What to drive speakers for >= CD-quality streaming?

Thursday

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Greetings! I'm looking to stream >= CD quality audio from Amazon HD music to a pair of Klipsch RP-600Ms for starters. But even after a few days of searching, I don't know what to put between Amazon and the speakers. This is for an oddly-shaped living room that might eventually include a TV, so I like the idea of a receiver with room correction of some sort. I should have good enough internet bandwidth and WiFi for HD/ultra streaming.

So far in my search, I've heard good things about Anthem as an all-in-one receiver. But the unreleased MRX 540 has two problems, based on the pre-release specs. First, it doesn't seem to natively support Amazon music. Second, if I instead stream music from a computer, the MRX doesn't have a USB audio input, so I'd have to use a digital coax or optical input, which none of my computers produce. Again, I don't know what to use for that USB-to-optical/coax conversion in as purely a pass-through way as possible. Please help!
 
Amazon doesn’t seem to have been adopted by (m)any Hifi brands yet. I don’t know where the blockage resides - maybe the certification is costly, or maybe Hifi manufacturers don’t trust Amazon. Or something else?

Welcome to the forum! Where are you based, because seeing Klipsch and Anthem in one post sounds like maybe the USA.
 

Thursday

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Welcome to the forum! Where are you based, because seeing Klipsch and Anthem in one post sounds like maybe the USA.
Thank you! Yes, I live in California, but am visiting Nevada at the moment.

Amazon doesn’t seem to have been adopted by (m)any Hifi brands yet. I don’t know where the blockage resides - maybe the certification is costly, or maybe Hifi manufacturers don’t trust Amazon. Or something else?
That explains things -- I guess Play-Fi can stream Amazon, but that's also gotten poor reviews, from what I can tell. Chromecast might be able to, too, but not at "HD" levels? FWIW, I've emailed Anthem to see if the 540 will support Amazon streaming (I think the previous generation could through Play-Fi).
 
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SteveR750

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Amazon doesn’t seem to have been adopted by (m)any Hifi brands yet. I don’t know where the blockage resides - maybe the certification is costly, or maybe Hifi manufacturers don’t trust Amazon. Or something else?

Welcome to the forum! Where are you based, because seeing Klipsch and Anthem in one post sounds like maybe the USA.
Possibly because hi res isn't hi-res. Amazon HD does not use exclusive mode in Windows (despite having the option bizarrely), so everything is streamed at whatever your default shared sound output settings are (default is 24/48k). Arguably, you might not hear the effect of windows resampler, but given the Amazon app doesn't work as it should do, you do wonder what else it doesn't get right....
 

Thursday

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I decided USB audio direct to the main DAC was important, so I ordered a Cambridge Audio CXA81. If I ever need video, I might start over with a new system and move this one elsewhere. But in the meantime, it'll be an all-in-one amp I'll drive from either Mac or Linux, and it comes with bluetooth aptX for convenience.
 

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