Streamer ideas

[insider9]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

And Roon is possibly one of the most overrated bits of software I've ever encountered. I don't get the audiphool infatuation with it...

Have you ever used it?

Yes.

Had the 14 day trial some time ago to see what all the fuss was about, didn't need the 14 days to see it is was unwarranted

Ok, just a difference from 1.3 to 1.4 was huge. And if it was ages ago it could've been a very early version. Software is being continuously improved and they have a huge forum and actually listen to users.

Maybe worth having another look?

 

[insider9]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

And Roon is possibly one of the most overrated bits of software I've ever encountered. I don't get the audiphool infatuation with it...

The wxc-50 via optical out sounds exactly like the CCA via optical out into my chord dac to my ears. So you can infer it as 'bits are just bits' and be happy with it.

But I would like to think that the wxc-50's inbuilt streaming tech is only as good as a 30 pound CCA. And hence my recommendation to upgrade the source . So each to his own here I guess

And both CCA and WXC-50 don't do Tidal gapless...

 

[Paulq]

If I didn't have Linn gear I would be looking at one of these:

https://tinyurl.com/ybwju7fh

I heard one demoing a set of ATC Actives not too long ago and was very impressed with it. The control app is well laid out too.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

Sabbath to make sure you really want Roon get a free trial first. They usually do one with an affiliate for 2 months. There was one with HB Channel. I'm sure there's one with someone else now. I can have a look for you. You can run Roon even on an older PC in another room or under the stairs. Or a streamer like Innuos or Elac or a NAS or even a laptop.

You use your mobile or tablet to operate it but also another PC if you want. Files can be on a PC or anywhere else on a network e.g. NAS.

And then you can connect however many endpoints (zones) you want. It's a very flexible solution.

you know I’ve only got a i5 processor laptop insider will that be ok if I went down this road ?

 

[newlash09]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

And Roon is possibly one of the most overrated bits of software I've ever encountered. I don't get the audiphool infatuation with it...

The wxc-50 via optical out sounds exactly like the CCA via optical out into my chord dac to my ears. So you can infer it as 'bits are just bits' and be happy with it.

But I would like to think that the wxc-50's inbuilt streaming tech is only as good as a 30 pound CCA. And hence my recommendation to upgrade the source . So each to his own here I guess

And both CCA and WXC-50 don't do Tidal gapless...

And the CCA is small enough to hide inside the wxc50

 

[ellisdj]

how big is your music library - thats important to know before recommending anything ?

 

[Blacksabbath25]

how big is your music library - thats important to know before recommending anything ?

about 400 CDs a small library

 

[insider9]

Sabbath to make sure you really want Roon get a free trial first. They usually do one with an affiliate for 2 months. There was one with HB Channel. I'm sure there's one with someone else now. I can have a look for you. You can run Roon even on an older PC in another room or under the stairs. Or a streamer like Innuos or Elac or a NAS or even a laptop.

You use your mobile or tablet to operate it but also another PC if you want. Files can be on a PC or anywhere else on a network e.g. NAS.

And then you can connect however many endpoints (zones) you want. It's a very flexible solution.

you know I’ve only got a i5 processor laptop insider will that be ok if I went down this road ?

Yes, if you want it would run on an i5 laptop with 4GB or more RAM. Best to run it on an SSD. Not tried without but sure it would still run.

 

[Craig M.]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

Agreed. You’ve got a streamer already. I would buy a NAS drive with a couple of HDDs, rip your CDs and sort artwork (if the ripping software chooses the wrong artwork) using your PC and set the NAS as the destination for the rips. If the Yamaha app is crap you can use music streaming software on the NAS. I use a Synology NAS and the included music app is free and absolutely fine, I send it to an Airport Express which connects via optical to the DAC in my speakers and control it on my phone/iPad using the free Synology music app. Well, actually I use Apple Music most the time and just airplay it to the Airport Express, but the NAS is just as easy to use - in your case the NAS would send the files to your WXC50.

 

[Dave_]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

And Roon is possibly one of the most overrated bits of software I've ever encountered. I don't get the audiphool infatuation with it...

Have you ever used it?

Yes.

Had the 14 day trial some time ago to see what all the fuss was about, didn't need the 14 days to see it is was unwarranted

Ok, just a difference from 1.3 to 1.4 was huge. And if it was ages ago it could've been a very early version. Software is being continuously improved and they have a huge forum and actually listen to users.

Maybe worth having another look?

