I’m so ignorant re how to stream hi res audio. Can I get a bit of help?

As far as digital, I have a Schiit Bifrost Multibit, an Essence HDMI DAC and I have an older iPad hanging around that works fine. I also have a Sony 1100 Blu-ray player, if that helps. What exactly do I need to stream hi res? Can I do Amazon hi res? Like I said, I’m totally ignorant re streaming other than listening to Sirius at home. Many thanks.

 

You can get an Apple Lightning to USB adapter. There are two versions. Audioquest says that this version sounds better: Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter but this adapter works as well: Lightning to USB Camera Adapter.

1. Add the streaming music app to your iPad
2. Plug the adapter and USB cable into your iPad
3. If your DAC has an input, then just plug the USB cable into your DAC.
4. Turn on your DAC
5. Open the streaming music app and select play.

That's it. I've found that a dedicated network streamer in place of the iPad can sound better, but the overall setup is the same.

BTW, in terms of streaming music, I've found Qobuz to sound best. Spotify Premium surprisingly sounds pretty decent as well. I wasn't as fond of the sound of Amazon HD and thought Tidal sounded worst of all of the streaming music services I tried.

 

Thanks so much! Great directions. Any way to do this wirelessly from the iPad to the DAC?

 

Only if your DAC has a Bluetooth or AirPlay connection.

 

I haven't used Amazon for streaming but if your Ipad is too old I wonder whether you might not be able to download any app -if required- do to it's age.

 

The easiest way to get streaming is to buy a streaming appliance, such as a blue sound or a Heos link.

 

My routes for Apple Music streams and downloads: 1. iTunes app on laptop>Airport Express>Preamp's optical S/PDIF for 16/44.1 & 2. iTunes on laptop>Preamp's usb DAC for up to 24/192. Either of these means presents music conveniently and permits iPod or iPhone to be used as a remote. Airport Express permits play of iTunes content from iTunes app running on iPhone or iPad. The results from years of listening experiments suggest to me Apple Music AAC from iTunes is on par in sound quality to stereo SACD; therefore, I no longer download hi-res music other than multi-channel.

 

" easiest " and with the best sound.

 

Tim, I've gotta tell ya, you can get free trial streaming service from pretty much all out there offering service. I've settled on Apple Music. It's a player, library, browser, music store, music streamer, CD ripper/burner drive, and too much more to list here. When the app is loaded onto a computer, it can be accessed and controlled remotely by iPad or iPhone; plus, when those devices are loaded with iTunes/Apple Music they will serve Airplay and Bluetooth amplification.

 

Yup. I got a free one month trial with Tidal, that was two and a half years ago.
I have a Bluesound Vault-2 in the house and a Node -2 in the shop.
A great way to enjoy music.

 

Really? I wonder why it sounded the worst?

 

It’s my understanding that you can’t stream hirez better than CD quality solely from an iPad or iPhone. Airplay is also limited to CD quality as well.

 

Here’s what you can do; you can download hi-res up to 24/192 ALAC or AIFF into iTunes Library and that can be output to a DAC via usb. Music playback can be controlled by iPhone or iPad operating as a remote control. Now, since I perceive 256k AAC to sound as good as stereo SACD, CD quality via Airport Express is satisfactory.

 

Thanks, so in short, the answer is no. ;-)

 

It's a huge shame the Chromecast Audio is no longer available, this was a perfect (and inexpensive) add-on for this situation. I still have a couple at home putting in solid service.

 

You can still find Chromecast Audios on ebay for ~$50.

Also, among the services listed, only Qobuz offers true hi-res that can easily be streamed.

Spotify is compressed, not even cd quality. Tidal "masters" are pseudo hi-res, and require special hardware and software. Amazon HD offers hi-res, but their catalog is a mess and bit-perfect playback is only possible on a couple of devices such as bluesound node or heos (maybe?) but you are stuck with their basic apps. Amazon apps do not bit-perfect playback on any device.

