Digital front end suggestions

I have all of my digital music on a computer and back up hard drive and I use a wadia iPod dock connected to a Cambridge Dac as an interface. I’m looking for a new solution to replace this set up. I want to be able to play my collection without streaming it, but also be able to steam Spotify etc. what is the best way to play stored music and steam using an iPhone or iPad as an interface?

 

this is my digital front end, i use it to play files thru my computer



, the valhalla2 headphone amp doubles as a preamp connected to my integrated amp, you could eliminate the eitr and run into the dac usb from your phone, i'm real happy with it



Schiit Audio, Headphone amps and DACs made in USA.

 

Thanks!

 

I think it probably depends on your player software. In my case it's JRiver and I can use my phone to remote control it and send music to every audio interface it can access locally or through the network. It's also possible to install the WDM driver on a Windows workstation to send through it music from every other sources to which JRiver can't interface natively. That includes Internet streaming services such as Tidal.

I don't do the WDM trick because at home Internet streaming of music services is done either when I'm at the computer and then I use the locally installed clients or in the bedroom where I have Sonos which are controlled with a spare phone.



That's the setup I use when I'm in the study: A PC running JRiver connected to a TEAC AI-501DA to power the KEF LS50 speakers and a Violectric HPA V281 for the headphones. Both the TEAC and Violectric are connected with USB to the PC. My cellphone photography skills are not very good so I apologize for the perspective

 

Several audio salons I've visited are streaming Tidal via Roon, which also very nicely integrates local files like what you have. Those albums just appear next to but separately from the Tidal stuff. There are various streamers that will do the Roon trick, for example
Streamers
though there are perhaps less expensive solutions as well. Which Cambridge DAC do you have?

 

I have the Azur 840C CD player (DAC)

 

A little dedicated linux box makes a nice solution. Even one of the small project boards will do nicely. Something like Volumio is very easy to set up. It will play your music from a NAS or external drive and can be controlled via tablet with an app or through a web interface. Apparently they've got a cloud service now which will allow for TIDAL and other streaming services.

I've used Volumio in the past, but haven't tried out the "myvolumio" cloud component. I enjoyed volumio while I was using it, but I much prefer the freedom of achieving basically the same thing with a standard Debian install on a tiny driveless, fanless x86 machine.

Throw a linear power supply on it too if you want to be fancy.

As a bonus, Roon is a great solution as well, and is extremely easy to install on any linux box.

 

Thanks, I’ll look into that

 

I use a raspberry pi computer with hifiberry Digi+ sound card running picoreplayer software which is based on Linux OS. The OS operates off of a micosd card. You can connect an external usb hard drive to it with your music making the raspberry pi a self contained server and player both. I use iPeng app on my iPhone to control it. I run the digital audio out through a Bel canto DAC and it sounds great. The picoreplayer software will also run Tidal service and I think Spotify if you subscribe to the premium. It also will receive airplay from an apple device. I’m very happy with it.
If you want to get fancy with it, add a touch screen to the raspberry pi and build a box for it. Lots of projects are available online.