Nope. I saw enough to know that it's utterly pointless/offers nothing I want/couldn't do with FOSS.

 

[ellisdj]

how big is your music library - thats important to know before recommending anything ?

about 400 CDs a small library

400 cds x 700mb a disc = 280GB so a 1TB or even a 500GB hard drive is enough - if in 30 years you accumulated 280 in the next 30 years if you double it you will still be fine.

No point going the NAS route because that will better suited to huge libraries.

 

[ellisdj]

how big is your music library - thats important to know before recommending anything ?

about 400 CDs a small library

400 cds x 700mb a disc = 280GB so a 1TB or even a 500GB hard drive is enough - if in 30 years you accumulated 280GB in the next 30 years if you double it you will still be fine.

No point going the NAS route because that will better suited to huge libraries.

 

[newlash09]

Sabbath to make sure you really want Roon get a free trial first. They usually do one with an affiliate for 2 months. There was one with HB Channel. I'm sure there's one with someone else now. I can have a look for you. You can run Roon even on an older PC in another room or under the stairs. Or a streamer like Innuos or Elac or a NAS or even a laptop.

You use your mobile or tablet to operate it but also another PC if you want. Files can be on a PC or anywhere else on a network e.g. NAS.

And then you can connect however many endpoints (zones) you want. It's a very flexible solution.

you know I’ve only got a i5 processor laptop insider will that be ok if I went down this road ?

A lot of folks use Intel nuc with i5 processors and 4 gb of ram as roon servers. And the basic roon nucleus comes with a similar configuration.

The processing power required for roon depends on the below mentioned factors :
1. Use of roon convulated filters for dsp room correction.

2. Upsampling of tracks to DSD64 or higher.

3. Size of music library.

So unless you plan to utilise all of the above all the time, your present laptop should be good enough. Roon recommends i7+ 8gb of ram for a full fat roon operation with all of the above implemented. So your present laptop is not far off the mark. But as insider9 suggested, better to utilise the free trail period and see if you really like it.

But if you don't want or like the roon software. Innuos comes with its free inbuilt software called 'innuOS' which is also supposedly very good. So the innuos zen mini mk2 will still be a good buy at 700 pounds even without roon, in my opinion.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

Agreed. You’ve got a streamer already. I would buy a NAS drive with a couple of HDDs, rip your CDs and sort artwork (if the ripping software chooses the wrong artwork) using your PC and set the NAS as the destination for the rips. If the Yamaha app is crap you can use music streaming software on the NAS. I use a Synology NAS and the included music app is free and absolutely fine, I send it to an Airport Express which connects via optical to the DAC in my speakers and control it on my phone/iPad using the free Synology music app. Well, actually I use Apple Music most the time and just airplay it to the Airport Express, but the NAS is just as easy to use - in your case the NAS would send the files to your WXC50.

the trouble is I had it in mind to buy the chord 2qut Dac and update my CD player Dac at the same time and I was going to keep the Yamaha wxc50 but use the chord Dac to improve the sound more and I could still add NAS

 

[ellisdj]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

Agreed. You’ve got a streamer already. I would buy a NAS drive with a couple of HDDs, rip your CDs and sort artwork (if the ripping software chooses the wrong artwork) using your PC and set the NAS as the destination for the rips. If the Yamaha app is crap you can use music streaming software on the NAS. I use a Synology NAS and the included music app is free and absolutely fine, I send it to an Airport Express which connects via optical to the DAC in my speakers and control it on my phone/iPad using the free Synology music app. Well, actually I use Apple Music most the time and just airplay it to the Airport Express, but the NAS is just as easy to use - in your case the NAS would send the files to your WXC50.

the trouble is I had it in mind to buy the chord 2qut Dac and update my CD player Dac at the same time and I was going to keep the Yamaha wxc50 but use the chord Dac to improve the sound more and I could still add NAS

You can still use your Yamaha with the Qutest - it just wont play DSD files over the SPDIF connections thats not the end of the world mate is it really to get you going.

You can take your time and see what transpires

 

[Blacksabbath25]

how big is your music library - thats important to know before recommending anything ?

about 400 CDs a small library

400 cds x 700mb a disc = 280GB so a 1TB or even a 500GB hard drive is enough - if in 30 years you accumulated 280GB in the next 30 years if you double it you will still be fine.