Not that any of this sounds "bad," but if you're going to the trouble to play hi-res you probably care about true hi-res played back bit perfect.

 

Well, the answer could be no if streaming is not from iTunes; yet, when the server is running ITunes the iPhone or iPad means remote control, which is the primary use of iPhone or iPad in the home.

 

To answer the original question, get a chromecast audio from ebay, get a mini toslink cable to attach it to your dac, install the Qobuz app on your ipad or phone. Limit the stream to 24/96 because that's the limit for chromecast audio.

 

You can with the Amazon HD app as long as your Ipad and/or Iphone are not too old (those whose iOS tops out at 9.3.6). I stream at Better than CD quality as long as the music I choose exists at that higher resolution in the Amazon library. You can also connect the Apple device to an external DAC. But be aware that not all music is available at better than CD quality in the Amazon library, that is the catch.

 

Did Qobuz ever fix their horrible buggy W10 and Android apps? Tried back in 2019 I think and neither worked right.

 

I've been using it about a year on Android and initially I regularly had a problem with the wrong track being displayed on the screen (in a playlist, for example, the next song would play but the app would visually restart the same song over and over). It nearly put me off immediately, and while it's been fixed since (or at least I haven't encountered the problem) it's still a pretty buggy experience. Every month I question whether I should get rid of it.

I want to like it, I certainly like how it sounds, but the truth is Spotify gets far more airplay at home.

 

1 word, 4 letters: roon

 

The best that I can describe my listening preferences is that I focus on "musicality" or whether music sounds coherent and makes sense to my ears. With that as context, these were my perceptions of Qobuz vs Tidal: (Note that your listening preferences may likely differ from mine)

Round 2, Qobuz vs Tidal: So far Qobuz is clearly better than Tidal even listening through pretty cheap desktop passive speakers. Tidal sounds very two dimensional and flat in its sound quality but with some harshness in the high frequencies. I'll listen a bit more to Tidal, but so far I'm not impressed at all. Spotify Premium even seems to sound better than Tidal.

Some additional thoughts about Tidal after listening on higher quality equipment. I think they have applied some equalization to boost the bass and treble. In the process, I think side effects of doing this is to take out some of the presence of voices and instruments and add an artificial quality to voices and instruments.. Qobuz sounds a LOT better. Spotify Premium also sounds better. To my ears at least. (Disclaimer: Your results may vary). I'm currently listening to a track that is a MQA file on Tidal vs a CD quality file on Qobuz. The CD quality file on Qobuz sounds a LOT fuller and more natural.

Not a big fan of hip hop, but decided to listen to something that is squarely in Tidal's area of focus. I listened to 'The Box' by Roddy Ricch which is a MQA file on Tidal and CD quality on Qobuz. Same results. The Qobuz file sounds fuller and has more presence. Almost sounds like two different recordings when listening on Qobuz vs Tidal.

My ranking of the different streaming services I have compared is:

1. Qobuz
2. Primephonic
3. Spotify Premium (320 kbps Ogg Vorbis which is not lossless)
4. IDAGIO
5. Amazon HD
6 Tidal

In theory, Spotify Premium should not sound great since its music files are lossy rather than lossless, but I've found that its weaknesses are 'errors of omission' rather than 'errors of commission'. Music streamed via Spotify sounds quite listenable to me, though perhaps less detailed in its sound than that from other higher res streaming services.

 

Bumping thread to follow up on this/ask a question:

Is connecting an iPhone (12) Via a usb-3 lighting adapter to an integrated amp (in my case a Sprout 100, using its DAC) produce demonstrably worse streaming quality than using a dedicated streamer like a bluesound 2? I’d be using Qobuz, btw.

Being primarily a vinyl listener, I’d rather not spend a lot on a streamer if I can get great sound out of this inexpensive set up. Thanks for any thoughts.

 

Airplay is limited but not USB out. connect usb from your iphone to your DAC and the iphone can output whatever formats your DAC supports from Quboz or amazon.