Streamer and subscriptions: How are you streaming music?

[catmorry]

Qobuz for me & squeezebox boom & radios round house running of off lms on raspberry pi, they are cheap as chip's on ebay & sound great for the size of them

 

[Alex Ferguson]

While I enjoy listening to vinyl, I also stream music in various ways. We have HEOS for our whole-house background music, but we use Roon (Nucleus One) with subs to Tidal and Qobuz for more serious listening. The main listening and theater room uses a StormAudio MK3 processor. Other listening rooms have a WiiM Ultra and Eversolo DMP-A6 to access Roon. We have Amazon Music Unlimited, but we rarely use it. I've tried iTunes, but I've stuck mostly with Tidal and Qobuz due to my Roon lifetime subscription and how well it organizes and integrates our local music with the streaming music library. Now that I'm retired, discovering new music and rediscovering old music has never been more fun.

How about you... if you stream music, what streamers and subscriptions do you use?

Hi Sonnie,
Thanks for the offer to participate.
I too enjoy vinyl but find that I use it less since the advent of streaming. I have Stereo Sonos Play 5s in the bedroom and a couple of endpoints in other rooms but I mainly use a roon subscription to stream Qobuz to my roon certified Devialet dual mono amps.
i can control the Mk1 Sonos gear through roon, but can’t group them with my main system, which I don’t find too much of a hardship.
I too love the way roon integrates my library with Qobuz content and presents it to me in a format like a magazine with hyperlinks.
i went for a lifetime subscription back in 2017 for $500, which was equal to £360 where I live is the best upgrade to my listening experience I could have made for the money.
Congratulations on your retirement, I retired last year so I’m doing the same as you, by the sound of it. Having fun!

 

[Aburguy]

I use Apple Music as I have it bundled other products. I do really like it, but I sadly don’t listen often with my main system despite the great sound. It’s usually in my vehicle or more likely with my AirPod pros while walking.

 

[edloura]

While I enjoy listening to vinyl, I also stream music in various ways. We have HEOS for our whole-house background music, but we use Roon (Nucleus One) with subs to Tidal and Qobuz for more serious listening. The main listening and theater room uses a StormAudio MK3 processor. Other listening rooms have a WiiM Ultra and Eversolo DMP-A6 to access Roon. We have Amazon Music Unlimited, but we rarely use it. I've tried iTunes, but I've stuck mostly with Tidal and Qobuz due to my Roon lifetime subscription and how well it organizes and integrates our local music with the streaming music library. Now that I'm retired, discovering new music and rediscovering old music has never been more fun.

How about you... if you stream music, what streamers and subscriptions do you use?

Good night, Mr Parker.

I'm not streaming music - I don't need: I have all my vinyl records and CD's with me at home.

 

[Jacques Bournival]

I'm curious - are you able to discern a notable difference between lower hi-res and higher hi-res (192kHz, for example)? Or do you buy those higher res purely for the sake of having the best possible quality?

Not judging - just curious. I know for me, when it comes to movies, I want to opt for the best possible version even if I know the difference between it and, say, a Blu-ray version are minimal.

I can hear a difference between 44/48KHz and 96kHz, but not between 96 and 192KHz. But, most 96 and 192 KHz are usually remasters of former 44 KHz albums. The remastering process to 96/192KHz, usually from master studio tapes, improves the quality of the final product no matter the sampling freq.

 

[Steve-Att]

I'm more a Movies guy nowadays. I have Apple Music and stream that via an ATV 4K thru a Denon 4700 and also via my vintage Pioneer SX-737 using a SONOS Port. With some 4-6K hearing loss and constant tinnitus thanks to that, this works good enough for me. 500 CDs are mostly out of plastic and in large storage books and I still have some 1950's-60's-70's-80's vinyl I can play if the mood requires (rarely does).

 

[Willyspu]

Can you elaborate a little more on the seven WiiM units? Do you have seven Buckeye amps powering KEF speakers in seven areas?

I use 2 of the Buckeye Hypex NC252MP 8 channel amps. Depending on the zone I have KEF in wall or outdoor speakers. We recently had a new home built so all speakers are wired. All equipment is located in a ventilated closet in my home office.

 

[ddude003]

I have used a Lumin U1 mini streamer and Qobuz with Audirvana Studio for several years now... Tried Tidal and did not like the sound back when it first came out... I also had a subscription to Roon which did not offer support for VST plugins which I use for DSP Room Correction and various EQ type plugins... I can control and stream from various cell phones, laptops and desk sides... Life is good...

