Moving to digital streaming

[hamjack]

Hi,

I am looking for advice on the best and most cost effective method of moving to digital music. At the moment I have NAD CD Player with NAD Amplifier and Rega speakers and I'd like to move to a wireless music system without compromising hi-if quality but confused as to best way forward.

I would like like to move all my CD's to a digital format and then stream to something like Bowers and Wilkins speakers but I am completely open to suggestions on right way to approach this.

Thanks

 

[mikeparker59]

Hi,

I am looking for advice on the best and most cost effective method of moving to digital music. At the moment I have NAD CD Player with NAD Amplifier and Rega speakers and I'd like to move to a wireless music system without compromising hi-if quality but confused as to best way forward.

I would like like to move all my CD's to a digital format and then stream to something like Bowers and Wilkins speakers but I am completely open to suggestions on right way to approach this.

Thanks

ive been quite happy with my Cambridge audio NP30. Quite a simple affair that can stream from a NAS drive or from an external hard drive connected to the USB socket in the rear. Also does internet radio and Spotify with latest upgrade. Not sure if it's still available or has been superseded by the Minx or whatever they call it.

Google Chromecast Audio looks interesting too, I've considered getting one for my bedroom Denon system, but not sure it will stream from my NAS but at £30 is worth a punt.

 

[lpv]

hi and welcome

are you going to use any of the paid streaming services? or just stream your cd library? are you going to buy downloads? are you mac or windows user?

 

[tino]

Hi,

I am looking for advice on the best and most cost effective method of moving to digital music. At the moment I have NAD CD Player with NAD Amplifier and Rega speakers and I'd like to move to a wireless music system without compromising hi-if quality but confused as to best way forward.

I would like like to move all my CD's to a digital format and then stream to something like Bowers and Wilkins speakers but I am completely open to suggestions on right way to approach this.

Thanks

The beauty of streaming is that you can get into it very cheaply with technology you might already have around the house (smartphones, laptops) and with surprisingly good results. You could get something like a Google Chromecast audio for £30, or a Bluetooth receiver like the Pure Jongo A2 for £20, or a cheap DAC for your PC for between £30-£60. The main thing is to get comfortable with the pros and cons before you lay out big money e.g. work out what networking arrangements you might have to make if any, how to rip and store your music, what kind of control functionality you want, whether you want a phone/PC in your system or a dedicated player ......

 

[mikeparker59]

Software for ripping can come at zero cost. I've used both foobar and more recently EAC aka Exact Audio Copy for ripping CDs to FLAC. still undecided which is the better of the two. EAC has the nicer interface in my opinion, but both need a bit of tweaking to work well. Foobar needs add ons to rip to FLAC whereas EAC has FLAC support built in, so is probably easier to set up.

 

[mikeparker59]

Another hardware option is actually Apple TV, if you are an Apple user and hooked on iTunes. You need to connect to Tv to see what you are doing and can also connect via optical cable to your amp if it has such a connection.

Sometimes in life there are too many choices!

 

[Al ears]

Yet another option, like the NP30 suggestion, would be to get the Onkyo CN7050 which is a streamer with inbuilt CD player thus allowing you to keep this functionality even if you sell on your current CDP.

This would have to be hard-wired to your router but a simple Homeplug device will sort this out or a harddrive attached via USB.

 

[knaithrover]

Tidal plus decent bluetooth (Arcam, QED) is worth looking at, cheap too

 

[Gray]

Just over a year ago I'd never even owned a computer, but with the prospect of storing all my CDs losslessly on a hard drive, I bought a good but cheap laptop.

I used EAC to rip and use Foobar 2000 to play the ripped stuff + a few high res. downloads.

Depending how many CDs you've got you will probably find that ripping is not the most fun you'll ever have. True, rippers go online and find the artwork (but not for custom programmed CDRs, made on standalone CD recorders of course, nor some of your more obscure discs) and I spent a lot of time manually finding and adding the correct, highest resolution artwork. You will only want to do it once so make sure you back up your ripping - I copied each days ripping to two separate hard drives. All in all it took me months.

Best advice probably - be sure you can be bothered with the necessary faff. As many will tell you, there's a lot to be said for the good old CDP.

I still use my Marantz CD6000KI and it has yet to be outclassed by the different DACs I've tried when playing (16 bit) FLAC files.