No point going the NAS route because that will better suited to huge libraries.

it’s a bit more complex then that I should of added that I also have music on iTunes and a big film library on iTunes and tv library which fills 2 TB small portable hard drive

 

[Dave_]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

And Roon is possibly one of the most overrated bits of software I've ever encountered. I don't get the audiphool infatuation with it...

The wxc-50 via optical out sounds exactly like the CCA via optical out into my chord dac to my ears. So you can infer it as 'bits are just bits' and be happy with it.

But I would like to think that the wxc-50's inbuilt streaming tech is only as good as a 30 pound CCA. And hence my recommendation to upgrade the source . So each to his own here I guess

Frankly, I get the impression BS is quite naive (look at DDCs early April Fool) and feel that he's being led up the garden path by some of you into wasting not insignificant sums of cash on pointless "upgrades"

 

[insider9]

I'm sure you will find this interesting. And Sabbath you may want to know this too.

I'm running Roon server on Linux. Out of 16GB RAM I never used more than 4GB and usually 2-3GB.

Running i5-4690k which I clocked down to 800Hz per core (from 3.5GHz). Running long convolution filter on DSD64 downsampling to 96kHz Roon is running at 4x actual speed so no lag. As long as you stick to any i3 or above modern gear it should not be a problem. I believe I could run more than one zone with room correction like this at CPU less than 20% speed.

Roon is the only thing I will not upgrade. Can see upgrading just about any other component over the years.

 

[newlash09]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

And Roon is possibly one of the most overrated bits of software I've ever encountered. I don't get the audiphool infatuation with it...

The wxc-50 via optical out sounds exactly like the CCA via optical out into my chord dac to my ears. So you can infer it as 'bits are just bits' and be happy with it.

But I would like to think that the wxc-50's inbuilt streaming tech is only as good as a 30 pound CCA. And hence my recommendation to upgrade the source . So each to his own here I guess

Frankly, I get the impression BS is quite naive and easily led (look at DDCs early April Fool) and feel that he's being led up the garden path by some of you into wasting not insignificant sums of cash on pointless upgrades.

May be it would be best to wait till macspur gets his innous zen mini mk2 in a weeks time. And he can settle this streamer vs nas thing once and for all

 

[newlash09]

I'm sure you will find this interesting. And Sabbath you may want to know this too.

I'm running Roon server on Linux. Out of 16GB RAM I never used more than 4GB and usually 2-3GB.

Running i5-4690k which I clocked down to 800Hz per core (from 3.5GHz). Running long convolution filter on DSD64 downsampling to 96kHz Roon is running at 4x actual speed so no lag. As long as you stick to any i3 or above modern gear it should not be a problem. I believe I could run more than one zone with room correction like this at CPU less than 20% speed.

Roon is the only thing I will not upgrade. Can see upgrading just about any other component over the years.

Enlightening indeed

I didn't want to have a separate roon server and a end point also. So my search for a roon streaming server took me to the innuos. Most of the other usual streamers are only end points. And my knowledge with computers is very poor. So didn't want to do any installation myself either.

Within the innuos catalogue I was considering the zen mini mk2 as a start myself. And even the innuos director of development on the 'computer audiophile' forum had admitted that the zen mini was good enough for full roon processing in their trails. However was not sure if I should settle for the zen mini or spring for a zenith mk2.

So your findings will sure save me a wad of cash. Thanks

 

[Blacksabbath25]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

Agreed. You’ve got a streamer already. I would buy a NAS drive with a couple of HDDs, rip your CDs and sort artwork (if the ripping software chooses the wrong artwork) using your PC and set the NAS as the destination for the rips. If the Yamaha app is crap you can use music streaming software on the NAS. I use a Synology NAS and the included music app is free and absolutely fine, I send it to an Airport Express which connects via optical to the DAC in my speakers and control it on my phone/iPad using the free Synology music app. Well, actually I use Apple Music most the time and just airplay it to the Airport Express, but the NAS is just as easy to use - in your case the NAS would send the files to your WXC50.

the trouble is I had it in mind to buy the chord 2qut Dac and update my CD player Dac at the same time and I was going to keep the Yamaha wxc50 but use the chord Dac to improve the sound more and I could still add NAS

You can still use your Yamaha with the Qutest - it just wont play DSD files over the SPDIF connections thats not the end of the world mate is it really to get you going.

