I had a thread earlier this year talking about a small lower power device for streaming or playback of FLAC/WMA lossless files. I wanted something small and quiet to sit under the TV.
Due to a family bereavement I didn’t go ahead at that time.
However, I was browsing recently and read about the iPhone “Camera Adapter”. This is just a short cable with the Apple connector at one end and a USB port at the other so that you can upload your SLR camera pictures to your phone.
I read that that you can also use this to connect an external DAC, so I thought this might be a useful thing to have so that I can play music without the background noise of my tower PC.
I bought an inexpensive third party one and it does indeed work perfectly, I can play Qobuz files at any quality, although the highest resolution files I have are 192Khz/24 bit (for what it’s worth!).
I hadn’t really realized how much noise even a fairly quiet PC with all the fans on the slowest speed and a few hard disks makes. It was somewhat eerie hearing no sound at all between tracks and in pauses. It was also possible to hear the tonality of instruments more clearly.
After this I am utterly convinced of the necessity for a silent playback device when my “in development” sound system eventually makes it into the lounge from my shed.
Before this I had never really thought of the iPhone as a serious music source but to some extent it clearly is. (I guess Apple always thought that!)
The only downside is that the only volume level available is 100%. Fortunately I have a preamp so I just control the volume from there.
Due to a family bereavement I didn’t go ahead at that time.
However, I was browsing recently and read about the iPhone “Camera Adapter”. This is just a short cable with the Apple connector at one end and a USB port at the other so that you can upload your SLR camera pictures to your phone.
I read that that you can also use this to connect an external DAC, so I thought this might be a useful thing to have so that I can play music without the background noise of my tower PC.
I bought an inexpensive third party one and it does indeed work perfectly, I can play Qobuz files at any quality, although the highest resolution files I have are 192Khz/24 bit (for what it’s worth!).
I hadn’t really realized how much noise even a fairly quiet PC with all the fans on the slowest speed and a few hard disks makes. It was somewhat eerie hearing no sound at all between tracks and in pauses. It was also possible to hear the tonality of instruments more clearly.
After this I am utterly convinced of the necessity for a silent playback device when my “in development” sound system eventually makes it into the lounge from my shed.
Before this I had never really thought of the iPhone as a serious music source but to some extent it clearly is. (I guess Apple always thought that!)
The only downside is that the only volume level available is 100%. Fortunately I have a preamp so I just control the volume from there.
