The chromecast audio from google appears to stream over wifi and has optical out. Anyone planning to get one and integrate to projects ? The digital out is very tempting so I would be able to wifi stream to a separate dac. There doesn't seem to be much technical info on the streaming over wifi.
I got mine yesterday and am giving it a serious spin today, seeing as the family is out and I can crank up the volume. I have a rather large music library sat an a NAS4Free NAS with Plex running in a Jail. The optical from the chromecast goes into a DAC into my amp.
FLAC playback (tried up to 24/96) works well with no lag, skips or glitching as yet - chromecast and wifi access point are about 20 feet apart. I'll be taking the wee beastie downstairs in a a short time to try it on the main hifi, which is further away from the wifi access point to see how that goes.
I'll see if I get enough time to do some comparisons to see if I can replace my existing wired JRiver solution running on a headless macmini server
FLAC playback (tried up to 24/96) works well with no lag, skips or glitching as yet - chromecast and wifi access point are about 20 feet apart. I'll be taking the wee beastie downstairs in a a short time to try it on the main hifi, which is further away from the wifi access point to see how that goes.
I'll see if I get enough time to do some comparisons to see if I can replace my existing wired JRiver solution running on a headless macmini server
For the audio out (RCA) it seems to use AK4430 from this teardown.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Chromecast+2015+Teardown/50189
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Chromecast+2015+Teardown/50189
Can someone explain how you get audio into (via WiFi) and out of the Chromecast audio device, exactly? What happens if you want to use 2, 3, or 4 of these at the same time?
I'm someone who is very interested in streaming multiple audio channels to multiple nearby locations, but I am not sure if this will be able to be integrated into my current system.
I'm someone who is very interested in streaming multiple audio channels to multiple nearby locations, but I am not sure if this will be able to be integrated into my current system.
You have an app that knows the location of your music library and it is within the app that you choose which chromecast device that you want to stream to. The chromecast then sucks the data over the wifi.
If you have multiple devices and wish to stream different music to them, then I can only think that you would need different apps and/or devices. Having said that, I only have one chromecast and am currently using aplex server plex app and I can turn off the phone and the music still plays so it may be possible to simply set one device playing, associate the app with another device, set that playing, etc, etc.
If you have multiple devices and wish to stream different music to them, then I can only think that you would need different apps and/or devices. Having said that, I only have one chromecast and am currently using aplex server plex app and I can turn off the phone and the music still plays so it may be possible to simply set one device playing, associate the app with another device, set that playing, etc, etc.
Google has said it will do multi-room later this year. Currently limited to casting to one CC.
Check out the BubbleUPnP app if on Android, it can cast from anything to anything (almost), including CC. Also, most streaming services now support it natively, except Apple of course, and Tidal, who say it's coming soon (and works now inside BubbleUPnP).
Check out the BubbleUPnP app if on Android, it can cast from anything to anything (almost), including CC. Also, most streaming services now support it natively, except Apple of course, and Tidal, who say it's coming soon (and works now inside BubbleUPnP).
Audio out is 3.5mm, both analog and optical digital, so internal DAC can be bypassed if desired. Don't know if optical out is bit-perfect, but it should be. Up to 96/24 supported.
My experiences so far.
Current working environment:
- WIN7 PC running FOOBAR2000 with UPNP/DLNA plugin
- Chromecast Audio connected to TPA3116 (WLX/Breeze) and Tannoy E11 speakers.
- Google Nexus 4 running Bubbleupnp (free version).
Working on getting miniDLNA installed on my Cubietruck; the intended upnp server and current network media server.
I found configuring the device simple but slightly irritating. Wanted to use PC running WIN7 and Firefox. ended up using the Chromecast app on my phone.
Discovered that WMP12 running on my PC(s) didn't work to provide FLAC files to the Chromecast, though MP3s worked fine. (This is irritating as previously I have had FLAC files played from WMP12 via XBMC on a raspberry Pi).
Was a little surprised at how warm the thing got. Not "hot" but certainly noticeably warmer than the room.
I would like to know if it's possible to configure a "power-up" volume setting.
J.
Current working environment:
- WIN7 PC running FOOBAR2000 with UPNP/DLNA plugin
- Chromecast Audio connected to TPA3116 (WLX/Breeze) and Tannoy E11 speakers.
- Google Nexus 4 running Bubbleupnp (free version).
