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ATM Streaming hi fi equipment

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I know nothing much about hi fi but I do have a really nice pair of Kef speakers. What do I need to stream? A streamer with an amp? I really don’t know where to start … I have a Mac computer. TIA

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  1. Wiim – either to plug into an existing amplifier (Mini, Pro, Pro Plus) or with built in amplifier (Wiim Amp Pro etc). Both are great value for money and well reviewed. I have a Wiim Pro which I like a lot but wish I’d got the Pro Plus – cos Im that kind of guy.

  2. I have a Wiim Ultra, does the streaming part very well and is fairly affordable. I use powered amplified speakers with it, but have heard good things about Fiio K11 R2R as a reasonably priced high performing DAC.

    • I’ve heard good things about the Fiio too. It’s certainly cheap for a R2R dac. Interestingly I heard they are offering a tweaked version with a tube buffer. I imagine they will be claiming this will warm up the sound to bring it closer to a more ‘analog’ sound.

        • I’m sure @fentonsteve will be along shortly to give a more detailed answer, but I actually do know what this means – one of the few things that I actually remember from my time studying electronics a Uni (it may have helped that my final year project was related to ADC/DAC implementation).

          Anyway, an R2R DAC uses a resistor ladder network consisting of resistors of values R and 2R (you can see where they get the name). This basically creates an output that is proportional to the digital input signal. This results in a more analogue type conversion (which hi-fi types say gives a warmer sound). The downside is they are more expensive to produce due to the need to match the R values precisely.

          The other way to do DACs is Delta Sigma which involves lots of oversampling and feedback loops (which I used to understand, but almost 40 years later is now a bit mind boggling). These are much cheaper to produce and used in most consumer electronics and produce a much more clinical sound.

          • Yes. The very first CD players used the 14-bit Philips TDA1540 resistor-ladder Digital to Analogue Convertor chip and they have a sound of their own.

            Philips struggled to get true 16-bit (four times the resolution of 14-bit) so the second-generation chip, the TDA1541, had a 2-bit Delta-Sigma grafted on.

            The third generation of DAC chips went fully “Bitstream” (Delta-Sigma) with 16 times oversampling required for the one-bit convertor.

            Some people like R2R convertors because they can go from silence to full scale in one sample period, so dynamics are good. Bitstream tends to sound smoother.

            Modern silicon processes make true 16-bit (or even better) R2R convertors a possibility.

            Which methodology sounds “better” is in the ear of the beholder.

  3. Another vote for Wiim. I bought a Pro Plus earlier this year, currently £219 from the Dodgers. It’s very simple to use and packs a decent punch of sound for the money. It plugs into my hi-fi set up in the usual way, and I have a Marantz amp. You can download the Wiim app to your phone or tablet and control the Pro Plus from there. It will support all the main streaming services – Spotify, Tidal, Amazon, etc etc.

  4. @Pencilsqueezer is the resident streaming expert, although I expect him to say Wiim, too.

    I understand the technology behind it well, but my Naim streaming preamp is a decade old and somewhat off the state of today. If you want to be bamboozled with technical acronyms, I’m yer man.

  5. Thanks. Ok so a second question … I guess you control the Wiim with built in amp from your phone? Is there any difference in quality between the various streaming services?

    • There’s a slight (a few %) quality difference between streaming services, but essentially it is a question of catalogue depth, stability and app User Interface. Don’t settle for lossy (e.g. Spotify), go lossless, make sure both hardware and app are ‘Connect’ enabled (so the audio data goes straight from the internet to the device, not through your phone’s BlueTooth – you just use the phone as a remote control).

      Qobuz are the market leaders at the moment.

      • And make sure your streaming service of choice has built in support in Wiim, as some – well, Apple, certainly, but maybe some others too – don’t. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it to play music but you’re casting to it rather than Wiim playing it directly. So if you turn your phone off, the music goes off too.

      • I’ve just bailed from Spotify as it happens – because it seemed daft to pay for both Apple Music and Spotify – but of course Spotify have just now gone lossless.

  6. Wiim stuff is pretty good and very well priced. I use a Wiim Pro + attached to my main hi-fi.

    If you want to use your Mac then I’d recommend taking a USB output to a cheap DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) like the rather wonderful SMSL SU-1 and then the RCA outputs of that to your amp and speakers. This what I am listening to now on my desktop Mac.

    Spotify is now available in hi res apparently, but I switched to Tidal years ago.

    • Spotify is not available in Hi res as yet. It is still lossy. I recently subscribed to Tidal which I’ve found great for sound quality but I must say I enjoy the convenience of Spotify for podcasts on the same platform. A few days ago I got a message from Spotify saying lossless coming soon,quite a coincidence! Spotify is porbablt the worst when it comes to paying musicians which was the main driving force for my decision.

    • That looks pretty cool. I would want it going through my regular Arcam amp and Mission speakers. Do you just drive it with the Spotify app or whatever?

      • Precisely. I wouldn’t use Spotify though, both for reasons of sound quality and that they fund armaments industries from the billions made by the CEO off the backs of musicians they don’t pay. And Joe Rogan.

        I suggest Qobuz or Tidal.

  9. I got a simple Logitech one a couple of years ago. The issue with it is it grabs the Bluetooth connection whenever you are in range. An on off switch on a remote would be good – the only way to switch it off is to unplug it.

