing it's cheap.

I never had bluetooth that worked great untill I had the Roksan K2BT. WiFi should be more rock steady solution, but ... you never know. *unknw*

Apparently there's an ethernet adapter. This CCA thing does seem very interesting indeed!

https://store.google.com/product/ethernet_adapter_for_chromecast

 

[DocG]

Google Chromecast Audio - 30 quid - superb

... If your wifi is decent. I had plenty of drop-outs with mine. But at the price, it's worth the shot, I agree.

My wifi is rubbish yet it works flawlessly. I guess its a spin of the wheel untill you try it. Good thing it's cheap.

I never had bluetooth that worked great untill I had the Roksan K2BT. WiFi should be more rock steady solution, but ... you never know. *unknw*

Apparently there's an ethernet adapter. This CCA thing does seem very interesting indeed!

https://store.google.com/product/ethernet_adapter_for_chromecast

Good catch, Pedro. In that case, it's a no-brainer: CCA + ethernet-adapter for <50GBP...

Next!

 

[Vladimir]

Google Chromecast Audio - 30 quid - superb

... If your wifi is decent. I had plenty of drop-outs with mine. But at the price, it's worth the shot, I agree.

My wifi is rubbish yet it works flawlessly. I guess its a spin of the wheel untill you try it. Good thing it's cheap.

I never had bluetooth that worked great untill I had the Roksan K2BT. WiFi should be more rock steady solution, but ... you never know. *unknw*

Apparently there's an ethernet adapter. This CCA thing does seem very interesting indeed!

https://store.google.com/product/ethernet_adapter_for_chromecast

Yup. You can also set it up to play your local lossless music files.

 

[Pedro]

Google Chromecast Audio - 30 quid - superb

... If your wifi is decent. I had plenty of drop-outs with mine. But at the price, it's worth the shot, I agree.

My wifi is rubbish yet it works flawlessly. I guess its a spin of the wheel untill you try it. Good thing it's cheap.

I never had bluetooth that worked great untill I had the Roksan K2BT. WiFi should be more rock steady solution, but ... you never know. *unknw*

Apparently there's an ethernet adapter. This CCA thing does seem very interesting indeed!

https://store.google.com/product/ethernet_adapter_for_chromecast

Yup. You can also set it up to play your local lossless music files.

Now I have to buy one, just to fiddle with it.

 

[Pedro2]

I used one for several months before my Linn streamer eventually had the Spotify Connect update.

It worked without problems. I used the digital connection and the sound was good. I believe you’ll need a Spotify account for it to work (won’t work on the freebie version).

Excellent value for money!!!

 

[Webern]

I've been looking at the CCA option as it seems really appealing especially at the low price, but I just can't do without gapless playback and my understanding is that CCA doesn't do this yet (at least with Qobuz). I realise gapless isn't a big deal for everybody though.

 

[Vladimir]

Don't know about others.

 

[insider9]

It's CD quality and above that's a struggle for gapless. I reckon the hardware buffer might be too small to handle more data coming in. It's the same on many streamers. And so far Tidal and Qobuz are the only ones suffering.

I wonder if that's why Spotify is not launching their CD quality service.

 

[Webern]

For what it's worth, I think the CCA looks like a great solution in all other respects. I guess it's down to Qobuz/Tidal to sort out the gapless issue, but for me it's a showstopper for the moment. Perhaps I'm being naive but I do find it baffling and frustrating that this kind of thing can't be sorted out easily. It's 2017 after all!

 

[newlash09]

The Chromecast audio is an excellent buy. But if you don't want to spend so much , then a left field option, would be to install the OTG player for Android (5pounds ). And then directly connect your android phone to the usb dac -in on your rotel . Now play your Spotify playlist on your phone, and same will be streamed to the usb dac of your rotel, via the OTG cable.

 

[insider9]

For what it's worth, I think the CCA looks like a great solution in all other respects. I guess it's down to Qobuz/Tidal to sort out the gapless issue, but for me it's a showstopper for the moment. Perhaps I'm being naive but I do find it baffling and frustrating that this kind of thing can't be sorted out easily. It's 2017 after all! 

Yes and both services are available gapless. Just not via CCA. What could any of them do if Goole didn't implement it right on its device?

 

[Webern]

For what it's worth, I think the CCA looks like a great solution in all other respects. I guess it's down to Qobuz/Tidal to sort out the gapless issue, but for me it's a showstopper for the moment. Perhaps I'm being naive but I do find it baffling and frustrating that this kind of thing can't be sorted out easily. It's 2017 after all!

Yes and both services are available gapless. Just not via CCA. What could any of them do if Goole didn't implement it right on its device?

I don't know whether the problem is definitely down to Google or Qobuz. I'd be very interested if anyone can point me to some definitive information.

 

[insider9]

For what it's worth, I think the CCA looks like a great solution in all other respects. I guess it's down to Qobuz/Tidal to sort out the gapless issue, but for me it's a showstopper for the moment. Perhaps I'm being naive but I do find it baffling and frustrating that this kind of thing can't be sorted out easily. It's 2017 after all! 

Yes and both services are available gapless. Just not via CCA. What could any of them do if Goole didn't implement it right on its device?

I don't know whether the problem is definitely down to Google or Qobuz.  I'd be very interested if anyone can point me to some definitive information. 

Try playing Qobuz on your phone.

It plays Eric Clapton "Unplugged" on my mobile gapless.

 

[adamwillan]

Great looks like we have a winner. When I initially looked I dismissed as was only a phono jack, didnt realise it was a digitial out aswell.

I'll put it on my xmas list

 

[Webern]

For what it's worth, I think the CCA looks like a great solution in all other respects. I guess it's down to Qobuz/Tidal to sort out the gapless issue, but for me it's a showstopper for the moment. Perhaps I'm being naive but I do find it baffling and frustrating that this kind of thing can't be sorted out easily. It's 2017 after all!

Yes and both services are available gapless. Just not via CCA. What could any of them do if Goole didn't implement it right on its device?

I don't know whether the problem is definitely down to Google or Qobuz. I'd be very interested if anyone can point me to some definitive information.

Try playing Qobuz on your phone.

It plays Eric Clapton "Unplugged" on my mobile gapless.

Yep, and it plays on my laptop gaplessly as well, and on other devices. But is it Google's responsibility to modify the CCA to "accept" data from the Qobuz app gaplessly or is it Qobuz' responsibility to "send" data to the CCA in a format that enables the CCA to play gaplessly? Apologies if I'm being thick here, but I don't understand why it won't work with the CCA?