Streaming music that you own.

AllthegearNoidea

I’ve always like owning a physical product and can’t see that changing. 

However, a friend streams all music and I can see the convenience. 

What equipment is needed for a streaming through an existing amp and what is the best storage.  I currently use iTunes to rip my cds for playback from my phone in the car but am getting fed up with the apple Pricing and infrastructure. 

Also any gear reviews? Cambridge Audio cxn looks good but pricey. Qobuz seems interesting as at least I can still buy and own the product. Not to keen on paying for ever to stream. 

Any help appreciated. 

barnstorm

Re. the car, if it has a USB port you could just put a load of music onto a stick and listen that way, or onto a cheap portable player connected to the car with a male/male cable. I did the latter for years to listen to podcasts while I was driving, partly because the player was so much less frustrating to operate (when stationary, of course!) than the car's fiddly audio controls.

FWIW, at home I like the ease of Bluetooth streaming when I'm listening from the computer and not to CDs; sorting out wifi streaming has never seemed worth the hassle, but it might be for you depending on where your computer and hifi are in relation to one another, how you want to control the music, how much of a stickler you are for audio quality, and whether you'd like a multi-room set-up now or in the future.

TTony

There are so many possible answers to that question!

What sort of volumes are you talking about - how many albums/tracks do you own.
What format have they been ripped to.
What do you currently use for storage - are they on a PC/Mac hard drive, or a network drive, etc.
How are they backed up.
Do you use anything other than your phone (and presumably PC/Mac) to listen to your music.
Do you just want to listen via your (hifi?) amp in a single room, or in other rooms around the house.


For hifi playback, I spent ~£150 on a Pi4 with a reasonable DAC card added and 2 x 400Gb micro SD cards.  That's connected to my hifi amp/speakers.  I then use the (free) Volumio app to select music to play, set-up playlists, etc.  That's accessible via any device with a browser.  

But, there are cheaper options - my AV amp is wifi enabled, so could connect to the NAS and play direct from there (though I'd question the quality, and the UI/functionality is nowhere near as good as Volumio).

For more casual playback in other rooms, I use my phone (which has a subset of my music library on a 128gb micro SD card) and a variety of portable speakers - my favourites being a Bose  Soundlink and a Cambridge Audio Minx Go.  Both have bluetooth and 3.5mm input sockets and a decent battery life.  Both of those are quite old now, there are loads of other/newer options available.

iTunes isn't generally well regarded.  There are better/easier options to use that free you from Apple's world.  Look at Media Monkey for example.

Snags

To expand on Tony's response, I've found moodeAudio to be a more stable player on a Pi (as in, Volumio used to crap out regularly for me, and moode hasn't done so once). Obviously mileage varies on this, and Volumio is not insignifcant so probably works well for most.

I've gone a slightly different route - all our music lives on the NAS (a Synology unit, largely because that's what we also use professionally at work), and I have a minimal configuration on the Pi. Music can be pulled from the NAS by the Pi either using the player's web UI (be it moode or Volumio) or using Synology's own audio app from a computer or phone that's on the same network.

We mostly use the Synology app - it's easier to setup play lists on the NAS than on the Pi, so using the NAS controller rather than the Pi one makes most sense.

Doing it that way means you only need to have one copy of all your music on the central device, and you can access it to the hifi, phone, or even when away from home (if everything's turned on and you've configured it appropriately).

Obviously backups are a sensible precaution too, but you don't have to worry about what lay list is on what sub-set of the storage etc. when in use, as you would if running multiple copies on different sticks and drives.

TTony

I tend to use my NAS (Synology again) for periodic back-ups rather than an always-on  device, so it didn't make sense to use that as the primary music source/server in my set-up. 

But, agreed, there are advantages to your approach @Snags if you've got your NAS available 24/7.

The micro-SDs in the Pi also give me another back-up.  It's all on the LAN, so sync'ing new files across the different devices isn't too hard.

Snags

@TTony ; yup, very much horses for courses. Our NAS at home is always-on, because it's the backup target for one of the office systems (and vice versa), so it's also essentially the home file server.

AllthegearNoidea

Thank you for your answers.

I was mainly looking to stream the music I have ripped to the iMac through my existing hifi. Maybe also start buying audio downloads of the same or better quality than my  ripped cd.

The NAS solution would be good for me

Grangousier

If I could interject with the question I was hoping someone would answer (which also might be an answer to @AllthegearNoidea ' s question, I think) - does anyone have a recommendation for something that would run a Plex server with a hard disk can be attached, that can be always on with a relatively low power draw (so not a full-blown computer)? It probably wouldn't need to do any video rejigging on the fly, so would a NAS work?

(Even my venerable Hitachi TV has a Plex app, and it's pretty good at getting decent audio to my hi fi amp.)

Bidley

@Grangousier a NAS would work very well for that, but it would depend on your use case. If you only want to use it to run Plex to serve a single device (your TV for example) then you could get away with a Raspberry Pi and an external HDD. There are also the usual pre-built Synology and QNAP devices as well. Bear in mind that if you're serving video, then Plex will probably need to transcode at some point, more often than not.

The problem is when you want to expand your storage and/or use, then you need something a little more substantial. I use an Asrock SoC which only uses 10-12w under load, but I have 4 disks attached to it and use it to serve music, video and a few other services... The self-hosting rabbit hole can be pretty addictive

Kittyfrisk

AllthegearNoidea said:

Thank you for your answers.

I was mainly looking to stream the music I have ripped to the iMac through my existing hifi. Maybe also start buying audio downloads of the same or better quality than my  ripped cd.

The NAS solution would be good for me

In the spirit of keeping it simple, I'm not sure about your existing hi-fi setup's wireless capability, but have you thought of getting a bluetooth receiver that connects to your amp/receiver & then streaming music to it from the iMac? They cost very little & work well (generally) https://www.amazon.co.uk/bluetooth-hifi-receiver/s?k=bluetooth+hifi+receiver  (for illustration, I'm not affiliated to Amazon).

TheMarlin

I’ve tried a few, and the Bluesound Node 2i sounds fantastic.  Great energetic midrange, gives a lively music presentation, while many sound flat snd 2D. 

I’ve modded mine with a upgrade internal PSU board, amd linea power supply.  Sounds even better now, though also use it with a fantastic DAC. 

I have a family Apple Music account, my kids use it, so have kept that, but I use a Tidal HD account for streaming music to the Node 2i. Am delighted with the result.  Had left my CD player in the dust. 

I still buy abs play a lot of vinyl, right now listening to ‘Board of Canada’ - Tomorrow's Harvest.  A very lovely first pressing.  Sounds superb!

Grangousier

@Bidley - thanks! It's something I've looked into occasionally, but about half an hour in my brain starts to implode.