Streaming advice needed.

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ed
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#76 Re: Streaming advice needed.

Post by ed »

thanks...

totally agree about the zyxel dragging its feet....I still use the SB3 remote sometimes and it's a job to know if the SB3 has actually received the command or if it's working but hasn't responded.....

I will try the Pi just running LMS with Picoreplayer
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#77 Re: Streaming advice needed.

Post by simon »

That is interesting Chris. I've used an RPi as a renderer for quite a while now - dirt cheap way of running a SB setup, though it was a bit of a faff to set up (piCorePlayer v1.8 or something like that). I'm sure I tried it as a LMS server (or whatever it was called at the time) but found it a bit sluggish, so stuck with the Zyxel.

I reconfigured the Pi a couple of weekends ago and updated to 3.22 and it's a dream to setup now. I need another Pi for one of these I've got coming, so maybe I'll try it running LMS first.

https://www.allo.com/sparky-eu/boss-dac.html
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#78 Re: Streaming advice needed.

Post by The Stratmangler »

I've only just become aware of the allo.com stuff - (adopts mock German speaking English voice) zey look very interestink!
Chris :happy3:
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#79 Re: Streaming advice needed.

Post by simon »

Me too to be fair. Whether they're any better than a hifiberry for instance I don't know. But I like the sound of the separate clock. And I should then be able to play native hi res rather than down sampled on the fly for my SB3 and Duet. Will I hear any difference I wonder?
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#80 Re: Streaming advice needed.

Post by The Stratmangler »

I heard an obvious difference when comparing my old SB3 to my Touch - the Touch was much better sounding than the SB3.
And there are plenty of folk on the forums who reckon that the RasPi players sound as good, if not better, than the Touch, so long as you go the extra mile or two with the audio interfaces.

You might be in for a very pleasant surprise :)
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#81 Re: Streaming advice needed.

Post by ed »

The Stratmangler wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:36 am I heard an obvious difference when comparing my old SB3 to my Touch - the Touch was much better sounding than the SB3.
And there are plenty of folk on the forums who reckon that the RasPi players sound as good, if not better, than the Touch, so long as you go the extra mile or two with the audio interfaces.

You might be in for a very pleasant surprise :)

Are you comparing the sb3 and touch when using off board DACs or the native units straight into an amp. I ask because my SB3 is woeful compared to using it with a seperate DAC. Likewise the beaglebone and off board DAC is much better than the SB3 straight into an amp. I struggle to tell the difference between the SB3 and off board DAC and the beaglebone and off board DAC though.....

and then there's the power source thing as well, just to confuse.......My SB3 and cheap off board DAC both with battery power are the best I've heard in my set up.....so many variables oh waily waily
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#82 Re: Streaming advice needed.

Post by The Stratmangler »

The variables are multitude, Ed.

The SB3 v Touch thing is purely subjective observation on my part, but it was analogue outputs on both players, using the same linear PSU switched between players and the same interconnects and amplifier input, so not instant A/B, because of the time taken to swap cabling around and player bootup times.
It was also done using the players as transports, again swapping the linear PSU between them, and into the same DAC input, 'cos my DAC only has one coax SPDIF input.

I heard enough to know that the SB3 was the poor relation.
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#83 Re: Streaming advice needed.

Post by simon »

Interesting observations. I guess that's one reason why I wanted to try a Pi with separate DAC, especially as they're not that expensive.

I've always been a bit wary comparing my SB3 to Duet etc. though - some years ago now Nick upgraded it whilst fixing it so it's not stock :-D. But a SB3/SB3 with DAC/Duet/Duet with DAC/RPi headphone out (not as bad as some say)/RPi with DAC would be a good waste of a few hours :-).
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#84 Re: Streaming advice needed.

Post by simon »

As the DAC didn't arrive for the weekend I set the new model 3 Pi up with LMS and it really does seem slick. I only used it running LMS (with my Zyxel NAS mounted for the music library) and used it as a renderer too with headphones plugged into the audio out, and the web interface response was immediate.

I need to experiment a bit more but I'm tempted to run LMS on a Pi rather than the Zyxel. It's remarkable what a £32 bit of kit is capable of. The audio out isn't bad either - the only obvious problem I heard was a little noise on peaks at full volume.
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