To all the millinials on the forum, you need to chill and let the "Oom" rant on how he sees things and then I would love to hear your sugesstions, since I don't see why we can't have it all (except vinyl, I cannot in good conscience say vinyl is any good ..... If you love vinyl you need not read further, since I find your taste questionable 
leasant: ).
My CDs aren't going anywhere soon; and with an uptake of less than 17% of streaming services in Asia it's been confirmed that CD manufacturing plants will remain to serve these markets despite Sony's projected closing down of one of the bigger plants by 2023 that serves the US and Europe) as opposed to repairing the fire damage caused this year further chocking the demand for CD.
I suspect they will be busier than anticipated since there is still a huge demand outside of America and Europe for physical media - a lot more than what the influencers wants you to believe.
That being said I do stream.
I define streaming as the digital provision of my own, legally owned content for which I keep physical masters, be it on CD or HDD on an array of servers available at the click of a button. (Take that millenials a physical backup and the flexibility of all your subscription services, owned by me personally with no monthly contracts, I would have thought that we would have learned from the cellphone industry :facepalm: ).
The rest of the fodder such as Roon, Tidal, Qbuzz, MQA, Spotify, Deezer... .and thousands more each charging you from R100 upwards depending on quality to way more than I am willing to spend on a CD rip being fed to me over the internet, I call these subscription services.
The reason for this being we were "streaming" long before any of these subscription services existed and they were only trying to sneak downloads out the same back door as CDs by calling these subscription services "streaming".....to create the illusion as if it still is the same as what you were doing with your downloads all along.
How my current setup works:
So currently all music I own physical or downloaded content are streamed to my DAC over CAT6 from a NAS server in my lounge to a Windows 10 PC (the size of a pack of siggies) behind my DAC in the upstairs music room. This allows me the flexibility of using different software like Foobar, Jriver, Kodi etc.etc. for indexing bit perfect playback and metadata Indexing. Selection happens via an airmouse or windows tablet or phone or small HD display, whatever has an hdmi port.....the sky is the limit. For those concerned with noise from the PC, the PC and DAC are physically seperated and runs from two seperate torroidal power supplies, on the usb the 5V power from the PC powering the DAC chip is isolated, grounded and the data is re-clocked before entering the DAC from the PC. The DAC uses a seperate power supply for the analogue stage all together, so that should satify the "audiophile pc" crowd.
I assume should all privately owned content disappear and I have to pay R100 a month to listen to all the mp3's in the world, I just install Roon or whatever software on said PC and Bobs your uncle?
My problem is this:
Altough I am satisfied and found this the most cost effective and flexible interface for streaming, I need to start duplicating this recipe for my friends and wanted to check with you if I am missing anything that I can get from a much much more expensive product like a Lumin or Aurender or Aurelic? Or are you buying a box containing a DAC, Raspberry Pie and a SSD with some firmware and an app for R100k and call it a streamer!!! I mean a Lumin X1 costs US $14000!!!!
There are a few non-negotiable conditions though:
1. It should not have a DAC The flexibility of changing out or upgrading the DAC must remain.
2. The whole system uses discrete balanced circuitry and therefore any such product should have balanced out.
3. Internal storage is not really a requirement, there is a flexible server solution in place.
4. It should double up as a pre amp since the system already uses a preamp far superior than any streamer in existance, also allowing the flexibility to change.
Comments please, Is my way the best?
How have you implemented it in your system?
Which streamers, Network bridges etc.. brings more to the table than this?
I am looking at the Lumin U1 mini for R35000.00
Thank you I am looking forward to your input :thumbs:
leasant: ).My CDs aren't going anywhere soon; and with an uptake of less than 17% of streaming services in Asia it's been confirmed that CD manufacturing plants will remain to serve these markets despite Sony's projected closing down of one of the bigger plants by 2023 that serves the US and Europe) as opposed to repairing the fire damage caused this year further chocking the demand for CD.
I suspect they will be busier than anticipated since there is still a huge demand outside of America and Europe for physical media - a lot more than what the influencers wants you to believe.
That being said I do stream.
I define streaming as the digital provision of my own, legally owned content for which I keep physical masters, be it on CD or HDD on an array of servers available at the click of a button. (Take that millenials a physical backup and the flexibility of all your subscription services, owned by me personally with no monthly contracts, I would have thought that we would have learned from the cellphone industry :facepalm: ).
The rest of the fodder such as Roon, Tidal, Qbuzz, MQA, Spotify, Deezer... .and thousands more each charging you from R100 upwards depending on quality to way more than I am willing to spend on a CD rip being fed to me over the internet, I call these subscription services.
The reason for this being we were "streaming" long before any of these subscription services existed and they were only trying to sneak downloads out the same back door as CDs by calling these subscription services "streaming".....to create the illusion as if it still is the same as what you were doing with your downloads all along.
How my current setup works:
So currently all music I own physical or downloaded content are streamed to my DAC over CAT6 from a NAS server in my lounge to a Windows 10 PC (the size of a pack of siggies) behind my DAC in the upstairs music room. This allows me the flexibility of using different software like Foobar, Jriver, Kodi etc.etc. for indexing bit perfect playback and metadata Indexing. Selection happens via an airmouse or windows tablet or phone or small HD display, whatever has an hdmi port.....the sky is the limit. For those concerned with noise from the PC, the PC and DAC are physically seperated and runs from two seperate torroidal power supplies, on the usb the 5V power from the PC powering the DAC chip is isolated, grounded and the data is re-clocked before entering the DAC from the PC. The DAC uses a seperate power supply for the analogue stage all together, so that should satify the "audiophile pc" crowd.
I assume should all privately owned content disappear and I have to pay R100 a month to listen to all the mp3's in the world, I just install Roon or whatever software on said PC and Bobs your uncle?
My problem is this:
Altough I am satisfied and found this the most cost effective and flexible interface for streaming, I need to start duplicating this recipe for my friends and wanted to check with you if I am missing anything that I can get from a much much more expensive product like a Lumin or Aurender or Aurelic? Or are you buying a box containing a DAC, Raspberry Pie and a SSD with some firmware and an app for R100k and call it a streamer!!! I mean a Lumin X1 costs US $14000!!!!
There are a few non-negotiable conditions though:
1. It should not have a DAC The flexibility of changing out or upgrading the DAC must remain.
2. The whole system uses discrete balanced circuitry and therefore any such product should have balanced out.
3. Internal storage is not really a requirement, there is a flexible server solution in place.
4. It should double up as a pre amp since the system already uses a preamp far superior than any streamer in existance, also allowing the flexibility to change.
Comments please, Is my way the best?
How have you implemented it in your system?
Which streamers, Network bridges etc.. brings more to the table than this?
I am looking at the Lumin U1 mini for R35000.00
Thank you I am looking forward to your input :thumbs:
