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Pandora One on Home Audio System

Sorry if this has been covered before. I tried doing a search but couldn't find relevant threads.

My home system is relatively modest: An NAD C 725BEE receiver driving vintage JSE Infinite Slope Model 1.2's.

We are playing Pandora through an iPod and the NAD IPD 2 dock.

We've upgraded to Pandora One, but can't get the higher bitrate audio through the iPod (or even the 128k). We don't really want to hook up a laptop or PC to the system.

What device can receive the Pandora One and other streaming music services at maximum bitrate through our home network? It would be easy to run an Ethernet cable to the receiver if wireless won't do.

My budget isn't unlimited but I want the best sound possible through the rest of my system.

Thanks in advance.
nicholas_fivepennies
nicholas_fivepennies OP
13 posts
 
What I like about Pandora is how their algorithm serves up the music. I can listen to a station all day without repeat songs and enjoy nearly everything played. There's not a human DJ on Earth that can do better. I do wish they'd offer a higher bitrate service. I'm paying $36/year now and would gladly pay more for better quality tracks.

I have played some FLAC files through the Stream Magic 6 and realize there is so much more to be heard with better sources.

I'm sure these services will continue to evolve.

Thanks for the input.
onemug
784 posts
 
Me too. It's why I keep paying for it.

MOG has something similar called MOG Radio. You can select an artist, hit the radio button and a slider pops up. All the way to the left is "that artist only", all the way to the right and it's "similar artists". You can put the slider anywhere in between to weigh it either way.
nicholas_fivepennies OP
13 posts
 
Sounds good. I played with MOG on my laptop with its crummy speakers until I ran out of free songs. I'll probably sign up for their free trial and check it out but I'd have to hook up my laptop through the Stream Magic because it doesn't have MOG (or Spotify) yet. They say they're working to add Spotify. I'll have to bug them about MOG. I'm also giving Rhapsody (which it supports) a test drive. They stream at 192 kbps.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
I have an iPod system that is killer good:

First, get an iPod digital dock - Pure i20

Then add Synchro-Mesh reclocker to reduce jitter

Then add a good DAC like the Metrum Octave or Hex.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
b_limo's avatar
b_limo
2,271 posts
 
Nicholas, it looks like your original nad ipod dock doesnt bypass the dac in the ipod. If you get a dock that bypasses the ipod doc, and hook it up to a good external dac and stream mog or spotify premium, you'll be happy imho. I bought pandora one at the same time as spotify premium and hardly ever use pandora one because spotify sounds better (very close to cd's ran through an external dac). You could get an ipod dock, like the one mentined above and get a good external dac, pay for a mog or spotify premium subscription, and you'd get better sound than you have now, again, imho :-)
Good luck!!
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