Music Streamers

JonathanRyan

JonathanRyan

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I'm redecorating a room and want it to be able to play decent (not audiophile but not rubbish) quality music. My eye was caught by this device


Which is an audio streamer with Spotify Connect. It also has DAB+ etc but honestly, I'm unlikely to use that. I was going to pair it with some active speakers to give me a compact system.

But then I started thinking......couldn't I just pair some active bluetooth speakers with my phone and route Spotify (or Tidal/Qobuz etc) to them? Would this box actually give me anything apart from a little convenience and radio stations? Would it sound better than bluetooth from a modern phone?

Is there a better box I could get or is my plan of phone + speakers a reasonable one?
 
Depends on your ears!

For me, an apple speaker (£99 or so) is fine for what I want. Out of shower, getting dressed etc its fine. Works well with phone etc...

Is sound quality amazing, no, but fine for listening to music etc... I guess the same way an iphone 12 is fine for taking odd snaps compared to a DSLR. It wont win awards, you may not blow it up to a 3ft by 2ft print, but it captures a decent pic
 
Yes - we have Alexas all over the house and they get used a lot for radio (they are terrible at Spotify - it' like they have been coded to pick up the least likely track that fits your request.....). I'm thinking of deliberate listening.

I guess my question really is....."if a phone and a dedicated streamer both pull a signal from Spotify and send it to the same speakers, is there any noticeable difference in sound quality?"
 
My take is that the Argon will give you a dedicated unit but apart from the DAB radio you’ll still need to stream via a phone/tablet so unless I was hooking it up to an existing HiFi set up I’m not sure it will add more?
Have you tried streaming to your active speakers as I would think they would need bluetooth to make this viable so may need some wired unit to decode etc.?
 
JonathanRyan said:
I guess my question really is....."if a phone and a dedicated streamer both pull a signal from Spotify and send it to the same speakers, is there any noticeable difference in sound quality?"
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IF you have an RS fairly local, I'd visit the branch and do a direct comparison for myself.
 
This is kinda my field to be fair, the reason streamers are generally better is they keep the digital signal intact to the device be it an amp/dac/active speakers etc. just streaming from a phone you instantly drop to blutooth codecs like SBC or AAC etc and they will mangle the crap out of the signal, ideally you just want a service/streamer that will keep a basic cd quality digital like cd which is 44/16 and its all good.

And you are right to avoid DAB its bloody awful, some stations are barely 64kbit/mono
 
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Excellent, thanks. My phone has aptx which may make things a little better.

However, talking to a friendly AI, it also highlighted Bluetooth as the real issue so my plan of cable free speakers may not be good.

It's pointing me in the direction of a wiim amp and passive speakers. Thoughts.....?
 
JonathanRyan said:
Excellent, thanks. My phone has aptx which may make things a little better.

However, talking to a friendly AI, it also highlighted Bluetooth as the real issue so my plan of cable free speakers may not be good.

It's pointing me in the direction of a wiim amp and passive speakers. Thoughts.....?
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The Wiim stuff is very well regarded at it's price point.
As @Nod says, go to a Richer Sounds, listen to a few speakers and chat with the staff - they are generally fairly knowledgeable.
 
Yeah - I'll try to get into Richer Sounds once Christmas subsides. The closest is a 45 min drive away but they are always nice to visit.

But the amp isn't discounted anywhere and my local hi-fi shop deserves a visit too :)
 
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JonathanRyan said:
Excellent, thanks. My phone has aptx which may make things a little better.

However, talking to a friendly AI, it also highlighted Bluetooth as the real issue so my plan of cable free speakers may not be good.

It's pointing me in the direction of a wiim amp and passive speakers. Thoughts.....?
Click to expand...

AVforums had their awards published this week


The WiiM Amp Pro was Editors Choice
 
Mr Bump said:
long shot but i have an old IFI Zen Stream kicking about that will be looking for a new home soon?
it is a very basic style streamer tho.

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Thanks - I'm almost tempted for the looks alone. But then I'd need an amp....

As for Richer Sounds....I planned a trip over there to convince myself. Sadly the Wiim is just too popular - they can't hold enough stock to allow people to actually listen to it ;(
 
JonathanRyan said:
Thanks - I'm almost tempted for the looks alone. But then I'd need an amp....

As for Richer Sounds....I planned a trip over there to convince myself. Sadly the Wiim is just too popular - they can't hold enough stock to allow people to actually listen to it ;(
Click to expand...

yes you would need a dac and an amp etc
the wiim is good at what it does quite basic but good enough for basic stuff
 
I wanted a new amp for my hifi, ended up with a streaming amp, Moon 371, wife chuffed with lots of stations playing country/americana or able to use Apple Music to play albums we don’t have, for once she didn’t ask “how much?”

New | MOON - Simaudio

simaudio.com simaudio.com
 
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mj4456 said:
I wanted a new amp for my hifi, ended up with a streaming amp, Moon 371, wife chuffed with lots of stations playing country/americana or able to use Apple Music to play albums we don’t have, for once she didn’t ask “how much?”

New | MOON - Simaudio

simaudio.com simaudio.com
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That's, um, a little over budget..... :)
 
Yes I reckoned that but that’s what happens when you get carried away, although still a bit less than the pre/power amp I was looking at, I blame the wife, her comment was “I could work that!” Our hifi is on several hours a day most days, the joys of retirement.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Excellent, thanks. My phone has aptx which may make things a little better.

However, talking to a friendly AI, it also highlighted Bluetooth as the real issue so my plan of cable free speakers may not be good.

It's pointing me in the direction of a wiim amp and passive speakers. Thoughts.....?
Click to expand...
I have a Wiim Pro streaming unit, which admitidly is tied into a Rotel amp and decent speakers, but it works very well. Don't get the Pro Plus, it doesn't do AirPlay on IOS.....
 
mj4456 said:
Yes I reckoned that but that’s what happens when you get carried away
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Well, a few days ago I was thinking I could hook my phone up to some £100 actives and tomorrow I'm going to audition a Wiim ultra and talk speakers so I get that :)
Jelster said:
I have a Wiim Pro streaming unit, which admitidly is tied into a Rotel amp and decent speakers, but it works very well. Don't get the Pro Plus, it doesn't do AirPlay on IOS.....
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Blimey - hadn't even heard of the pro plus. I called our localish indy shop the other day and explained what I wanted to look at
"Yeah, there are 3 different models"
"I want the amp"
"Yeah, that's what there are 3 models of - there are another 3 without the amp. We have all 3 here - come down and we'll put them in the listening room for you." :D
 
Yeah, this is how it slowly gets more and more expensive......

Went to my local indy shop. Listened to the Wiim with the shop recommended Dali Oberon (I'd looked at Kupid but for the size of room they suggested Oberon) . It sounds stunning - I played some of the new Patrick Wolf album and to my ear it was better than when I saw him live last week :) Then they suggested I tried some Fyne "entry level" speakers which sounded so much nicer to my ears. I even got why people like Rosalia when I tried Lux in Qobuz high def.

And the Fyne are "only" £50 more. But of course they only do the Fyne F5E in black and we really wanted wood finish. So why not try the Fyne F500s? And so it begins.......................
 
"Well, they're not the colour I want but if you can knock a (fair) few quid off, I could probably live with them..."
 
Nod said:
"Well, they're not the colour I want but if you can knock a (fair) few quid off, I could probably live with them..."
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As I'm sure you'll understand, the colour is the least negotiable thing about buying hifi :)
 
Trick #1 is to leave management at home...
 
Heard a few Fyne speakers, like then a lot, but not enough to get rid of my Proac pair.
 
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