Working on getting miniDLNA installed on my Cubietruck; the intended upnp server and current network media server.
I found configuring the device simple but slightly irritating. Wanted to use PC running WIN7 and Firefox. ended up using the Chromecast app on my phone.
Discovered that WMP12 running on my PC(s) didn't work to provide FLAC files to the Chromecast, though MP3s worked fine. (This is irritating as previously I have had FLAC files played from WMP12 via XBMC on a raspberry Pi).
Was a little surprised at how warm the thing got. Not "hot" but certainly noticeably warmer than the room.
I would like to know if it's possible to configure a "power-up" volume setting.
J.
Hi,
I use bubbleupnp on android smartphone well with foobar. Works well both optical and analog output. I have experienced some signal losses with Dezzer streaming.
My phone turns wifi off when in standby. Results in desync the now-playing display and what is really playing. Quite surprising at first !
Chromecast gets a little warm but nothing to worry about.
My biggest frustration with CCA is that google does not provide an API on windows. This means there is no way for foobar or another windows program to stream directly to CCA. You need to run Chrome browser or use a Android or iOS smartphone device in between
I hate Google when they behave like Apple
Anyone knows what HDR (High Dynamic Range) really means ?
I figured out that analog output level is 1Vrms with HRD OFF and 1,95Vrms when HDR is ON.
As per the manual, HDR has no effect on digital output. It's always ON.
My understanding is that HDR means nothing else than dac output level 1V or 2V.
Do I miss something ?
I use bubbleupnp on android smartphone well with foobar. Works well both optical and analog output. I have experienced some signal losses with Dezzer streaming.
My phone turns wifi off when in standby. Results in desync the now-playing display and what is really playing. Quite surprising at first !
Chromecast gets a little warm but nothing to worry about.
My biggest frustration with CCA is that google does not provide an API on windows. This means there is no way for foobar or another windows program to stream directly to CCA. You need to run Chrome browser or use a Android or iOS smartphone device in between
I hate Google when they behave like Apple
Anyone knows what HDR (High Dynamic Range) really means ?
I figured out that analog output level is 1Vrms with HRD OFF and 1,95Vrms when HDR is ON.
As per the manual, HDR has no effect on digital output. It's always ON.
My understanding is that HDR means nothing else than dac output level 1V or 2V.
Do I miss something ?
Gut feeling is that HDR does more.... Or rather, less! Definitely better with it on.
Have noticed Chromecast appears as an 'other' network
device in Win7 networks screen.
Have now installed MiniDLNA on the Cubietruck. So no longer reliant on a 600w desktop PC to serve music.
A handful of watts to the Cubietruck suffices.
J.
Have noticed Chromecast appears as an 'other' network
device in Win7 networks screen.
Have now installed MiniDLNA on the Cubietruck. So no longer reliant on a 600w desktop PC to serve music.
A handful of watts to the Cubietruck suffices.
J.
The new firmware is supposed to allow multi room configurations, with the same audio signal send to multiple chromecast devices.
Has anyone here tried this feature?
How good is the synchronization between speakers? Any audible delay difference?
I am thinking about using one chromecast per speaker in a stereo active speaker scenario...
Has anyone here tried this feature?
How good is the synchronization between speakers? Any audible delay difference?
I am thinking about using one chromecast per speaker in a stereo active speaker scenario...
Got a Chromecast Audio since last weekend. Setup was a breeze. Only use it with Deezer and an android phone wich works perfect. That's what the device was designed for. It is not designed as a streamer, although it can do that. What sets it apart from streamers like the well known airport express is that it makes contact with the music streaming service by itself. Your phone/tablet/pc is only the remote control for this device, they don't stream music to it. The chrome cast stream music directly from the net. That's what it is designed for and that's what it is doing very well. It was designed with Spotify/deezer/pandora whatever service in mind. Hey it's google, inventors of "The Cloud" They strongly believe in this concept and will be heading in this direction even further. If you are looking for a Foobar/Jriver streamer look elsewhere.
High Dynamic Range means turning the compressor off. By default the Chromecast has a compressor on to protect al these small powered speakers that are so popular today. These small speakers get overloaded quite easily so a compressor helps a lot here. For hifi you have to turn the compressor of, or in other words, turn the HDR function on.
