Bluetooth DAC for vintage receiver recommendation?

lightcapture

Super Member
I'm looking for a bluetooth DAC to interface my Android phone to a '80 Pioneer receiver in the $50 dollar range. It will be used in a small 9' x 11' listening room.

My top three contenders are:
Nuforce BTR100 _ $63
StarTech.com BT2A _ $54
Monoprice Home Theater Music Receiver (Same as StarTech in different case) _ $50

Any experiences with these, or any better recommendations in this price range?

For the record, if I had a better stereo with a larger budget I'd consider these:
Auris BlueMe _ $170
Audio engine B1 _ $190

Thank You,
Mike

System R no grills2090.jpg
 
I thought it required a Chromecast-compatible app, but many (or most?) are.

On my Blackberry Priv, running Android 6 I have a cast button in the drop down menu.

Screenshot_20170724_062948.png


When you cast system audio obviously you can use any app, Even ones that don't natively support CC like Amazon Music, Swiss Jazz etc.

Eric
 
I have the Audioengine B1 for streaming from my droid and I'm happy with it. It has much better sound quality than the Logitech unit that I also have. Another plus for the B1 is it has an optical out which I run into a Mac D100 dac for improved sound. The one and only reason I stay with bt as opposed to chromecast is because I don't have wi-fi available at my rig...........yet.
 
The 3 budget units listed appear to be the same internally, and Nuforce/Monoprice having even the same enclosure. For best quality you want to use the aptX codec if your Android phone supports it. If you have wi-fi Chromecast would still be better (and less expensive too).
 
Thanks all. I'm getting closer.
If JazzRadio.com ap supports Chromecast Audio I may try it for the better sound quality. There is supposed to be the Chromecast icon on the ap but I don't see it. Wonder if I need the buy the Chromecast Audio unit before it shows up.
I do have another question. Is the sound through Chromecast Audio or a Bluetooth DAC better than the sound of the headphone jack on my phone hardwired to my receiver's Aux input, which I use now?
 
Yeah, I believe you need to have a Chromecast device discoverable on your home network before the icon shows up. It is not only sound quality, you will get better range with Chromecast/Wi-Fi if that's of any importance anyway. As for your question, some newer phones have decent onboard DACs and analog stages, so the answer is "it depends". You could later decide to upgrade to a better external DACin which case you can use the optical output on the Chromecast into the DAC, that should sound better than the headphone output on your phone (but you could also go USB directly into the DAC from your phone as well).
 
Last edited:
When you cast system audio obviously you can use any app, Even ones that don't natively support CC like Amazon Music, Swiss Jazz etc.

I suspect system audio may not be free from unwanted resampling and other manipulations as it goes through the system mixer.
 
I suspect system audio may not be free from unwanted resampling and other manipulations as it goes through the system mixer.

Does the casting happen before or after the phone's DAC? If it goes straight to the Wifi module it should not be resampled right?

Eric
 
Does the casting happen before or after the phone's DAC? If it goes straight to the Wifi module it should not be resampled right?

Eric

Not claiming to be an expert on this but my understanding is given system audio can be a mix of music playing, ringtones, system sounds, etc., they all need to be mixed into a single PCM stream which is then sent to Chromecast (definitely before the internal DAC), if the sounds have different sampling frequencies they need to be "normalized" to some sampling frequency and bit-depth, which may be different from the format of the music playing (e.g. 44.1kHz vs. 48kHz). It is also possible the stream is further compressed before it is sent over WiFi, a quick search on this subject didn't reveal any specifics. This is different from direct app support, in which case the app typically just hands off streaming endpoint information to the Chromecast device which then streams directly from the provider servers, compressed.
 
Last edited:
Why not just save the money altogether and use the cell phone's analog output? Odds are that it has better sound quality than both the BT and CC units when comparing analog outputs.
 
Why not just save the money altogether and use the cell phone's analog output? Odds are that it has better sound quality than both the BT and CC units when comparing analog outputs.

Just my $.02 worth, my CC sounds much better than either my iPhone or iPad.
 
Back
Top Bottom