kbuzz

Hello all I’m new to this topic and could use a little rookie help. I’m looking for streamer in the $500 range that I can use with audivana. Is there a preferred unit? I run an older Mac now with long interconnects to my dac across the room. I’d like to eliminate the wires and if possible not have to use the cpu. Maybe running something on an iPad. This may be “AV remote” but I’m not sure, I’d also like to have an usb out for my usb only dac, and a usb in to play some stored files. The project stream box appears to check these boxes, but perusing this thread I’ve seen some users have issues with it and AV. Any thoughts maybe a used Mac mini ? thanks in advance for any non DIY options. thanks

I’d like to reopen this thread as newbie who loves the audivarna platform with my Mac desktop and would like to buy an I expensive player renderer i have a router near my audio rig, so would the basic recommendation be a sonore micro Rendu >dac? But also wondering if a node 2i would be nice since I do use tidal The orchard pecan pie and alo players also look price competitive but unsure if I can go right from audivarna to one of them? Thanks in in advance for any suggestions

Would appreciate any advice for a streaming rookie to simplify and neaten my set up in my home office. My current set up for music is to use my desktop iMac with Audivarna out to a portable Ifi amp/dac placed on my actual desk. I than run a 25 foot pair of ICs out from the dac to my pre amp and stereo set up on the other side of the room. I like this set up because, i can control my music selections and volume while I'm working on the cpu and have the option to plug in a good set of headphones at my desk when the speaker volume will disturb the rest of the house. The drawback is i have to run outrightly cables across the room and cant remove the Iifi and use the amp/dac in other parts of the house since its designed to be semi portable. So i would like to set up a streamer and permanent dac on my audio rack on the other side of the room, preferably controlled by the iMac rather than reaching for my phone or tablet to control the audio system. This is because i like the sound of audivarna. I primarily stream Tidal but would also like the option to plug in usb hard drive to the streamer to play my collection of hard drive stored live music. However if i do this i would lose the ability to plug in my headphones unless i run a headphone cable back across the room. So what should i explore? Do i want a streamer that can be controlled wireless by audiovarna? I see the new version of audivana uses UPnP, but I'm not sure exactly what this does but will that allow me to control the streamer from the cpu? Or do i need something like a Sonare microrendu? Also not sure what this does, but will that act as a streamer or just an interface to the network and i still need a player/renderer? I do have a router near my audio rack which could plug into the streamer if need be, but don't know if this is necessary. Also is there a recommended way to keep the headphone function on the desk? Or should i just buy say a inexpensive dac/amp like a firefly or Schidtt and leave it on the desk? Its hard to provide budget at this point because I'm not really sure what would be a decent way to proceed….but would like to separate a new DAC from the streamer so i can upgrade or change later if necessary. thanks for any suggestions or recommendations.

Hi all, i use xld to rip cds to flac on my mac. Recently my settings have been lost. XLD has stopped setting up an album folder and ripping the tracks into this one folder. Instead it just rips the random tracks. Also despite having the databases checked in preferences, xld no does not find cover art. Anyone have any idea what the settings are to put this back into standard almost automatic ripping format . Thanks