The *NOT BORING!* Hi-Fi faff chat and sales

[grantoury]

Morning Hi-Fi weirdos,

Can we have a little chat re- hi-res/cd quality streaming?

I can't be arsed to read all the bollox and you guys can cut through it..

20 years ago i had a great system with 2000+ CDs.. it was stacked on the floor because our living space used to be in the apex of the roof with beams and such .. my kid came along and as soon as he could crawl he was poking it.. but y'know it was on the floor, what did i expect. I wasn't listening to much music as I threw myself into fatherhood so i sold it off and put the CDs into storage in my folks attic... moved onto Limewire, PirateBay, Sounddocks..ect and downloaded 10,000+ tracks which are all now stuck on old ipods and the libraries are long gone on fried Macbooks or HDs.. all mp3 quality.

Over the last few years, as my kid has outgrown the desire to poke shit into my hi-fi.. i've started to build up another system.. out of the 2000+ CDs.. i've brought less than 200 of them home.. i'm still buying CDs and building playlists via 4K Downloader/Converter which is convenient but the quality is horrible so the next logical step would be hi res streaming?

We live in a mobile phone black hole so i only have a crappy iphone4, just because i have zero connection most of the time, although we do have amazing internet connection (150+ Mbps) via fibre/eero.. so i wouldn't want to use my shitty old phone as an interphase.. i assume i would use my macbook and build a library in lets say Tidal or Qobuz in the same way as i use itunes?

Here are my questions..
1) Would i plug my macbook via usb-a into the usb-b port on the back of my DAC?

2) What do music streamers (like this) do that my macbook wouldn't.. i assume i'm just moving the interphase from my laptop to a streamer so the laptop doesn't need to be plugged in.. if yes, why do some of them cost 1000s of £££s
View attachment 805836


3) Streamers with no screen like this Chord 2yu.. what do they actually do???
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Thank you!

I plug a chromebox into my dac via usb and stream Tidal, I like it, but cd quality can be better with some recordings. I think a streamer is built better for music playback than a computer with its bewildering array of chips. That is as far as my knowledge reaches. I think a little streamer like that just enables you to control streaming with a phone, I could be wrong.

 

[Betsy]

Yes.. regarding 'little streamer' that does figure

I've just looked at the Chromebox.. you stream Tidal to where? a phone/tablet/laptop which is connected to the chromebox/streamer via wifi?

 

[Betsy]

When i went to pick up my Rel Quake.. the guy who i bought it from said 'sit down.. you can listen to it before you take it home' he pulled out a wireless keyboard.. turned on his TV and his entire music library was there (well it was somewhere??) he just typed in an album of my choice, the album art and tracklist popped up on his TV screen and it played out of his hifi system.. pretty neat, this was years ago so i've got no idea what/how.

 

[legrandefromage]

The old Western Digital WiFi enabled hdd storage allowed for easy access to music via suitable devices. My 2012 TV could do something similar.

I also have a very old Yamaha Music Cast unit which is a very posh PC with a quality audio section for ripping and streaming, it must be getting on for 20 years old, 40gb hdd. 40!

Now, 'Hi-Res'

Yes, it can stream at very high resolution, but, older music wasnt recorded at the levels boasted by the streamers and the equipment and it would have been mixed for the equipment of the day the majority being vinyl and CD. If you listen to a lot of 80's music it is very light on bass, almost as if it was a dirty word with the studio engineers. 70's can be very good or very muddy, recording equipment of the day could go up to 27kHz but at a cost of tape length - FM radio tops out at about 16kHz so it would be rare to find anything decent apart from limited releases from experimental artists or broadcast material

Rambling on, all that 60s, 70s and 80s music is out there in multiple formats, re-releases, remixes and so-on but all of it would have been mixed to the popular format of the time.

The 1990's gave producers better chance to make decent quality recordings as equipment became more accessible due the 1980's explosion in synths, portable high quality recording , MIDI, DAT, samplers and so-on. Mini studios, kitchen and bedroom producers could knock something decent out pretty quick, with CD burners, electronic storage and MP3 making things even easier and far cheaper - quality? Not always but with more and more music, the internet allowed for quicker sharing and access - now you have streaming.

20 years on...

The drawbacks to the modern streaming model is that it creates money for the brand names but not the artists. The majority of new vehicles have the ability to stream direct to the car audio but no physical media so you have to have a something with you capable of playing if you want to listen to something other than the radio. Many now stream off their phones rather playing stored music files. Artists rely on physical sales, band merch and touring to create enough income for them to survive - streaming barely raises pennies form the companies.

back to more rambling:

For high res to be done properly, it needs the original masters and the whole remixing process to start from scratch otherwise you are just playing a CD via the airwaves and then theres the equipment at home and your own ears, money money money

ramble ramble

In recent internet chatter news stuff, there has been a bit of a backlash against streaming. Companies have been pretty much whitewashing certain films, artists, music etc out of the mainstream and only promoting the money makers for their own gains. Leaving artists stranded, hard media such as CD and of course the old vinyl have started to creep up again along with DVD and Blu-ray

Too much is locked down leaving access limited for the fans

thats my ramble anyway

 

[grantoury]

Yes.. regarding 'little streamer' that does figure

I've just looked at the Chromebox.. you stream Tidal to where? a phone/tablet/laptop which is connected to the chromebox/streamer via wifi?

Tidal app on the Chromebox, which is just a little computer with Chrome OS, into my dac, the dac straight into the amp.

 

[Betsy]

I get that bit.. but what do you use as a screen to select your tune?.. is it your phone or a moniter.

Sorry to sound like a dumb ass

 

[legrandefromage]

My hifi is old but connected digitally to the telly, I can broadcast from my phone to the telly which then sends it to the hifi, the phone being the menu and library

 

[velofrog]

Mac Mini, Toslink to Lyngdorf, HDMI to TV, subscription to Apple Music, Bob is your Auntie

 

[legrandefromage]

absolutely no subscription here, physical media bought, ripped and stored,

https://virpp.com/hello/music-streaming-payouts-comparison-a-guide-for-musicians/

 

[Aech]

I have several Squeezeboxes, originally it was made by Slim Devices but now owned by Logitech.

I have a low power computer server that runs 24/7 that all my music is ripped to in CD quality (flac) that streams to my Squeezebox devices. I have a couple of Squeezebox Booms that are a complete streamer and amp and speakers all in one. I also have the high-end Transporter that connects to a standard HiFi.

There is a Squeezebox Radio that is the same as the Boom except it can also be it's own server and a server to others.

You can just use them as internet streamers, you just need to setup a free account on squeezebox.com if you don't want to run your own server.