Looking for a new media streamer

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Joey_Corleone, Nov 23, 2017.

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  1. Blue Gecko

    Blue Gecko Peace

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    Yes, perhaps--I'll check and report back. I do recall a FLAC LMS setting on the NAS and a past discussion of sound quality. I'll check and report back. Thanks for the tip.
     
  2. Joey_Corleone

    Joey_Corleone Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Rockford, MI
    I wonder if the roon core does the FLAC to PCM conversion or if that is something done by a roon bridge. If the roon core does it that might help explain why my problem with dropouts disappeared, as perhaps the pi was being a bit overwhelmed doing it when J was running rune/volumio/moode
     
  3. mantis4tons

    mantis4tons Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO, USA
    I use Raspberry Pi devices in my Roon set-up. You should think of the Pi as a transport rather than a DAC: you'll still need to connect a DAC to the Pi to make the solution sound good. A lot of people use DACs from HiFiBerry that connects directly to the Pi board. I have a couple of these in my systems and they sound fine. You can also connect any number of USB DACs to the Pi. All of my Pi devices connect to my network via wi-fi, and I've never had problems playing back high resolution files.

    The Raspberry Pi-based solution (Pi3 + HiFiBerry DAC + a case) is relatively cheap (less than $100 total), so I think it's worth trying before you decide to move on to more expensive solutions.
     
    Blue Gecko likes this.
  4. skimminstones

    skimminstones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    my squeezebox classic screen gave up the ghost recently so have been looking around for a new streamer for the last few weeks. I wanted something with a screen and is simple to control playing music from my NAS.

    Cant believe how little the streaming market seems to have moved on in the last 10 years. Anything with a colour screen seems to be ridiculously expensive. Whenever you read on forums people just say "get a pi" but i really didnt want one of them. I thought i found the perfect item in the pioneer np-01 but when i plugged it in the software was appallingly unusable so that was sent right back. I've ended up buying a used squeezebox touch on ebay as the prices seem to be coming down to something more sensible now. It arrived today, plugged in and up and running within 1 minute and all is good in my streaming world once more.

    I would have thought the hi-fi world would have embraced streaming products more than they seem to have done to be honest.
     
    JackG and Blue Gecko like this.
  5. Fragoulis Sideris

    Fragoulis Sideris Active Member

    Location:
    Athens, Greece
    I am using a low powered minix pc: MINIX NEO Z83 - 4 Fanless Mini PC 64bit Windows 10 US PLUG-$137.52 Online Shopping| GearBest.com

    I have installed Windows Server OS 2016, Audiophile Oprtimizer and Fidelizer Pro.

    Software reproduction is made with MUSIChi Client/Server Edition, Control is made by a tablet running win10 home edition, 4GB RAM, 64bit.

    All my music is stored in an external NAS, approx, 6TB of MUSIC of all kinds and resolutions (except mp3s), hard wired ethernet connections.

    No dropouts.

    The best sound i have in a very long time....
     
  6. Blue Gecko

    Blue Gecko Peace

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    Theory: As stated in a previous post, IMHO my SB3 sounds BETTER with Roon than LMS on a QNAP server. Powerful words that I hope I can explain. Anyone/everyone else—please chime in with knowledge that may surpass my limited experience. J

    So... first a bit of research

    From Roon CTO Brian Luczkiewicz Jun 2001
    Squeezebox Streaming sound quality

    Roon Output to Squeezebox does not use RAAT. Roon transmits raw PCM to Squeezeboxes. There is no compression on the wire.

    The server load associated with decoding an MP3, AAC or FLAC file for real-time playback on a computer suited to running Roon is so small as to be negligible.

    I wasn't sure if the increased network demand would be a problem or not--in theory it could cause reliability differences between Roon/LMS. If it turns out to be a problem, there are avenues open for us to fix it. 6 months later, and it hasn't caused a measurable support load, so I'm glad we didn't spend the effort prematurely.​

    There is more detailed discussion at the above Roon link for those interested.


    The Squeezebox Classic, aka Squeezebox3, aka SB3 specifications:

    Sample rates supported: 44.1kHz, 48kHz.

    Audio formats supported: linear PCM, 16 or 24 bits per sample.

    Wireless Interface: 802.11g wireless networking, throughput up to 54Mbps, high speed PCI interface to radio module

    DAC: Burr-Brown PCM1748E, 44.1 & 48k

    Buffer RAM: 25Mb (approx. 200 seconds at 128Kbps) compressed, plus 28Mb (10 seconds at 44.1 samples/sec) uncompressed

    SqueezeBox players natively handle the following formats: Lossless: AIFF, PCM, FLAC, WAV​


    LMS/Squeezebox research:

    LMS has the ability to handle transcoding at the LMS level rather than just passthru of FLAC to the Squeezebox device, so it is possible that the LMS setup may be sending something different than from what Roon does.

