Chromecast??

[Deleted member 160668]

On the Black Friday deals this is £19, which seems frankly a giveaway.

I have Arcam A29 with Arcam rBlink Bluetooth which streams Spotify extreme (plus various other gadgety stuff).

Curious if the Chromecast streams Spotify and if it’s gonna sound any good?? The rBlink is seriously good sounding (yes I know Bluetooth is lossy) - but for £19 can it do this and will it sounds truly pants by comparison??

For the giveaway price I’m tempted just to compare.

Thoughts please?

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

On the Black Friday deals this is £19, which seems frankly a giveaway.

I have Arcam A29 with Arcam rBlink Bluetooth which streams Spotify extreme (plus various other gadgety stuff).

Curious if the Chromecast streams Spotify and if it’s gonna sound any good?? The rBlink is seriously good sounding (yes I know Bluetooth is lossy) - but for £19 can it do this and will it sounds truly pants by comparison??

For the giveaway price I’m tempted just to compare.

Thoughts please?

what speakers do you have?

id geuss that it’s unlikely to be much different since the dacs in the arcam are going to be better even though it’s a compressed source. Against this if you use a cca you will be streaming natively from the device itself but using what can be a very basic miniaturised dac board in the cca. The whole cca is actually smaller than a ice hockey puck.

if you want a stage up from the cca, id look at streamers of the ilk of a sonos connect or better something like a bluesound node 2 as the dacs in the node2 are very good, and then you can be killing two birds and upgrading dacs (if you have a CD player and play CDs?) as well as streaming.

If you plan on Spotify only, and your system will get the benefit of cd streaming, then you might want to think about a different service, but if sticking to Spotify the node2 might be overkill. Boxes of the ilk of a connect are good enough.

I’ve never tried a cca through systems £1k-£5k but I suspect it would easily be discernible to tell a step up in sq between a cca Audio and streamers of the ilk £300-£500,If sq is really important. You could even get a used streamer that will perform better than a cca for not much more cash. I tried a cca on my system and it was awful on sq, as I expected. Useful test though.

 

[SemiChronic]

For £19 I'd say go for it!

If you find its not really working out for you, give it to a friend.

 

[Vladimir]

On the Black Friday deals this is £19, which seems frankly a giveaway.

I have Arcam A29 with Arcam rBlink Bluetooth which streams Spotify extreme (plus various other gadgety stuff).

Curious if the Chromecast streams Spotify and if it’s gonna sound any good?? The rBlink is seriously good sounding (yes I know Bluetooth is lossy) - but for £19 can it do this and will it sounds truly pants by comparison??

For the giveaway price I’m tempted just to compare.

Thoughts please?

Sound via Chromecast Audio is so good I've ditched all DACs, CD's, bluetooth dongles, cables, special linear power supplies. I just stream Google Play Music on it, although everything works great with my Spotify and Tidal account as well.

I have it in a different room than the wifi modem, tucked behind an amp, close to a lamp, power cord, speaker wire, also running other wifi devices in the room, absolutely no dropouts or issues wth it. I tried the factory charger and a linear 5V PSU, I hear no difference in noise or whatever, so I just use the charger provided with it straight out the wall mains, no filters and other nonsense.

I also play stuff from my PC on it. It's not suitable for watching video because of few sec. delay between picture and sound, you'll need the other Chromecast dongle for that (not Audio).

 

[radiorog]

Can you play the CCA through a separate DAC, before it goes into an amp, and increase sq this way? It has optical out so I'm guessing the sq could be improved, if needed.

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

For £19 I'd say go for it!

If you find its not really working out for you, give it to a friend.

good plan, my dads having my cca for Xmas to go with his bose as I’m sure you couldn’t put a different streamer with that (sorry no offence to bose hi Fi owners) to make it sound better.

 

[Vladimir]

Can you play the CCA through a separate DAC, before it goes into an amp, and increase sq this way? It has optical out so I'm guessing the sq could be improved, if needed.

Yes, you can use a separate DAC via the optical out.

 

[grimharry]

Using mine with Rega dac sounds really good

 

[radiorog]

Good news on the DAC.
Where was the deal for £20 please? I've found a regular cc but not the audio one.

 

[daveh75]

It's the regular Chromecast (video) that's £19 as you say, the CCA is still £30. But still a bargain.

And I'm going to post Archimago's review of the CCA again too because there are clearly some who just can't let go of hifi clichés

http://archimago.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/measurements-google-chromecast-audio.html

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

You are very welcome to come around to mine daveh75 if you are nearby (Sussex ) and we can do the cca versus other streamer tests.

 

[nopiano]

On the Black Friday deals this is £19, which seems frankly a giveaway.

I have Arcam A29 with Arcam rBlink Bluetooth which streams Spotify extreme (plus various other gadgety stuff).

Curious if the Chromecast streams Spotify and if it’s gonna sound any good?? The rBlink is seriously good sounding (yes I know Bluetooth is lossy) - but for £19 can it do this and will it sounds truly pants by comparison??

For the giveaway price I’m tempted just to compare.

Thoughts please?

Sound via Chromecast Audio is so good I've ditched all DACs, CD's, bluetooth dongles, cables, special linear power supplies. I just stream Google Play Music on it, although everything works great with my Spotify and Tidal account as well.

