HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

Computer audio - been around for years so should be perfected by now. Every man and his dog seem to be doing it and some claim it is the best way to play digital. There are people however who claim their cd replay is better.

I am a bit old fashioned and a bit of a computer numpty. I have no interest in getting going with computer audio at the moment. Is there something wrong with me ? I seem to have no problem with opening my mind and trying different things with vinyl, cd and amplifiers but i hit a brick wall with streaming etc.

Maybe i just dont trust computers and like simple things that i can have a go at modifying and fixing myself. A computer free life does have a certain charm to it and i use them as little as possible. Should i be worried ?

I find all this digital stuff hard to get to grips with so I prefer to leave it and carry on with my CDs and records. At least when I buy CDs and records the artist gets their dues.

Four years ago I had something of a eurika moment. I bought a Dragonfly DAC, plugged it into the PC and connected it to the amp. I found that I preferred the sound to the CD player, even through Spotify. I have not looked back since, ripping all of my CDs and selling the CD players. The CDs were taking up a great amount of space. I stopped buying vinyl in the mid 80s and it does not take up a lot of space. I spin it from time to time as not everything is in the Tidal catalogue.

I prefer the sound of digital which benefits from a streamer in place of a PC. For well under 2K, DAC and streamer combined, I think I have a very good front end which is considerably enhanced by the NVA kit. There is also the bonus of convenience. I can instantly access more of less everything I want to hear, from Tidal or my NAS, from my phone on the couch. The phone is also the source through head phones or Bluetooth wherever I am. Through a memory card i have downloaded a large quantity of albums so there does not have to be a Wi-Fi connection.

As usual with computer audio, there are those, who would have you believe that it is complex. It doesn't have to be.
I have an AppleTV and an Apple Music subscription. A complete doddle to set up and to use.
Great value at £9.99 a month, ad free.

"Ah but it only streams AAC at 250k so it is crap" say the detractors.

I also agree with the sentiments expressed in the post before mine.
Computer audio is easy enough to try. You may be surprised.

+1
I recently changed my source from CD to NAS-streamer-DAC. I'm moving my CDs to the NAS simply using iTunes and apple lossless format. It's very easy to use, quick access to the music, I'm loving it. The sound quality in my case significantly increased. There is an additional effect for me: my kids are using the hi-fi now via the NAS and via streaming services. I'm happy, that the hi-fi is no more my toy only .

For a long time my stereo equipment was all in storage and all I had was a laptop and headphones - so my interests in digital playback began to focus on that area. It's just another branch of the audio hobby which is always about getting the most pleasure out of your music, innit??

Just don't ask me to set up a TT anymore ...

The Google Chromecast Audio might be worth trying, it'll support FLAC up to 24/96kHz. I use mine with a secondhand DacMagic and the resulting sound is considerably better than any CD player I've had in my system. The Chromecast's own analogue output is no slouch either - and it's only £30, so a cheap way to try it out.

That all said, I have found integration with the Qobuz app to be a bit flakey at times - if the phone or tablet you're using as the control goes to sleep whilst listening, it seems to get a bit confused, either skipping tracks or repeating the one you were listening to, and gapless playback is still problematical (it's 2018 ffs). Hopefully a later software update will sort all these issues out. I suspect Steve's AppleTV is probably the route of least pain!

kellerist wrote: ↑Sat Mar 24, 2018 11:39 am There is an additional effect for me: my kids are using the hi-fi now via the NAS and via streaming services. I'm happy, that the hi-fi is no more my toy only .

Same here, my daughter streams from her iPhone to the system and my wife finds it dead easy to use for internet radio and her own music needs.

My wife streams from my phone when her friends are here. The sound quality has as much to do with it as the convenience.

There are the occasional frustrations with computer audio, but it is much more 'plug & play' than it used to be.

I listen to a lot more new music since I got my NAS / Streamer setup. Hi-Res downloads and Qobuz CD quality streams sound pretty good (the latter a little better than the Orelle CD player I used to own, the former a lot better), there are very decent quality internet radio streams available, plus all my usual favourites, and I can control it all from my laptop or android phone.

I wouldn't be without 'computer audio' now. Fairly low cost, nowadays, to give it a try...

...oh, yes, my partner and kids like it, too.