 

[CAAudiophile]

In the dedicated music room I have not gotten into streaming with subscription yet. Still looking for a decent streaming device that support Qobuz. Once in a while I listen to TuneIn built in with my Sony server HAPZ1 ES. The sound quality is not bad, but I still want to compare it with higher end subscription music just to hear the difference if there is any. My Sony HAP Z1 ES has great sound with the downloaded CD into it's hard drive.
In our living room via Yamaha AVR Receiver we steam Pandora a lot which we love with KEF speakers.

 

[jmf11]

I appreciate music, but have a DIY, open source, audiophile (more audio tech curious), bias toward DSPed active speakers and possibly room correction. This drives part of the audio chain with need to implement multi channels filtering.

As of today, I use Moode with Camilla DSP on a RaspberryPi driving either LX mini or KH80 and subwoofer.

I have a Qobuz subscription for the Hires and editorial content.

Unfortunatly, the link between Qobuz and Moode with Upnp is not existing. From the Android devices, I use BubbleUpnp to bridge from Qobuz to Moode. From the PC I finally listen with the "local" Headphone (AKG K1000).

So OK, but not perfect.

JMF

 

[Calypso]

In the dedicated music room I have not gotten into streaming with subscription yet. Still looking for a decent streaming device that support Qobuz. Once in a while I listen to TuneIn built in with my Sony server HAPZ1 ES. The sound quality is not bad, but I still want to compare it with higher end subscription music just to hear the difference if there is any. My Sony HAP Z1 ES has great sound with the downloaded CD into it's hard drive.
In our living room via Yamaha AVR Receiver we steam Pandora a lot which we love with KEF speakers.

Not sure this helps but you can stream these services directly from the Eversolo app (Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music, TuneIn Radio, Deezer, Apple Music, and Internet Radio). If that is not enough, side load other apps, such VLC, YouTube, SiriusXM, and many more.

 

[socbutter]

My streamer is Nvidia Shield Pro using my UNRAID NAS and Spotify as source.

 

[austinblackboxspace]

While I enjoy listening to vinyl, I also stream music in various ways. We have HEOS for our whole-house background music, but we use Roon (Nucleus One) with subs to Tidal and Qobuz for more serious listening. The main listening and theater room uses a StormAudio MK3 processor. Other listening rooms have a WiiM Ultra and Eversolo DMP-A6 to access Roon. We have Amazon Music Unlimited, but we rarely use it. I've tried iTunes, but I've stuck mostly with Tidal and Qobuz due to my Roon lifetime subscription and how well it organizes and integrates our local music with the streaming music library. Now that I'm retired, discovering new music and rediscovering old music has never been more fun.

How about you... if you stream music, what streamers and subscriptions do you use?

we utilize apple music to stream in the vehicles and at home. we will use spotify or youtube only if an lp isn’t available via apple music. cheers.

 

[wus]

How about you... if you stream music, what streamers and subscriptions do you use?

No subscriptions, saves money

I stream only what is availabe for free, using computer, smartphone, a webradio (from Technisat) and HEOS on the Denon AVR X4500H, from sources like Youtube, Soundcloud and webradio stations, via TuneIn.

 

[DavidPlatt]

I don't have any subscriptions for music. I really don't care for the fact that music I've subscribed to, can suddenly go away if the streaming service shuts down or if they lose their license to the content. I'd rather pay more up front for things I like well enough to listen to, and know that it's mine for life.

My on-the-NAS audio library consists of ripped copies of almost all of the CDs that my wife and I own, some LPs I've transferred myself, and a bunch of digital downloads I've purchased through Bandcamp and Qobuz. The NAS in question is a multi-purpose Linux server in the garage. I store and stream everything in FLAC (have Ogg Vorbis versions I can put on a phone if I want portability at reduced storage size).

I've got three music systems in the house which can access it. The living room system runs MPD on an Odroid-N2+. The bedroom system runs MoodeAudio on a Pi 2B. My engineering mancave system runs Strawberry on Linux, outputting to an old AV receiver.

One of the things I've enjoyed most about having my library on-line in the house, is putting the software into "pick things at random" mode, and listening to whatever tracks it throws up. There's a lot of tasty stuff in the collection I might never think to play if I had to make selections manually.

 

[frangle]

I'm curious - are you able to discern a notable difference between lower hi-res and higher hi-res (192kHz, for example)? Or do you buy those higher res purely for the sake of having the best possible quality?