I have it in a different room than the wifi modem, tucked behind an amp, close to a lamp, power cord, speaker wire, also running other wifi devices in the room, absolutely no dropouts or issues wth it. I tried the factory charger and a linear 5V PSU, I hear no difference in noise or whatever, so I just use the charger provided with it straight out the wall mains, no filters and other nonsense.

I also play stuff from my PC on it. It's not suitable for watching video because of few sec. delay between picture and sound, you'll need the other Chromecast dongle for that (not Audio).

I completely agree with Vlad. I am still amazed how good it is. I mostly stream from Qobuz Sublime in cd quality. Sometimes I forget it’s the CC I’m listening to, not the CD player that only costs about fifty times more!

I could rig up the Marantz DAC via optical, but am quite happy using the analogue out. Just make sure you enable to full dynamic range setting, via the Google Home app.

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

Whatever is the case, the op should always consider what the systems the cca is being used on to take a view as to the respective views people have and system matching, to such an inexpensive device. As there always will be difference of opinion based on different experiences and system matching.

Id like to know if gazzip has ever tried one with his top notch studio quality pmcs and Bryston amps, and how that might compare with his digital sources. I only bought one out of inquisitiveness of people really bigging the cca up.

 

[davedotco]

Has Chromecast Audio built in.

It also has spotify connect and native support for Tidal.

Plus network streaming, Tune-in radio and a decent control app with multiroom capability.

Fixed or variable analog outs, Toslink optical out, gapless playback...

Todays price, £110.

 

[Vladimir]

Has Chromecast Audio built in.

It also has spotify connect and native support for Tidal.

Plus network streaming, Tune-in radio and a decent control app with multiroom capability.

Fixed or variable analog outs, Toslink optical out, gapless playback...

Todays price, £110.

Amazon.de reviews are a bit worrying.

 

[davedotco]

Has Chromecast Audio built in.

It also has spotify connect and native support for Tidal.

Plus network streaming, Tune-in radio and a decent control app with multiroom capability.

Fixed or variable analog outs, Toslink optical out, gapless playback...

Todays price, £110.

Amazon.de reviews are a bit worrying.

These things sell by the truckload and are, realistically, 'cheap ans chearful'. English reviews are generally very positive.

I use mine to stream spotify connect, this is 90% of my listening and works well. Tidal sounds marginally better but all in all is not worth the extra to me. Chromecast is used occasionally as is Tune-in radio but the bulk of my use is from the Spotify client on my macbook and this works quite seamlessly.

I appreciate that this is a budget device, but if spotify connect (or maybe Tidal) is your thing, with a few extras on the side, it is remarkably good value.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_100004211376004]

The cca is a cracking little device...used it with my arcam ir dac into naim xs and now I've past it on to my son whom is using it with a 25 year old technics midi system and it sounds very good for 30 quid....if naim,primare or cyrus had came up with it.....how much d'you think it'd cost?mmmm

 

[Infiniteloop]

The cca is a cracking little device...used it with my arcam ir dac into naim xs and now I've past it on to my son whom is using it with a 25 year old technics midi system and it sounds very good for 30 quid....if naim,primare or cyrus had came up with it.....how much d'you think it'd cost?mmmm

Then again, Naim, Primare or Cyrus’ primary business model isn’t about mining your data without any regard for your privacy, often without your consent, and flogging it off to advertisers so they can target Ads at you.

 

[Webern]

Is it the CC Audio rather than the 'video' version you are using with Qobuz? I'm considering getting one myself for this exact purpose. I want to hear how it sounds first then maybe connect it to a separate DAC if I'm not happy with the sound.

EDIT this was a question for nopiano...!

 

[nopiano]

Is it the CC Audio rather than the 'video' version you are using with Qobuz? I'm considering getting one myself for this exact purpose. I want to hear how it sounds first then maybe connect it to a separate DAC if I'm not happy with the sound.

EDIT this was a question for nopiano...!

Yes, indeed it is CCA. Works just fine. I use a decent 3.5mm to two RCA phono into my Primare amp.

I do use the video version for an old, not very smart tv, and it is fine, but the Amazon Firestick is a bit better for tv stuff I reckon.

 

[Webern]

Thanks, and does it do gapless playback with Qobuz? I'm confused by seemingly conflicting comments on the interweb.

[with apologies to amormusic - I'll stop hijacking your thread now]

 

[nopiano]

Thanks, and does it do gapless playback with Qobuz? I'm confused by seemingly conflicting comments on the interweb.

[with apologies to amormusic - I'll stop hijacking your thread now]

No it doesn’t seem to. But obviously it is opera and live stuff that highlights it.

If you find a device that does with Qobuz I’d like to know. I can get it on my Touch, but CCA is so easy.

 

[Deleted member 160668]

Cool. Seems a bargain for £30 from what your all saying. Hardly big bucks.

Sold. Buying one now to compare.

Cheers all.

 

[drummerman]

It would be a bargain at 200 quid. There are others too.

Mind, if you wait a few weeks they probably come down to a tenner again. Bought three last time.

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

According to the cyrus guy today it has ess sabre dacs, which are new tech. So good considering it’s size/price.