I've managed to get my Raspberry Pi 2 to work with an IQAudio Pi DIGI+ and play back via coaxial and my M-DAC. It sounds great when I play back my Hires music files via an attached hard drive and Runeaudio software and cost me next to nothing to assemble as I already had a spare Pi2 at home.
However, whilst dodging clothes shopping with the wife last weekend, I passed my time by visiting the 3 locally placed hifi stores - and asked the question of whether the Pi is actually any good at transmitting the data to my M-DAC or would a dedicated streamer be a lot better. I'm only really interested in sound quality here as I'm happy with the interface and the rest of the family are all perfectly happy with using the sonos connect I have attached to my hifi, so it doesnt have to be family friendly.
The response was varied. One said you won't really have any noticable sound quality difference. The second said I should buy a pioneer streamer circa £400. Another said sell the lot, my hifi's a bit rubbish, especially the Raspberry Pi and I should ebay the lot and buy a £2,500 Naim system. Not an option as far as I'm concerned.
Due to the nature of the Pi, I'd be unable to take it down to my local Hifi shop and compare. I'd have to borrow/buy from the shop to do the comparision which in the past has ended up with me purchasing regardless!
Has anybody got any experience and done this comparision test? Maybe a What Hifi future article is due here on this?
The M-Dac is a great DAC and does most of the hard work here, so I really want to continue utilising this - but is it worth buying a streamer such as a pioneer, Cyrus or Cambridge?
However, whilst dodging clothes shopping with the wife last weekend, I passed my time by visiting the 3 locally placed hifi stores - and asked the question of whether the Pi is actually any good at transmitting the data to my M-DAC or would a dedicated streamer be a lot better. I'm only really interested in sound quality here as I'm happy with the interface and the rest of the family are all perfectly happy with using the sonos connect I have attached to my hifi, so it doesnt have to be family friendly.
The response was varied. One said you won't really have any noticable sound quality difference. The second said I should buy a pioneer streamer circa £400. Another said sell the lot, my hifi's a bit rubbish, especially the Raspberry Pi and I should ebay the lot and buy a £2,500 Naim system. Not an option as far as I'm concerned.
Due to the nature of the Pi, I'd be unable to take it down to my local Hifi shop and compare. I'd have to borrow/buy from the shop to do the comparision which in the past has ended up with me purchasing regardless!
Has anybody got any experience and done this comparision test? Maybe a What Hifi future article is due here on this?
The M-Dac is a great DAC and does most of the hard work here, so I really want to continue utilising this - but is it worth buying a streamer such as a pioneer, Cyrus or Cambridge?