  10. Spotify Lossless is only 24/44.1 format, so not as good quality* as Qobuz, and, from Spotify themselves, not quite here yet:

    “Lossless is rolling out gradually to more than 50 markets through October. Premium subscribers in Australia, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the US, and the UK have already started to get access.”

    (*) whether you will notice the difference is debatable.

  11. Hi. Sorry for the tardy reply I’ve just arrived home from Wrexham after having pre-op bloods taken.
    Anyhoo a few questions.
    What’s your budget?
    Do you have an amplifier connected to a pair of passive speakers or no amplifier to hand?
    What’s your wifi like? Do you have good bandwidth? Are you able to hardwire via an ethernet cable if your wifi is weak or overloaded?
    There are an ever growing number of streaming options appearing in the marketplace from the highly affordable to the how bloody much! Everyone who has mentioned Wiim is on the money. They offer probably the best bang for your buck at the moment either as a standalone streamer with a dac onboard or as a streaming amplifier/digital pre-amp all in one device.
    Bluesound, Eversolo, Fiio are just a few of the other brands that offer high quality streaming options at reasonable cost and are worth considering depending upon what your budget is and what your particular needs are. Do you want e-arc so you can connect a tv to take advantage of the better dac in your chosen streamer for example? All good quality streamers will give you access to a plethora of streaming services along with internet radio. Spotify is probably the most obvious platform, it has just in the past couple of weeks finally gone lossless topping out at 24 bit / 44.1 kHz, all of their competitors offer lossless up to 24 bit / 192 kHz if that matters to you. Most if not all streaming platforms will give you access to the Connect services from Tidal, Spotify and Qobuz with Bluesound finally ready to role out an update to their products implementing Connect for Qobuz this month. Some including Wiim and Eversolo also have equaliser and room correction built in if you like to tinker with the sound.
    It all sounds complicated but it really isn’t. These devices are pretty much plug and play. Download the app for the device and the world’s your rock lobster.
    If you need any further help just whistle…you know how to whistle don’t you Clive? You just put your lips together and blow.

  15. I’m intrigued that nobody has even mentioned Sonos. A couple of years back, they would have been high on the recommendations list. We’ve had a Sonos mesh in the house for over 15 years and swapping to Wiim would be quite an investment now but I think that if I were starting now, Wiim would be my first choice.

    • I know a couple of people with Sonos stuff – it was certainly flavour of the month a while ago, but I have never been impressed with the sound. Perhaps it is the way they have it set up.

      • I’m no audiophile so Sonos is fine. It’s the multiroom capability and easy to use app that first sold us on it. That was back before they did speakers! We moved to Sonos after using Soundbridge for a few years and it seemed like it actually was the future!

    • Sonos is still pretty good. I like that the sound quality is decent for a genuine one box solution. And the Roam is a magnificent thing. But I would expect a Wiim and decent speakers would knock it into a cocked hat.

  16. Wiim products are not a multi-room networking solution like Sonos or Bluesound but a Wiim streamer could be added to a Sonos speaker via it’s analogue inputs or via Airplay 2 or Roon. The streamer could then be accessed with the Sonos app. It’s not anywhere near my ballpark because I’m an old stuck in a rut seperates geezer. Lot’s of boxes connected with lots of wires makes me happy as a dog with two ‘tails’.

  17. I thought Wiim was a multi room streaming solution. I’ve only got one Pro+ in the living room at the moment, but intend to buy a pair of their upcoming speakers to replace the endlessly troublesome Sonos Plays in my kitchen.

  18. It looks like they have added to their product range since I last bothered looking at it. So mea culpa. As I mentioned this kind of multi-room lifestyle audio isn’t for me so I my knowledge of it is not extensive. It seems that Wiim offer very good value for money. Personally my single room streaming needs are catered for by Eversolo and a Denafrips R2R dac.

  19. I have three Bluesound devices in various locations around the house. I am very happy with the sound, reasonably happy with the way they play together, but not happy with the flaky app (both WIndows and Android versions sadly).

  20. My bedroom streamer is a Raspberry Pi mini-computer plus USB DAC into a pair of ancient Bose powered mini speakers under my bed.
    It streams via ethernet from another Raspberry Pi server in the living room. The streamer is controlled by a solidly-reliable web app on it, that’s sadly lacking in features beyond the basic.
    I have a semi-identical setup for my living room streamer, which I almost never use because of it’s lack of features, which can feed into the Denon receiver/amp among my separates and thence to my elderly pair of Mission speakers.
    Mostly I play digital files from the servers via yet another networked Raspberry Pi+DAC into the receiver/amp and choose what to play via MediaMonkey on one of my living room PCs.
    Attached to the receiver/amp are also a Denon CD player, A Sony minidisc deck and an ancient record turntable which all get occasional use.

  21. The software that ran on the old Squeezebox devices is still available, and being actively maintained. It now goes under the name Lyrion, and will run under Windows, Mac OS and virtually anything else. It also integrates with many existing streaming services, via a system of plugins. There’s also several phone apps for controlling the system remotely.

    Version 9, introduced last year, added support for Classical music works.

    I’ve bunged it on a spare mini-PC running Debian Linux, but there are other solutions. In the case of the Raspberry Pi, there’s PiCoreplayer which will turn any Pi into a Lyrion endpoint, server or both.

    https://lyrion.org/

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