2. pc-audio
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when did it all get so complicated?

it was about 8 or 10  years ago that i spent considerable brain power upgrading my system.....now i am doing it again in a smaller space - bought a croft integrated phono and lots of hand wringing there getting the damn TT to work.......then I was delighted to find that tidal now has a huge library of cd quality music (and beyond quality wise but i dont need more)

 

All I want to do is find a player (streamer?) that would allow me to sit at my desk and stream good new tunes through the croft and the pmc monitors.....i was hoping there would be a simple little box that did this....Wow 4 internet days later and i know nothing other than what the flying F is rpi doing in simple streaming threads.....i sort of think the allo boss2 is the answer but i have to say bibi to the nice tidal website interface.  moode.......what the hell is moode.

 

i want to noodle around tidal or qobuz website and hit play and thats it.....no NAS no multi room... if i like it i buy an album....jeez the industry looks like its actively trying to get in the way of listening to music to sell unnecessary software and hardware. bummer.

I guess ill just enjoy tidal on my bowers and wilkins mm1's (not bad) unless -  you dear reader, you .......unless you can help - 1 device - just one, plugged into the back of a croft integrated controlled by my desktop (ok or an old ipad)

in the end the laptop plugged into a dac route seems by far the best ive seen so far - sad.

 

 

rand24us
noromance's avatar
noromance
9,404 posts
 

If you have a headphone jack on your computer, you can just use a 2.5mm jack to RCA cable to the Croft.

reubent
6,935 posts
 

Don’t know what you’re so worked up about. It’s pretty simple really. You said:

1 device - just one, plugged into the back of a croft integrated controlled by my desktop (ok or an old ipad)

Any streamer that has a built-in DAC will do that. The most common recommendation is BlueSound Node. Plug it into the Croft, use your desktop (or iPad) to control the Node. Stream your choice of music streaming services, such as Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify, etc).

Personally, I use a simple streamer I built using a Raspberry Pi 3+ computer board, with a HiFi Berry Dac+ Pro DAC/Hat, running Volumio OS. Yes, it is more complicated than the dedicated BlueSound Node, but it’s also less expensive. The Allo Boss II is a similar, but pre-built Raspberry Pi based streamer, but they push the Moode OS instead of the Volumio OS I’m using. I previously used Moode and did not care for it.

Anyway, it’s not that complicated. If you want simple, just get the BlueSound Node and plug it into your Croft and control it with your desktop or iPad.

 

danager's avatar
danager
871 posts
 

To run Tidal on a Volumio RPI you need to subscribe to the Volumio Service. Spotify you can use the free version. Tidal does sound slightly better but Spotify has more selection at a lower cost.

The other option is to purchase a dedicated pc to control your dac and then use Remote PC to control it.  That was the best solution for me.

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