Good food for thought, @gruvjet . Thank you!
Pandora again, and now Spotify too...
For the last several years we have been streaming happily Pandora and Spotify (along with Qobuz) on an LMS (Logitech Media Server) streamer (Magna HiFi Mano Ultra), with an RME DAC, on our decent home stereo system. Recently LMS became Lyrion, and the plugins which enabled Pandora and Spotify access and streaming became inoperational with no substitutes or remedies that I can find. Qobuz is still streaming fine, but it is my understanding that perhaps due to artist royalty issues the only way to stream Pandora and Spotify in their top native resolutions is via their apps or when logged in directly to their sites via a browser.
I found no audio streamers or platforms (e.g., Roon, Jplay) which support these two services. Could not even ask the question on the Volumio site without a subscription...
First of all please correct me if I'm wrong... I'd love to be wrong here.
However, if I'm right, I am coming to the conclusion that the only way to stream these two services at their best quality (with no upsampling from USB) on our system is to stream them on a computer with a good sound card which has digital coax output which I would route to my DAC.
If the latter makes sense to anybody, can you please recommend a good sound card and basic computer, I assume a Windows desktop it can be installed in. Would love to use a Mac but am not aware of any current "open chassis" models which would accept a separate sound card.
Any thoughts and ideas are appreciated!
Cheers, Yoram
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I use Pandora FREE, to find similar artists I am unaware of. USB out of home computer to Inexpensive Topping DAC to line input of Office Music System which sounds darn good. Sounds very enjoyable. You do NOT need HQ to enjoy while working, and when something interesting comes on, it gets your attention. I have a LOT of 'Stations', and sometimes use 'Shuffle Stations'. |
My wife loves Pandora and even though there are alternatives that sound better, I have not been able to convert her. You can find a Wyred4Sound modded Sonos Port and it handles Pandora well. Upgrade the cable between it and your dac and suddenly its pretty darn good. When I'm listening critically, I use my Innuos. When she listens, she uses the Sonos and just changes the input on the DAC. Happy listening! |
That is not at all uncommon - many people prefer the sound of low resolution, dynamically compressed, limited frequency range recordings. Lossy compression algorithms use perceptual coding and are very sophisticated, and can sound more "lively" and punchy than higher resolution recordings. I know that sounds odd to many of us audiophiles, but some listeners enjoy the sound of these lossy files so much that they actually believe they are hi-res - and they defend their preference mightily! See this messy thread, for example. However, there is no need to defend preference. There is no wrong "preference." Whatever your wife enjoys is what she enjoys. |
We are streaming Qobuz on our decent system and have been streaming Pandora and Spotify on it until recently. Of course we also stream all three from our iPhones via bluetooth in the cars and on portable speakers. We have premium subscriptions to all three and have each set to its max resolution as supported by the equipment. We hear and appreciate the superior sound quality of Qobuz on our system. We also hear the lower resolution of Pandora. We do not love the lower resolution, but we love Pandora because of the quality of its artist/genre "extrapolating" algorithm. We have not tried the features in Qobuz or Spotify which claim a similar function, and will do so based on the good suggestions in this thread. So far I can say that we are not impressed with the Spotify feature "recommendations for you" or some such that appends new tracks to a playlist we have created, tracks which to us often miss the point. |
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