Best Streaming Hardware For Audiophile and Hi Res File Support

[ShutterShock]

I am not sure if gapless playback is supported when using squeeze2upnp...

By default, I don't believe it is. Apparently you can change a setting to support gapless but, as I understand it, it's not recommended. Gapless is definitely a "nice to have" but I think I could get by without it.

[Stratmangler]

By default, I don't believe it is. Apparently you can change a setting to support gapless but, as I understand it, it's not recommended. Gapless is definitely a "nice to have" but I think I could get by without it.

You'd be fine without it (gapless) right up until the point where you play an album that segues from one track to another, and the tracks instead have an annoying gap between them.
The gap may be incredibly small, but it's there.
Once you've heard that then the irritation will grow every time you hear it ....

[ShutterShock]

You'd be fine without it (gapless) right up until the point where you play an album that segues from one track to another, and the tracks instead have an annoying gap between them.
The gap may be incredibly small, but it's there.
Once you've heard that then the irritation will grow every time you hear it ....

Good point.

The plugin claims to support gapless. I stress tested it with Abbey Road - scrubbing within a given track and then letting it "hand off" to the next related track. It was gapless about 50% of the time. If, on the other hand, I let the album play without interfering with it, it was gapless 100% of the time. Good enough for me.

Thanks everyone for their input.

[ralphpnj]

It's threads like this that make me really miss arnyk. In other words, it appears that it's now safe to drink the kool-aid.

[doctor_big]

It's threads like this that make me really miss arnyk. In other words, it appears that it's now safe to drink the kool-aid.

Have you run out of audio journalists to stalk? Or are you right now sitting in a car outside John Atkinson's place with a long lens SLR in your lap?

Edit: I'm sure the nights are the hardest, but we all appreciate your dedication.

[Marc B]

I don't know out of own experience which streaming device is best, but I can tell you the SOtM sMS-200ultra Neo powered by a SPS-500 sounds pretty natural. The soundstage is impressive, the lower frequencies are VERY well defined, it all sounds quite natural to my ears. It doesn't give me the impression of harshness, but still of a really fast system. I never owned a system that sounded so different at reproducing different recordings. As if you changed all your devices in between also.

As a source it's very lovely, but I have no doubt that better ones will be developed. I do however think its the best device in my chain: Coupled by a Curious USB cable it sends it signal to an Audiolab M-DAC+. A fine DAC (and very good for its price), but not the last word in DAC's.

Then a somewhat humble interlink connects it to my home-made hybrid (tube/semiconductor) amplifier with AudioNote paper/oil capacitors. Especially the semiconductor part could be improved.

My Speakers are the cheapest parts in the chain, but a real bargain. Q-acoustics 3050, which I now want to sell to get the improved 3050i version, as I already love the sound of the 3050. I've got some other plans to further improve the sound, but the SOtM will anyhow stay as a source because of it's audiophile qualities.

[Apesbrain]

It's threads like this that make me really miss arnyk. In other words, it appears that it's now safe to drink the kool-aid.

It may or may not be safe, but there's no dearth of people willing to do so.

[ralphpnj]

It may or may not be safe, but there's no dearth of people willing to do so.

Nonetheless it was nice to have a little sanctuary from the madness. Alas I am not dedicated enough nor inclined to defend such a small island of sanity in a vast sea of insanity. Let them have at it. I just try to shift through all dross to come up with a few worthwhile ideas. When he wasn't being negative arnyk could and and did provide some very useful information.

[sgmlaw]

Late to this thread, but any audio streaming breakdown here is more likely caused by a networking infrastructure deficiency as opposed to a storage device or server problem, provided the NAS is not being asked to work like a 12-core Xeon server.

Digital audio, even at high definition bitrates, consumes very modest bandwidth, especially compared to more demanding HD or 4k video streams. It is never going to saturate even an antiquated 54mb g wireless link. No NAS or HDD made in the last decade will have any problem spooling off a 3,000 kb/s hi-res audio stream.

If it’s a wireless hookup, make sure the router isn’t overtaxed feeding too many 2.4 ghz clients. And even if it’s an ethernet connection, a more modern router and quality switch gear can be the deciding factor. Sometimes QoS needs to be tweaked to give the audio/video streams higher queue priority in a busy network.

The explosion of the “Internet of Things” and smart wireless connected everything in the past few years is now pushing top-tier routers of only a few years ago to their limits. Home networks exceeding 30 active clients is now more common, and would have been unheard of only 5 years ago.

I am not a big fan of running LMS on a NAS with a larger library if you are asking the NAS to do too many other things. A NAS is not a multi purpose server machine. If it’s already an iTunes, DLNA and general data server, a surveillance camera cache, and a TimeMachine or other backup disk target too, it’s often asking too much of a consumer grade NAS to simultaneously stream a lot of audio besides. By larger library, I mean one exceeding 30,000 tracks. Try capping off the playlist length on weaker server machines with larger libraries.

SOTA is in the eye of the beholder. A $14,000 Mac Pro server machine feeding a 10G ethernet network to a Touch might be SOTA to someone with a fat wallet looking to impress geeks, but is totally unnecessary. A modern dual-core NAS running LMS and not much else through an AC3100 router to a Touch is a more practical SOTA for the application and is more than enough hardware to support several HD audio streams.