Playing FLAC stored on Mac OSX through Chromecast Audio

[RedKawa]

I have an amplifier, decent set of speakers and a Google Chromecast Audio connected to it through RAC. I am using Chromecast Audio built in DAC but might consider getting separate DAC later, or try one for comparison. I have a Mac Mini on the network that is always on anyway. I would like to play some high quality audio files (stored on Mac) through my amplifier.

Can I store Audio Files in FLAC format on my mac and play them through Chromecast Audio without the file being transcoded (Plex?) or any loss of quality? I am aware that Chromecast Audio DAC might be a limitation but I could address that later.

Can you please suggest software required to set it up or point me in the right direction? Thank you

 

[BigH]

I have an amplifier, decent set of speakers and a Google Chromecast Audio connected to it through RAC. I am using Chromecast Audio built in DAC but might consider getting separate DAC later, or try one for comparison. I have a Mac Mini on the network that is always on anyway. I would like to play some high quality audio files (stored on Mac) through my amplifier.

Can I store Audio Files in FLAC format on my mac and play them through Chromecast Audio without the file being transcoded (Plex?) or any loss of quality? I am aware that Chromecast Audio DAC might be a limitation but I could address that later.

Can you please suggest software required to set it up or point me in the right direction? Thank you

You are probaly better off asking this on the computer section or Mac forum. I'm not a Mac man but my thoughts are Flac is not an Apple format and I guess Chromecast is not either. I would have thought having the files in a Apple format and then streaming via ATV or AirPort Express would be better. Apple Dacs are pretty good.

 

[abacus]

There are plenty of Apps & programs for all types of OS that are designed to work with Chromecast, so just type “Chromecast software for apple” into Google, and you will find plenty of links of how to do it.

The DAC in Chromecast is pretty good, so you will need to spend considerably more to get a noticeable improvement.

Hope this helps

Bill

 

[RedKawa]

There are plenty of Apps & programs for all types of OS that are designed to work with Chromecast, so just type “Chromecast software for apple” into Google, and you will find plenty of links of how to do it.

The DAC in Chromecast is pretty good, so you will need to spend considerably more to get a noticeable improvement.

Hope this helps

Bill

Thank you for your comment. I have spent the last day trying to research something sound, Google search is my friend. There are people using Plex but the concern there that other people raised is that Plex is transcoding so there might be some loss of quality. I have seen some other posts but nothing that would actually bring these devices together. I am just trying my luck to see if anyone has used similar set up. I am aware that the combination of Mac and Chromecast might not the one that immediately springs into mind but I have a Mac on a network already and it stays on so I might as well use it.

 

[nopiano]

I've posted on your similar thread here:-

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/playing-streamed-music-through-hi-fi

 

[nopiano]

I've posted on your similar thread here:-

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/playing-streamed-music-through-hi-fi

 

[RedKawa]

I've posted on your similar thread here:-

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/playing-streamed-music-through-hi-fi

Thank you. I have started this separate thread to try to discuss options for my music stored locally in a lossles format. The other thread is to discuss payed offerings for high resolution streaming.

 

[Artoo]

I have an amplifier, decent set of speakers and a Google Chromecast Audio connected to it through RAC. I am using Chromecast Audio built in DAC but might consider getting separate DAC later, or try one for comparison. I have a Mac Mini on the network that is always on anyway. I would like to play some high quality audio files (stored on Mac) through my amplifier.

Can I store Audio Files in FLAC format on my mac and play them through Chromecast Audio without the file being transcoded (Plex?) or any loss of quality? I am aware that Chromecast Audio DAC might be a limitation but I could address that later.

Can you please suggest software required to set it up or point me in the right direction? Thank you

I've tried running Soundcast which is a Mac application that can cast to cca. This app achives this via an 'virtual audio device' called Soundflower, redirecting all sound from the computer to Soundcast (and then to the cca) instead of to the internal speakers. It works, but it is a bit cumbersome to install and use in my opinion. Sometimes the application has a hard time finding my cca. This setup also seems to send all audio in 44kHz to the cca (as reported by my DAC), so hi resoultion music (at least) is reencoded in some way. To my ears, the audio output through the speakers sounds good though.

What about trying Plex? This is the solution I am running currently. I run Plex on a Windows machine and use my phone as a remote, sending the audio from the Plex machine (directly) to the cca. This plays up to 24/96 flac files at the cca without transcoding (at least my DAC reports 88kHz, or 96kHz, for example). 24/192 flac files are transcoded on the fly to 24/96 (or at least my DAC reports 96kHz), but I think this is OK as the cca (aswell as the optical toslink) to my knowledge supports only up to this frequency. I do not know, but hopefully running Plex on Mac would yield the same result?

 

[RedKawa]

I have an amplifier, decent set of speakers and a Google Chromecast Audio connected to it through RAC. I am using Chromecast Audio built in DAC but might consider getting separate DAC later, or try one for comparison. I have a Mac Mini on the network that is always on anyway. I would like to play some high quality audio files (stored on Mac) through my amplifier.

Can I store Audio Files in FLAC format on my mac and play them through Chromecast Audio without the file being transcoded (Plex?) or any loss of quality? I am aware that Chromecast Audio DAC might be a limitation but I could address that later.

Can you please suggest software required to set it up or point me in the right direction? Thank you

 

I've tried running Soundcast which is a Mac application that can cast to cca. This app achives this via an 'virtual audio device' called Soundflower, redirecting all sound from the computer to Soundcast (and then to the cca) instead of to the internal speakers. It works, but it is a bit cumbersome to install and use in my opinion. Sometimes the application has a hard time finding my cca. This setup also seems to send all audio in 44kHz to the cca (as reported by my DAC), so hi resoultion music (at least) is reencoded in some way. To my ears, the audio output through the speakers sounds good though.

What about trying Plex? This is the solution I am running currently. I run Plex on a Windows machine and use my phone as a remote, sending the audio from the Plex machine (directly) to the cca. This plays up to 24/96 flac files at the cca without transcoding (at least my DAC reports 88kHz, or 96kHz, for example). 24/192 flac files are transcoded on the fly to 24/96 (or at least my DAC reports 96kHz), but I think this is OK as the cca (aswell as the optical toslink) to my knowledge supports only up to this frequency. I do not know, but hopefully running Plex on Mac would yield the same result?

Thank you for your response. That does sound promising. Chromecast is now hooked up so I am going to give this a go and let you know.