Hi,
So last November I made the jump from a low-end audio setup consisting of Cambridge Audio Azur 640A, Mordaunt Short Mezzo 2's and an Arcam rDAC to the following:
- Naim Nait 5Si
- Audiolab MDAC+
- DynAudio Emit M20's
- Premium speaker cable
- Chord Interconnect (Entry level one, working to replace this)
All I can say is wow, chuffed to bits with the setup and still amazes me everytime I sit down for a listening session. I have 2 upgrades on the backburner; I want the Naim Hi-Line interconnect (RCA/DIN) but just waiting for a second hand one to come up at half the price. And I've got my eye on a Rel T5i Subwoofer to increase the soundstage.
Now I'm technical by profession, so I have a good understanding of most things but like anything some people go deeper than others and know more about a subject, and I need to tap in to someones deep knowledge to help me reach a conclusion about my dilemma...
So my £2.5k system is driven by a £30 Rasberry Pi 2B+ with £30 Hifi DIGI+ board which provides Optical and Coax out. I installed Rasbian with an open source Airplay implementation called shairport-sync which I'm sure some of you are familar with. Now this was supposed to a stop gap until I could afford something a little more "official" (for want of a better word), but the problem is it sounds pretty terrific and hasn't let me down yet so I'm having a hard time justifying a replacement.
The way my music listening habits have shaped is I now basically listen to Tidal exclusively, and buy the vinyl of albums I really like more as a souvenire than a format to play. I will jump back to Spotify when it goes lossless, but having the freedom of a vast CD quality music collection at my fingertips via a slick app on my iPad Air 2, all wireless not having to move from my sofa, does feel like I really am in the "future".
So the setup goes:
iPad Air2 ---> Tidal Hi-fi ---> Airplay ---> Rasberry Pi ---> Optical to MDAC+ ---> Nait 5Si ---> DynAudio Emit M20's ---> 
And now the Cons, I do get the very very occasional drop out but that I can put that down to a blip on the network, and secondly and probably more annoying is the fact I get a 2-second pause between album tracks. But apart from that, it's pretty flawless. Now all streamers currently on the market start at around the £500 mark and can go into the 1000's. Now I'm expecting to be schooled a little here, but what benefit will a decent streamer give me over what I currently have? Streaming FLAC from Tidal in my mind is requesting a bunch of 1's and 0's from some server farm somewhere, which gets transported over the internet with error correction to my iPad, from the iPad it's streamed lossless over Airplay and then sent optically (no power interference) to my MDAC+ which then does the rest. Now I would like to use the Pi as a streamer with something like Spotify Connect as the delay with Airplay and the gap between album tracks isn't ideal, but I'd like to know what benefit a more expensive streamer will give me over my (Ole Gunnar Solskjaer'esque) Rasberry Pi. If the goal is to transport those FLAC files from the Tidal servers bit-perfect to my setup, it seems like this is working pretty well as it is.
I would like someone to provide some justification as to why a streamer would give a noticable difference in my setup right now. Unless they're doing some signal processing on the FLACs then in theory they should sound the same. The perfect test would be to digitally record the output from the Pi and from a decent streamer and do a bitwise comparison. Has anyone ever tried this?
Anyway thanks for reading and I'll look forward to receiving some much needed advice on this subject.
Regards,
Mike
Posted on: 04 April 2017 by nbpf
Two remarks:
1) if you install upmpdcli (https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/) on the RPi you do not need to stream Tidal via Airplay. upmpdcli supports Tidal and Spotify and you can select Tidal contents via the same control point that you use to access LAN resources. I use Linn Kazoo. This should solve the Tidal streaming issues mentioned in your post. You should be able to further improve the sound quality by installing MinimServer on the Pi and serve locally stored files: just connect a USB drive to one of the Pi ports. In this way the Pi effectively acts as a UPnP server and UPnP renderer.
2) As pointed out by M above, everything makes a difference. This said, I think that the Pi is a perfectly reasonable source. You could replace the DIGI+ with a DIGI+ Pro to take advantage of the two clocks and of the BNC electrical SPDIF output if your DAC supports it. In this case an iFi power supply for the Pi might be a sensible option.
