Pro-ject Stream Box DS

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Ray P
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#1 Pro-ject Stream Box DS

Post by Ray P »

The Pro-ject Stream Box DS arrived this morning.

First impressions - it is smaller than I imagined. It has that 'well built' weight to it and the finish isn't bad at all, except for the wall wart power supply, which is, well, a wall wart power supply!

I had it connected wirelessly to my network within a few minutes of taking it out of the box and without reference to the manual so pretty simple to set up. Did a firmware update without any hitches.

First little foible - I unplugged it to connect it into the system only to find it had lost its wep key and default media server settings; it doesn't retain tham if you turn it off. Likewise the clock settings.

Having reconfigured it I just had time to listen to two tracks before I was beckoned - this was through my RAKK DAC, not the onboard DAC, which I've not tried. I played two Kate Bush tracks; first was from Aerial, ripped from CD as 16bit 44.1KHz FLAC, and it sounded pretty good; second was a track from 50 Words for Snow, downloaded from HD Tracks as 24bit 96KHz FLAC, which played wirelessly without a problem and sounded good too.

Second little foible - I had to use the supplied remote control to select the music as, at present neither PlugPlayer or ELyric see the Stream Box as a media renderer.

I'll sit down and try to do some serious, comparative listening later today.

Already working on getting a decent linear power supply for it.

Ray
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Ray P
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#2

Post by Ray P »

Foible #2 now resolved - I powered off/on my iPhone and both PlugPlayer and eLyric see the Stream Box as a media renderer.

Ray
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#3

Post by Ray P »

I've had a slightly more extended listen now, about an hour earlier this afternoon. I didn't want to stop listening as it really is very good. I did a quick comparison of a CD and a FLAC rip by swapping the digital coax cable between my Sony SACD player and the Stream Box and the Stream Box shades it, there seemed to be a bit more texture to the music via the Stream Box.

Ray
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Ali Tait
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#4

Post by Ali Tait »

Did you have a Touch Ray? How does it compare?
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Ray P
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#5

Post by Ray P »

Ali Tait wrote:Did you have a Touch Ray? How does it compare?
I can't really say how they compare as I hadn't commissioned my RAKK DAC when I had my SB Touch.

What I can say is that via my DAC the overall sound is very, very good. I'm hearing things that I hadn't really noticed before, even on SACD, and the sound is very smooth but full-bodied. I think that I may have a candidate for one of those magic moments that you guys talked about after the last meeting and some competition for those top-notch analogue sources. 24bit 96KHz FLAC files are wonderful.

And, this is still with a wall wart power supply and a wireless network connection (no cabled network in the listening room yet) and I think I should be able to elevate it even further with the I2S interface to my DAC.

Ray
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#6

Post by Ray P »

Oh, but I have got foible #3 - the player does gapless playback but on some tracks it truncates the very end of the track. I'll need to investigate this further, especially as I prefer a short gap between tracks.

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#7

Post by Ray P »

Foible #3 is proving to be a killer, it is so irritating when the next track starts before the current one finishes, even if it is only a few seconds. It might just have to go back! Grrrr!!!!

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andrew Ivimey
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#8

Post by andrew Ivimey »

foible #3 is ridiculous - maybe a 'shuffle' setting gone wrong???

onwards!
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#9

Post by Spark58 »

Ray P wrote:Foible #3 is proving to be a killer, it is so irritating when the next track starts before the current one finishes, even if it is only a few seconds. It might just have to go back! Grrrr!!!!

Ray
Hi, apparently this gear does not provide gappless playback over control
point interface but only over IR pilot. Have a look at the product information:

"GAPLESS all audio formats (using IR control) "

I tested this streamer couple days ago and found the sound (over internal DAC) flat and lacking dynamics (btw, I noticed that analogue output provide only 1V which is very low in comparison to the "standard" >2V).
I tried also over external DAC (old MF 21 DAC Trivista) and it was much, much better.
Unfortunatelly, lack of gappless playback over Iphone / IPAD makes it unacceptable IMO.
Otherwise, this renderer coupled with good external DAC (e.g. Hegel HD11) would be (price & SQ) interesting alternative to Naim / Linn DS.
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Ray P
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#10

Post by Ray P »

I no longer own a Pro-ject Stream Box DS; it was returned for a refund before Christmas,

Using its SPDIF output into my RAKK DAC, the sound was really very good, however....

Foible #3 - the inadequate implementation of gapless playback (or more correctly the inadequate implementation of playlists) on the Stream700 module made it unsuitable for my purposes (basically, if you try to use it with a DLNA controller - I used PlugPlayer - tracks are truncated by the premature start of the next track, which means you have to select tracks using the little remote control, which means you have to be able to read the screen on the front of the Stream Box - I couldn't from my listening seat). I imagine the Musical Fidelity M1 Clic will exhibit the same behaviour as it uses the same streaming module.

Anyway, despite the promising sound quality I decided not to continue with it. Options with this sort of streaming client approach seem to be along the lines of saving for a Linn DS or to re-assess my approach and seek an alternative route - I decided on the latter after some research and I'll open another thread about where I'm going.

Ray
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