[mbphotox]

Looking for a solution to stream to my Zeppelin Air and active studio monitors.

First system is a HTPC in the living room (no dedicated soundcard), with a pair of active Yamaha HS5, using an Art DTI to filter the ground hum and beeping and screaching from the computer.

Second is a B&W Zeppelin Air (2nd gen, the one with dock) in my bedroom.


I have an aux cable on the zeppelin, on my active monitors, and on my aristaios headphone amp at my desktop computer, so I can use my FiiO X5II or the Cowon J3 as a source.



What I would like most, is the following:
A digital streamer in the living room, where I can connect my external hard drives and the Yamahas (minus the need for the DTI interface).
That streamer should be controllable via an Android app, yet be able to stream Apple Airplay to my Zeppelin, so I could listen to music from the living room while in bed on my smartphone controlling the streamer.


Does it need balanced outputs to my studio speakers? Not sure.

Does it need a fancy super summit-end DAC? Definitely not!

I'd rather it be ugly as hell with simple connectors and no fancy snake oil stuff.
The Zeppelin sounds awesome, but not analytic, and I can't - for the love of god - tell the difference between my FiiO and the Cowon connected to the awesomely analytic Yamaha studio monitors, so I really don't need high end.


I guess, there's no way to also get the signal to my headphone amp at the work computer (in the same apartment as the rest), so I'll keep that system untouched for now.. Maybe, some day, I'll move it to the living room and then it would be great if the streamer could feed both the speakers and the headphone amp together ...


I also have tons more gear thats currently in storage (turntable, passive speakers, more studio monitors (for surround), a Pioneer AV Amp, large tube amp, etc.), so in the future, I would prolly want to let the streamer feed my AV amp and spread that signal from there.




I hope, this isn't too confusing, but I'm really confused myself, with this, completely new to me, market.


Cheers

 

[tomb]

No offense, but I think you need "a fancy super summit-end DAC."

One of those ground-loop breakers is not something that's going to clean up all the noise from a PC internals. They're simply not made for that.

 

[mbphotox]

@tomb Thanks, I already figured that out.

I guess, that's why I want my harddisks connected to the streamer via USB and NOT use my computer to stream the music..

And no, I really don't need a "great DAC", because I, as I stated before, cannot really hear a difference between the lowly Cowon J3 and the midrange FiiO X5 II, despite the FiiO sucking so much power that the battery is eaten up ten times faster at the same volume.


When I move the next time, I'll be able to connect my computer via Hdmi to the AV amp again, eliminating all the computer jitter and annoyance at once.
Right now, the DTI is enough to grant me some quality time with Netflix and co., but I want to be able to enjoy music at a low volume too.

So, I'm not looking for a DAC, but a streamer solution. (Which contains a DAC, I understand..)
Unfortunately, headfi doesn't allow you to change the title of a thread after posting.

 

[tomb]

Well, I'm in the camp that believes a streamer box is about the equivalent of a high-fidelity component CD Recorder: a ripoff compared to a simple PC with a CD burner. Check into a NAS box - pretty much more functionality at less cost (no DAC, but then most streamers don't have them, either, I think). Yeah, maybe it's a bit more inconvenient, but a much better value.

Keep listening to those headphones and you'll begin to notice differences in DACs - as long as you're not degrading the sound everywhere by pumping it through one of those ground loop devices.

 

[mbphotox]

Did you even read my post?

I'm not looking for a streamer for my headphones..
The streamer is supposed to feed my studio monitors (that I've been listening to for a decade now!) and stream via Wifi (apple airplay, damn) to my Zeppelin air speaker (which is about as fancy as an iDock can get, but I got it at a hundred bucks and really love the style/sound this puts out.)

The NAS won't do that and usually costs a shitload of money, then won't even bring along a DAC, android app to control the music player, etc.

I guess, I'm looking for something like this, but cheaper still: https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/bluesound-node-2i


If you have golden ears, congrats to you. I'm afraid, I don't. (Although, I do hear a huge amount of differences in headphones. Therefore, that's where my money ends up going. Not into crap I cannot for the love of god find any benefit in wasting money for...)

 

[mbphotox]

I continued my search on my own and realised that I probably won't need a streamer at all.

My AV-receiver is a Pioneer SC-LX57 (https://www.whathifi.com/pioneer/sc-lx57/review) that will do perfectly fine, I guess

The AVR plays from USB, can stream to Airplay, has an app to control it.. Also, there's no nasty humming from the computer and it feeds my HS5 via the pre-Outs..

Damn my gear lust that I never thought about this.