My system is an Arcam CD player, triamp amplifier, separate hf,mf and low frequency speakers,no crossovers.
I would like to use a FLAC file player and am bewildered by all the different systems in use.
My preference would be to have a standalone controller not linked to windows or similar operating system, FLAC files stored on memory cards,stick or other solid state memory, output from the controller as spdif to external dac. I can't seem to find anything.
It would be similar to a cd player except it would use FLAC files from an external source.
Is this achievable. I have assembly programming experience with some C.
I would like to use a FLAC file player and am bewildered by all the different systems in use.
My preference would be to have a standalone controller not linked to windows or similar operating system, FLAC files stored on memory cards,stick or other solid state memory, output from the controller as spdif to external dac. I can't seem to find anything.
It would be similar to a cd player except it would use FLAC files from an external source.
Is this achievable. I have assembly programming experience with some C.
find an older (last few years) LG (Android) phone and install Neutron or PowerAmp player app.
phone has SD card or use internal storage, connect USB OTG to the DAC. (don't think you can get SPDIF out though)
LG phones also have "Quad DAC" that is equal of dedicated portable players and gives 2V line output.
also, aren't there plenty of standalone portable players that will do the same?
phone has SD card or use internal storage, connect USB OTG to the DAC. (don't think you can get SPDIF out though)
LG phones also have "Quad DAC" that is equal of dedicated portable players and gives 2V line output.
also, aren't there plenty of standalone portable players that will do the same?
Raspberry Pi with a digital HAT. Harddisk connected...and there is a multitude of os's you can install. I use PicorePlayer (with or without Logitech Media Server). There is rune, volumio..etc
The go-to commercial product you described is the Marantz NA6006 -
https://www.marantz.com/en-ca/product/network-audio-players/na6006
Or you could build your own equivalent product based on a Raspberry Pi, as I explained back in 2019 on the Audiokarma forum -
https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/i...so-i-do-not-need-laptop.871984/#post-12784031
But I must say that the whole idea of a one-box product is very last-century.
I suggest you consider a modern music server - again, build your own, based on a rPi - then just control it from a smartphone or tablet.
FLAC is a rather stupid idea nowadays. Sure it is lossless, but so is the original file!
FLAC was an interesting idea back when storage was still costly, but that is no longer an issue. FLAC only reduces the file size into half the original in the end, and that is not really all that much of a gain IMO.
Get a 1 TB drive and just TRY and fill it up with uncompressed audio files. I dare you. 😛
FLAC was an interesting idea back when storage was still costly, but that is no longer an issue. FLAC only reduces the file size into half the original in the end, and that is not really all that much of a gain IMO.
Get a 1 TB drive and just TRY and fill it up with uncompressed audio files. I dare you. 😛
No passive speaker level XO? Surely you have an XO before the amplifiers?
A free compression algorithm for music. ALAC is based on FLAC code, bugs fixed and Apple specific.
Anything that plays FLACs is a computer. Standalone ones usually use a variant of Linux.
A bewildering plethera of Streamers available today.
I use a macMini, and abandoned compressed files years and years ago.
dave
My music library is 750 GB and it's 98% compressed files. Mostly FLAC, APE and a lot of MP3. I'd need a much larger drive if all that were in wav format or similar. FLAC is still useful for me. I use a computer for music playback, but have had stand alone FLAC players, so understand the desire for one.
Wasting space without any reason is stupid, as is doubling the time needed to transfer files without reason.
How about 320k MP3 then? That's more than twice as small as FLAC (roughly speaking) and I cannot tell the difference between the original and 320k. If you need "better" than 320k, just use the original.
My point I guess is/was that a gain of a factor of 2 is just not important given the relatively low cost and availability of large local storage, and high modern internet transfer speeds.
FLAC is one of the better choices and thank the Spaghetti Monster that it is not proprietary. Many if not most audio players are controlled by smart phone though. I think this is almost inevitable. There are devices with display and buttons but old fashioned as I am ... I had to give in as smart phone or tablet control is so much better. If you want to skip many half well designed devices then try out Elac DS-S101-G. Bonus is that the internal DACs (it has 2 zones..) are very good performers as well and it looks good too. Not a single switch or button. Excellent firmware and app without recurring monthly fees. I have tried out at least 20 different ready built devices in various price ranges, bought and sold at least such Elacs 3 times before I realized it has an optimal sum of many positive features.
Many RPI devices (use at least a 3B+ or a 4) can be very good too when the right HATs are obtained and I had one (1) that outperformed my Elac. It looked like a pile of PCBs thrown together on a rainy Sunday unfortunately and connectivity is troublesome as the only places were there are not cables are the upper and bottom side. The "free" OSes seem to become paid versions after a while but one of them is quite good and still free. It is called Rune Audio. Don't pay attention to the website as it is not maintained that well contrary to the OS itself:
rAudio-1-64bit-202207101.img.xz
One of the positive things of RPi is that you will enter a kind of religious group with very steady beliefs that have to be spread as an evangelism.
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Yes, there is a filter after the cd input followed by a microprocessor controlled attenuator with optical encoder. then the amps.
Thanks for the info
The Ifi Zen Stream is very well designed hardware. It started plain bad with many bugs, annoyances and false promises but the last firmware update seems to have solved most bugs (and it removed MQA I think but who cares?). I try everything but skipped this one due to the many complaints. Still interested as it does not need to be modded and performs excellent with regards to sound quality.
Thanks. There probably are portable players , it's just takes me a long time to sort out what is suitable.
That's me, very last century. But I am attempting to modernise. I did think about using the RPI, perhaps I might look at it in more detail.
Not at all that hard to do, actually.
Comparing lossy to lossless is disingenuous... And MP3 is the worst lossy format to boot!
I have 1.4TB of mostly compressed audio. It would be quite easy to fill a 1TB disc with raw audio data.
If you are open to a new approach and considering:
- you use digital
- you run a 3 way active system with no XO
- you have IT experience
- a multichannel DAC
- XO in apps plus DSP for phase correction/EQ/stereo width/etc
- radically improve your system sound
- opens you to access new music very easily
There are FLAC players that are like a CD-player but use an SD card just like you want:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/63535-researching-sd-card-transports/
Benefits
- its what you want
- might sound good
Limits
- no DSP - no EQ/no active XO
- closed music selection