As for sound quality. Obviously it's not the best in the world but for this money it is outragious good. It does sound way more expensive then 39 euro's it costs over here in europe. Like all cheap devices it has some sibilance and an overpronounced truncated treble compared to more expensive dacs but on the other hand it does not sound an inch worse then a Sonos Connect of ten times the price, seriously.
The build in DAC is pretty decent and they even build in a digitally controlled analog volume control output driver, how neat is that.
I have compared it's internal dac to toslink out via a tda1543 nos dac and there is almost no difference whatsoever. This could mean offcoarse that the toslink out has pretty high jitter because the same overpronounced truncated treble (typical jitter related) sound signature was still there. Will try it with a reclocker soon.
Has someone tried a better power supply with this unit ? That could be really interesting.
But for now, it's perfect for my bedroom/kitchen/office/casual listening and I would even recommend it for any budget highend system as well. Yes there are better dac's/streamers but for this money even the chinese can't make anything better.
High Dynamic Range means turning the compressor off. By default the Chromecast has a compressor on to protect al these small powered speakers that are so popular today. These small speakers get overloaded quite easily so a compressor helps a lot here. For hifi you have to turn the compressor of, or in other words, turn the HDR function on.
As for sound quality. Obviously it's not the best in the world but for this money it is outragious good. It does sound way more expensive then 39 euro's it costs over here in europe. Like all cheap devices it has some sibilance and an overpronounced truncated treble compared to more expensive dacs but on the other hand it does not sound an inch worse then a Sonos Connect of ten times the price, seriously.
The build in DAC is pretty decent and they even build in a digitally controlled analog volume control output driver, how neat is that.
I have compared it's internal dac to toslink out via a tda1543 nos dac and there is almost no difference whatsoever. This could mean offcoarse that the toslink out has pretty high jitter because the same overpronounced truncated treble (typical jitter related) sound signature was still there. Will try it with a reclocker soon.
Has someone tried a better power supply with this unit ? That could be really interesting.
But for now, it's perfect for my bedroom/kitchen/office/casual listening and I would even recommend it for any budget highend system as well. Yes there are better dac's/streamers but for this money even the chinese can't make anything better.
I am getting random loud buzzes and popping from the CC-audio toslink, so I stopped using it as a digital transport.
I tried powering from a USB powerbank, that reduced the brightness of the analog out a little. I also tried a linear psu via one of those 12v to 5v usb car adapters, it's about the same as the battery. The CC-audio is acceptable for casual listening, but as you say, a bit bright. In the same price range I prefer my bluetooth receiver with a 5v linear psu.
This one: Crystal Acoustics BluDac review | What Hi-Fi?
Sold cheaper under the Deleycon (a***zon) and Renkforce (c*nrad) names.
Subjectively, it misses out on resolution and gets a bit congested at times, but sounds more musical and punchy(better timbre?). This also beat the Arcam miniblink in my ears, which I sent back. The dac is a wolfson wm8524. The wm8804 is used for spdif out, which makes for a nice little wireless transport as you can get a plug 'n play Aptx USB dongle for your pc.
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it is also supposed to work with Chrome on pc. Have you tried Deezer from a pc ? may pple, including me, report loss of connexion and music stop every few minutes. same with spotify.
Unfortunaterly the smartphone/tablet is not just a remote as ggle marketing claims. Why is it that my phone battery drains when I ask deezer from my android phone to stream to CCA ?
well it was designed with android and google music in mind. Many pple report issues with non google devices.
Google did not disclose an API on windows as initially announced, thus prevents foobar, jriver and others to cast to it. Shame on ggle
not a compressor. No dynamic loss at all. It is only to adjust The dac output level to about 1Vrms when HDR off and 2Vrms when on. To set according to input sensitivity of amplifier to avoid clipping.
No such thing on digital output.
The dac is indeed good, better specs than many devices (and BTW much better than veteran 1543
). With the new firmware there is no resampling anymore. digital out is only a spdif converter as good as many who claim high end.
Consider it a "kitchen device" is not appropriate. Plug it to a decent system and you get high end.
The hardware is better than many, and we get it for the price of low-end.
Wifi connexion losses and software bugs make CCA unusable in some configurations. google is slow to fix it. That's a pitty.
I experimented again with the digital output, the static and buzzing only seems to occur on youtube so far. No problems whatsoever with Google Play. Plex was fine too. I have also further compared the effect of linear vs the supplied switcher on the digital output and the linear cleans up the sound nicely. I am going to compare a bit with a cm6331a usb card for those times I am on youtube. This is a cool little device.
