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[styxx10]

Hi,

As it appears there are many here who value the quality of the Music they stream, I would be interested in hearing the Optimum Set up (Connections) that others are using to Stream The Best Sound Quality to their Home Theatre both Movie and Music from their PC.I have gotten lost in the different terminology and what is the best method to push or pull your files across the network.

I assume that many like me have a PC in a different room that is seperate to the Amp situated in their Home Theatre Setup.....

I guess most Stream and would be interested in what is the easiest and most Cost effective way to stream all the Various Bitrate and different Sound Souces that are out in the Ethos.
Hope to get some input from some that have it set up either cabled or wireless.....or if they have a seperate HTPC attached in their main system from which they access the digital files be it Movies (MKV etc or Music Flac, Wav etc)

[JimH]

This should help:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Setup

[JustinM]

Your Question is  loaded..   There are many methods, and products... To say what is optimuim especially for an audiophile  would certainly  be shooting myself in the foot How deep are your pockets?  I simply run a dedicated (fanless) pc in the same room as my theatre/music room.. It runs  JRiver Media Center (and server ), and is connected to a dac->amps->and speakers of my liking and price range.

cheers

[Samson]

I agree with JustinM that these are potentially very subjective areas. If you come across some of my other posts you will see that I strongly advocate the ear/brain as the gold standard for testing audio quality. In itself a very subjective area. That is likely not totally aligned with the bulk of members here.

In the nineties I pretty much read every Stereophile and Absolute Sound magazine and gained a respect for reviewers that had , what was for me, a balanced approach to assessing Sound and music quality, both subjective and objective aspects. "Balanced" of course being subjective.

Sadly the "High-End" kinda collapsed with the 'format wars' b/n DVD-A and SACD. It has been given a new lease of life IMO, to some extent, with computer-audio and the idea of delivering a digital file direct to one's HiFi. I never dreamed I would replace my coveted Levinson transport for a dam pc (feeding the Levinson DAC). To my ears the Levinson Transport still sounds best feeding the Levinson DAC but the convenience and flexibility of computer digital files is just too seductive.

I recall when I first read in Stereophile that the reviewers where testing streaming digital music I was amazed but also excited .For their "serious" listening they still preferred their cd transports as front ends but it was clear it was the dawning of a new audiophile era. As cd's replaced vinyl (some say to music's detriment) digital files will surely, I suspect, replace cds.

So with that background my personal approach is to try and achieve the most direct connection, pc to external dac > pre-amp. I stream music around the house over wifi but not to my HiFi. My DAC is not network capable and receives its digital feed from the htpc > external usb DAC with native ASIO driver > digital out (SPDIF) to the Levinson DAC on [EDIT-on plastic fibr-optic Toslink. I have a more expensive glass fibre-optic cable but it has the AT&T connectors (bayonet type) unsuited to the usb dac. I must try and find a glass Toslink to see what if any difference it makes].The usb dac acts as an external sound card and in conjunction with ASIO bypasses as much of the pc as possible for greatest possible fidelity. I can also use the usb dac to do the analogue conversion direct into my preamp via balanced XLR interconnects. It does an amazingly good job just not as good as the Levinson but considering the price differential, wow. I am almost starting to believe the "bits is bits" school of thought (not quite  )

I am confident that should you choose to stream your files from another room will get excellent sound quality as well.Others here may have some thoughts on that.My guess is it will come down to the quality of the music streamer and with a robust WiFi connection.My inclination however would be to go wired.

If your streaming 24/192 your going to need a steady 9.2 Mbps bandwidth before considering overheads and dropouts etc. As far as bit rate/sampling rate is concerned I hear no audible difference b/n 16/44 to 24/192. I do hear differences in some interconnects but for me the most critical determinant of SQ is the quality of the sound recording and engineering/mastering then followed by the quality of your sound reproduction gear. If interested you can read more here Does Hi Rez music sound better to you

Cheers

[csimon]

Up to now, I've been using MC to stream to a DLNA device (a WDTV Live) and output from that is optical into a Denon AV amp.

Works for me!

It's a cheap route which some may scoff at, but to be honest streaming digitally over the network to a DLNA renderer which outputs via optical to a decent set of DACs in the amp, for my purposes that's close enough to perfect reproduction for my ears! The things that affect sound quality the most in this setup, in my opinion, are the amp (the DACs) and the speakers.

I'm not completely happy with the WDTV though as its response is sometimes sluggish. I'm in the process of replacing it with a small, silent mini-PC running MC so that MC will play the music directly rather than sending it to a renderer. again, I will output from the PC digitally into the amp.

If you still want to stream, there are DLNA renderers that can start at around twice the price of the WDTV and go up to very silly money. You pays your money and you takes your choice.