    The Squeezebox's native FLAC decoders reconvert compressed data to PCM before serving them to the SB's DAC and S/PDIF circuits.​


    My Current QNAP LMS settings:

    Maximum WMA Stream Bitrate set to "No Limit"

    Logitech Documentation: Some WMA streams have multiple bitrates available for streaming. By default, Logitech Media Server will select the highest bitrate stream available, but if you have a slower Internet connection, you may set a lower value here to limit the maximum rate that can be chosen from these multiple rate streams.​

    File Types: FLAC set to Native​


    Conclusion/Results (finally):

    My older QNAP LMS server sent raw FLAC files to my Squeezebox Classic. The Squeezebox's native FLAC decoders reconverted the compressed data to PCM and then sent it to the Burr-Brown PCM1748E DAC and S/PDIF circuits and into the Integrated Amp via analog RCA connectors.

    Roon transmits raw PCM to Squeezeboxes, meaning FLAC conversion is done at the QNAP Roon level.​

    Apparently, IMHO the FLAC conversion of files at the QNAP Roon Core level is more pleasing than the former LMS FLAC conversion at the SB3 software level. [As stated in a previous post, I do not have any dropout issues with WiFi and it appears to be a nonissue when monitoring the increased bandwidth using QNAP Resource Monitor tools.] Of course, the Roon Signal Path and “purple” light show a bit perfect lossless path… however the bits transferred via WiFi are now PCM.

    All comments/opinions/knowledge/thoughts/input are welcome.
     
    dcottrell6 likes this.
  7. Apesbrain

    Apesbrain Forum Resident

    Location:
    East Coast, USA
    Did you try setting this to "Disabled"? That will cause LMS to send PCM.
     
    Blue Gecko likes this.
  8. Blue Gecko

    Blue Gecko Peace

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    Yes, I did consider setting FLAC File Type to "Disabled". However, there seems to be a bit of a learning curve and/or some additional work in getting my SB3 to stream from LMS on the older QNAP. Tomorrow is another day... I'll look into it.

    Thanks for the recommendation, I'm assuming it will sound identical to my current setup. It would be best to A/B the QNAPs, or as close as possible. Of course if I had another SB3 it would be really easy!
     
  9. Blue Gecko

    Blue Gecko Peace

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    It certainly sounds like an ideal solution. As I mentioned, I hope to use a linear power supply with the new endpoint. The current setup came way under budget--so I still have some budget remaining.

    I like your suggestion because it's less equipment--in simplistic terms, one endpoint with DAC.
     
  10. Blue Gecko

    Blue Gecko Peace

    Location:
    Wisconsin

    Agree... and to also be honest, I keep eyeing used Touch units. They were excellent and I waited too long after Logitech killed Sqeezebox to purchase.
     
  11. Apesbrain

    Apesbrain Forum Resident

    Location:
    East Coast, USA
    The Raspberry Pi is a fine solution so long as you understand that you'll be controlling it from a browser or mobile device. As I've lived with my two RPi players as well as a Touch I've come to realize that I hardly ever use the Touch touchscreen so to me not having one on the RPi is not a loss.

    Here are instructions on how to set up your RPi:
    HOW TO: Squeezebox player on Raspberry Pi with (or without) HiFiBerry board

    Since I wrote that, I've read that some people like the Allo add-on boards instead of those from HiFiBerry. piCorePlayer supports both of them. Allo also offers pre-built players (either analog or digi out) at a very fair price:
    Raspberry Pi audio DACs, Digi and amplifiers
     
  12. Blue Gecko

    Blue Gecko Peace

    Location:
    Wisconsin

    Thanks for the additional information. I will research the items mentioned.

    I have also seen some good information on the The Hans Beekhuyzen Channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR4tuhqPppVp-PD0q17sPEA

    He seems (IMO) to have several unbiased and pertinent video reviews of Roon, endpoints, and audio equipment.
     
  13. JackG

    JackG Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ
    I've been running a SBT since 2011 (bought a spare soon after, luckily) and recently came to the same conclusion. Between it and iPeng I don't know how I'd replace it. Did some research recently and thought the Node 2 looked like my best bet, but that was mainly due to a fleeting interest in MQA.
     
  14. cdash99

    cdash99 Senior Member

    Location:
    Mass

    Did you have any difficulty in getting Bluesound to see the Synology drive? It won't find the drive on its own and, when entering the name manually, I keep getting a "mounting share failed" error.

    I've sent their support team a request, but they're not in until after Christmas.
     
  15. Apesbrain

    Apesbrain Forum Resident

    Location:
    East Coast, USA
    Don't worry about this. The Raspberry Pi option is a very capable solution and not at all difficult to implement. It appears to LMS exactly as another Squeezebox player with all the same functions. The base RPi can output USB, HDMI, or "utility-grade" analog. Press-on boards exist to add high quality analog (DAC) or S/PDIF output on optical, coax, or BNC.

    If you balk at putting this together, Allo offers the "plug & play" BOSS, miniBOSS, and DigiOne:
    Plug & Play
     
    JackG likes this.
  16. mdelrossi

    mdelrossi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn nyc
    Yea, it has to be in a certain format. I forget how the path has to be formatted, and guest privileges has to be assigned to the media folder. If you ask on the Bluesound forum they should be able to help. Good luck

    mdr
     
  17. Fahzz

    Fahzz Forum Resident

    Location:
    Outside Providence
    Just a quick thanks for this information. I went with the Allo Digione Player. Preassembled, and setup of Sqeezebox Server, SqueezeLite and connectig the external HDD was the easiest computer related task I've ever done.
     
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