Sound quality: Streamer with external DAC

[Jasonovich]

That's very much the theory I would have gone with......
However, recently I've bought a Wiim Ultra.

Comparing its sound with a Raspberry Pi, both used purely as transports into the SAME DAC, (using the same QED optical link) there is a difference in sound - a difference that I think anybody could notice (and not just a very subtle difference, the likes of which you may have heard between different DACs).

This will probably come as no surprise to some....but it's not what I expected.

As commented earlier, people only see binary, it's more than that. There's the voltage that has to carry the signal, which is analogue, there's the components and there's the engineering. There's also power supply.
Not about dots and ones, it's the whole package.

 

[Jasonovich]

Good one! (I am not)


It is still a work in progress, but for my specific use (local flac collection) I am having lots of inconveniences, so far.
I have opened a few tickets with WiiM alreay.
Basically, I have gained improvements from Bluesound, but have also lost things that were working better with Bluesound.
Current issues are (in my opinion ):

• PlexAmp chromecast stuttering on a loop after a few seconds (resolved this morning by WiiM support giving me early access to new firmware
• PlexAmp chromecast not displaying artwork onscreen (unresolved and disappointing, as it was the whole point of going with the Ultra and have a screen to begin with)
• Local library not being properly scanned in the mobile app. I end up with the equivalent of Windows File Explorer, no Artist, Album, Genre groupings... pretty unsuable...
• The only thing that works well for me so far, is the native integration of Plex, but it is limited compared with PlexAmp, given that I only use the free version of Plex for now.
  I am not sure that the paid Plex version would bring the features I like from PlexAmp, and there is no try before by option...

You're an Accountant, trust me, you learn to be creative very fast! 😂