Not judging - just curious. I know for me, when it comes to movies, I want to opt for the best possible version even if I know the difference between it and, say, a Blu-ray version are minimal.

Me, no. I think that most professionals stop at 24bit 48kHz post editing for a reason. When I ripped my SACDs, I converted a number to 192kHz PCM and ran tracks through audio analyzer software and found that few had meaningful spectral content above 20kHz. As we can't hear anything at these frequencies anyway, the argument is about aliasing effects from poorly filtered streams sampled at frequencies near to twice the limit of hearing. I can only see that you might hear a problem from a 44.1/48kHz sampled file if any DACs in your equipment path don't oversample and have really poorly conceived filtering.

However, I also think it is hard to make subjective judgements about this, so it makes sense to go for something that you are confident isn't going to introduce a problem into your audio path (so avoid highly compressed MP3, etc). In my experience, after you eliminate background noise, being blocked up with a cold, by far the biggest factors affecting quality are the recording and mixing practices employed.

 

[cgnavarro]

I use both QOBUZ and my own libraries by UPNP/DLNA (ca. 8 TB in several HDDs). In my main system, the current streamer/DAC for stereo music is an Eversolo DMP A6 (although I also have a miniPC with JRiver connected to the Eversolo that I use sometimes). For multichannel, the A6 is the streamer and a Denon AVR X3700H (connected to the A6 by HDMI) is used as multichannel DAC. In my secondary, the streamer is JRiver in a PC and a CA DacMagic 200M as DAC.

 

[JNievesMD]

Roon Lifetime (from back when it was cheaper) on an M2 Mac mini with Tidal and Qobuz. My own stuff is on a Synology NAS. Airport Express throughout the house, Strawberry Pi running Ropieee for the nice listening room. I grew up with vinyl but abandoned it for good when CDs came out. Never missed the clicks and pops.

 

[CAAudiophile]

Not sure this helps but you can stream these services directly from the Eversolo app (Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music, TuneIn Radio, Deezer, Apple Music, and Internet Radio). If that is not enough, side load other apps, such VLC, YouTube, SiriusXM, and many more.

Thank you for the suggestions however I don't use my phone as a source and cannot download Apps to the SONY HAPZ1 ES it is like a sealed box.

 

[capoalex]

Hello to everybody, up to recently I did not use any streaming at all, having lots of CD/SACD/BD and digital files.
Recently however I found that HIRES quality of TIDAL and QOBUZ has improved, and the immediate availability of new releases makes them attractive .
Coming to the HW I use mainly a digital streamer (CAMBRIDGE 851N) connected to TIDAL with the STREAMMAGIC app.
I also have a MARANTZ preamp (8805A) able to stream through HEOS, but found the app is less practical.
What both cannot do is streaming DOLBY ATMOS titles (available in TIDAL): I checked with Marantz and for the moment no multichannel streaming is available with my preamp.

 

[phillihp23]

Primarily Sirius xm for the car and house over HEOS. Also use pandora and Amazon free versions. But as for buying….i still buy cds. Just can’t see purchasing an album unless i physically own it.

 

[PeterP]

I just replaced my old bluesound node and pi-core player combination with a NUC(mini pc) running Daphile streamer outputting to a Topping E50 DAC.
Like most it seems, I have ripped my old CD & SACD collection to a NAS drive to play around the house.
Now I look for places offering albums in DSD format if possible, or spend time rummaging through the local thrift shops on there clearance weekends when they dump CDs at 3 for 1$.
Daphile has a nice built in CD ripper which helps streamline the process of adding new albums to the NAS, .
I won't pay for any subscription services music, tv or anything else. Do have amazons free service but it is not so great.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Somewhat belated addition to this thread:

In general I only stream from my own stored music - indeed that is all I normally play, having long since ripped my vinyl and CDs, now buying either by download or CD and rip. This is because I want to be certain the music I love is and will always be available, through internet outages, streamimg service providers’ catalogue changes, licensing or business model changes. I also have a rooted objection to subscription services, preferring to own where I can. The only online streaming I do is to sample new music. From free services, generally Spotify, sometimes Bandcamp or Youtube.

I currently use Audirvana on a Mac Mini, feeding direct to Chord Dave DAC (no network involved).

 

[herbie]

We use Roon with subscriptions to Tidal and Qobuz. The chain consists of an iMac connected to several Audio Ethernet switches, Nucleus+, Lumin U1 and U2, Chord Hugo TT2 DAC and several different amplifiers. Speakers are WOLF VON LANGA ULTIMA. Discovering new music and rediscovering old music has never been more fun.