Posted on: 04 April 2017 by Ardbeg10y
Since NBPF suggested, I'm as from today streaming from a Synology Nas into a RPi having a Dragonfly Dac. I have installed today the binaries on RPi which are needed. The URLs provided by NBPF are worth reading and especially the Installation Instructions. There is a Tidal extention you need to install using this command:
sudo apt-get install upmpdcli-tidal
More information on that website, just read well.
Posted on: 04 April 2017 by Innocent Bystander
I can't answer the question 'why' in any definitive way, but different renderers can indeed sound different. I haven't tried RPi, so cannot comment on the difference between that and things I have used, however if you have a Mac it could be worth trying Audirvana for yourself, as it is available for free trial. This renderer manages fantastic sound quality, widely regarded as among the best from a computer, and to my own ears better than Naim's ND5XS, and it does integrate Tidal (including the somewhat dubious MQA option), also some other hi res online streaming options, though I have no experience of tham as I only stream from my own stored music. Best sound quality with AUdirvana is obtained dedicating the Mac to music when playing, shutting down everything else, and setting up a dedicated USB bus for the output to bypass the computer's own soundcard. That could require a USB to spdif or optical converter if your DAC doesn't have a USB input; if your DAC is susceptible to RF (the otherwise excellent Hugo I originally used was) then the optical would be likely to be best, or the DAC has USB input and is susceptible to RF then an isolator would be an alternative.
Posted on: 05 April 2017 by x187lockdown
Thanks all for the responses. I checked out a few of the youtube videos by Hans Beekhuyzen, he really does go under the hood and is very knowledgable. Thanks for pointing me in his direction, I'll be keeping an eye on his channel.
[@mention:23389351206659471] I am going to setup my RPi as you suggested, thanks. I've been looking for an alternative to Airplay and this seems ideal for now.
[@mention:1566878603876139] This is the impression I was getting too. It doesn't seem like a market that is flourishing with options right now. I did like the look of the Auralic mini but it doesn't have Spotify Connect, and not to mention is £500.
[@mention:41551091830475636] One of my options before the RPi was to get a Mac mini and set it up as you suggested. Again, it was a lot more expensive even second hand, so I never got round to it.
The Pi is proving is very sticky. In your humble opinions do you think it's a worthwhile upgrade to get the the Hifi-berry DIGI+ Pro? The MDAC+ doesn't have a BNC input but the Pro does have 2 seperate oscillators for 44.1Khz and 48Khz and allows connectivity of a separate power supply (don't know if this makes any difference when using optical).
Posted on: 05 April 2017 by nbpf
...
The Pi is proving is very sticky. In your humble opinions do you think it's a worthwhile upgrade to get the the Hifi-berry DIGI+ Pro? The MDAC+ doesn't have a BNC input but the Pro does have 2 seperate oscillators for 44.1Khz and 48Khz and allows connectivity of a separate power supply (don't know if this makes any difference when using optical).
I do not know whether it is worth upgrading to the DIGI+ Pro, it very much depends on your downstream system and budget. A separate PSU and the BNC connector require anyway some soldering.
I would personally first focus on the software and consider hardware upgrades later. Once your system is stable and you are happy with your configuration, do not forget to make a backup image of your micro SD card! To this end and for a dedicated music server, it makes sense to use a small (8GB should be fine) micro SD cards and store your music collection on an external drive.
Posted on: 05 April 2017 by nbpf
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[@mention:1566878603876139] This is the impression I was getting too. It doesn't seem like a market that is flourishing with options right now. I did like the look of the Auralic mini but it doesn't have Spotify Connect, and not to mention is £500.
...
There is also the Bryston BDP-Pi digital player for a little bit more than 1000$ . It is based on the Raspberry Pi and on a HIFIBerry board. I think it is a very nice option for those of us who do not want to setup a server themselves.
I myself prefer setting up my own minimal headless system with no GUI and take advantage of rsync scripts for fast and flexible data transfer and backup to/from my music server. By the way, MinimServer + upmpdcli + Linn Kazoo give you also access to internet radio apart from Tidal and Spotify.