Hi Alkasar,
Yes I have tested it streaming from a chrome tab but only for a short period of time because I'm not using chrome as a browser myself. It worked but I can't tell how it worked in the long run regarding dropouts etc.
When "casting" from deezer the phone IS a remote but more in the sence of a remote desktop connection then a IR remote control. So, yes it will drain your battery if you have it constant on because there will be a data stream between the Chrome Cast and your phone but it's not actually streaming from your phoen to the Chromecast. Once you have told the Chrome cast what to do, i.e. play a playlist you can completely turn off your phone and the Chromecast wil continue. With tab streaming from chrome or even desktop mirroring (Chremecast video) there is a streaming connection between the devices, that's the difference.
In my home, with the worst wifi network you can imagine it worked flawlesly "casting" Deezer but had some trouble with streaming between devices. But that's the wifi network to blame.
And yes, for the money it's very very good. Don't underestamate the TDA1543 dac though. Feed it with a really low jitter source and you'll be amazed. I use this dac a lot for testing digital ouptut of decices for jitter. The TDA1543 DAC reveals it very quickly because it totally relies on the source and has no jitter reduction whatsoever. From what I hear, the Chromecast Audio is a medium jitter device. Not as worse as a Sonos connect or an airport express, but still jittery. Hey, it's only 39 euro's What can you expect ? But still, it exceeded my expectations by far. I'm very happy with it in my bedroom system.
I have compared it in my livingroom system for a couple of days. this system consist of a dedicated audio PC, a Yellowtec PUC2 usb to spdif converter, a DEQX dsp crossover preamp and threeway active speakers.
In direct A/B compare there is very little difference, a lot of people wouldn't even hear any difference at all. But I find it always ver very difficult to do A/B compares. Listen to it for a couple of days and see if you are "forced" to listen to more and more music or are you start to skip songs because the music is somehow uninteresting or even annoying. . A good system let's me listen to anything it plays and have my attention. With a good system I there is a lot more music to be liked. That's where the real difference is for me. The Chromecast does a pretty good job in this department, better the most cheap equip[ment I have heard but just not a good as the PC/yellowtec/deqx. But at only 4% of the price who's complaining.
Yes I have tested it streaming from a chrome tab but only for a short period of time because I'm not using chrome as a browser myself. It worked but I can't tell how it worked in the long run regarding dropouts etc.
When "casting" from deezer the phone IS a remote but more in the sence of a remote desktop connection then a IR remote control. So, yes it will drain your battery if you have it constant on because there will be a data stream between the Chrome Cast and your phone but it's not actually streaming from your phoen to the Chromecast. Once you have told the Chrome cast what to do, i.e. play a playlist you can completely turn off your phone and the Chromecast wil continue. With tab streaming from chrome or even desktop mirroring (Chremecast video) there is a streaming connection between the devices, that's the difference.
In my home, with the worst wifi network you can imagine it worked flawlesly "casting" Deezer but had some trouble with streaming between devices. But that's the wifi network to blame.
And yes, for the money it's very very good. Don't underestamate the TDA1543 dac though. Feed it with a really low jitter source and you'll be amazed. I use this dac a lot for testing digital ouptut of decices for jitter. The TDA1543 DAC reveals it very quickly because it totally relies on the source and has no jitter reduction whatsoever. From what I hear, the Chromecast Audio is a medium jitter device. Not as worse as a Sonos connect or an airport express, but still jittery. Hey, it's only 39 euro's What can you expect ? But still, it exceeded my expectations by far. I'm very happy with it in my bedroom system.
I have compared it in my livingroom system for a couple of days. this system consist of a dedicated audio PC, a Yellowtec PUC2 usb to spdif converter, a DEQX dsp crossover preamp and threeway active speakers.
In direct A/B compare there is very little difference, a lot of people wouldn't even hear any difference at all. But I find it always ver very difficult to do A/B compares. Listen to it for a couple of days and see if you are "forced" to listen to more and more music or are you start to skip songs because the music is somehow uninteresting or even annoying. . A good system let's me listen to anything it plays and have my attention. With a good system I there is a lot more music to be liked. That's where the real difference is for me. The Chromecast does a pretty good job in this department, better the most cheap equip[ment I have heard but just not a good as the PC/yellowtec/deqx. But at only 4% of the price who's complaining.
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