You can take your time and see what transpires

well you no I wanted the chord Dac but I was told that I needed a better score and the chord would be a wast of money as I thought that would be a good upgrade myself .

its not that I am being fooled here it’s just that I do not understand the technology so well when it comes to streaming and NAS as I’ve had a CD player for so long and been quite happy with it

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_100004211376004]

how big is your music library - thats important to know before recommending anything ?

about 400 CDs a small library

400 cds x 700mb a disc = 280GB so a 1TB or even a 500GB hard drive is enough - if in 30 years you accumulated 280GB in the next 30 years if you double it you will still be fine.

No point going the NAS route because that will better suited to huge libraries.

it’s a bit more complex then that I should of added that I also have music on iTunes and a big film library on iTunes and tv library which fills 2 TB small portable hard drive

then even more of a reason to get it all into a nas running plex serve...it actually excells with video but also does a fine job with audio too....@3-4 quid a month but you will need a nas with some grunt behind it Sabbath to keep those movies flowing smoothly.

Also you need to remember with the likes of a PC running the roon software...the pc will have to be running at all times the software is being used.

 

[Craig M.]

The WXC50 the op already has is a fine piece kit, spending more is complete and utter lunacy IMO.

Agreed. You’ve got a streamer already. I would buy a NAS drive with a couple of HDDs, rip your CDs and sort artwork (if the ripping software chooses the wrong artwork) using your PC and set the NAS as the destination for the rips. If the Yamaha app is crap you can use music streaming software on the NAS. I use a Synology NAS and the included music app is free and absolutely fine, I send it to an Airport Express which connects via optical to the DAC in my speakers and control it on my phone/iPad using the free Synology music app. Well, actually I use Apple Music most the time and just airplay it to the Airport Express, but the NAS is just as easy to use - in your case the NAS would send the files to your WXC50.

the trouble is I had it in mind to buy the chord 2qut Dac and update my CD player Dac at the same time and I was going to keep the Yamaha wxc50 but use the chord Dac to improve the sound more and I could still add NAS

It would not surprise me one little bit if the difference between your CDP and a DAC are very, very small. I’ve owned a few different DACs and the differences have always been tiny. In fact, if you’re quite happy playing CDs, I wouldn’t change anything, my opinion is that comments saying a streamer is going to sound better than a CDP are ********, the only reason to change if it’s just to play ripped CDs is convenience - and ripping all your CDs is hardly convenient if getting up to put a different CD in your player doesn’t bother you.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

how big is your music library - thats important to know before recommending anything ?

about 400 CDs a small library

400 cds x 700mb a disc = 280GB so a 1TB or even a 500GB hard drive is enough - if in 30 years you accumulated 280GB in the next 30 years if you double it you will still be fine.

No point going the NAS route because that will better suited to huge libraries.

it’s a bit more complex then that I should of added that I also have music on iTunes and a big film library on iTunes and tv library which fills 2 TB small portable hard drive

then even more of a reason to get it all into a nas running plex serve...it actually excells with video but also does a fine job with audio too....@3-4 quid a month but you will need a nas with some grunt behind it Sabbath to keep those movies flowing smoothly.

well with what news has been like today about Oppo that tells me that eventually everything will be streaming I reckon no more physical media anymore that’s the way things are looking

 

[insider9]

I'm sure you will find this interesting. And Sabbath you may want to know this too.

I'm running Roon server on Linux. Out of 16GB RAM I never used more than 4GB and usually 2-3GB.

Running i5-4690k which I clocked down to 800Hz per core (from 3.5GHz). Running long convolution filter on DSD64 downsampling to 96kHz Roon is running at 4x actual speed so no lag. As long as you stick to any i3 or above modern gear it should not be a problem. I believe I could run more than one zone with room correction like this at CPU less than 20% speed.

Roon is the only thing I will not upgrade. Can see upgrading just about any other component over the years.

Enlightening indeed

I didn't want to have a separate roon server and a end point also. So my search for a roon streaming server took me to the innuos. Most of the other usual streamers are only end points. And my knowledge with computers is very poor. So didn't want to do any installation myself either.

Within the innuos catalogue I was considering the zen mini mk2 as a start myself. And even the innuos director of development on the 'computer audiophile' forum had admitted that the zen mini was good enough for full roon processing in their trails. However was not sure if I should settle for the zen mini or spring for a zenith mk2.

So your findings will sure save me a wad of cash. Thanks

If I'm honest. Consider what you're going to use it for. It may well be enough however as you start adding zones it may need more power. In which case NUC is a decent solution. Or maybe you will want to upsample to DSD and that takes a lot of processing.

Bear in mind Roon is an accomplished multi-room solution. I only have one zone but thinking about adding more.