New digital source recommendation

Dees06

Active Member
I'm in need of recommendations for my digital source/setup. I mainly utilize Spotify to stream music via various iDevices and my laptop, and I have quite a bit of time invested in building playlists. I do occasionally listen to a cd or music saved to a hard drive. I have a Linux based laptop for those duties and roughly 200gb of saved high res files. I don't do any critical listening and want to build a suitable system to provide reasonable "mid-fi" sound while I'm studying. I am building a set of diy full range speakers and already have a tpa3116 to drive them. With that in mind, I want to put together something a little bit better than just a headphone jack connection between the amp and my iDevices or laptop. I was thinking about a DAC like the Schiit Modi and connecting directly to a source I already have, build a Raspberry pi based source with a DAC add-on like the Hifiberry and using volumio to manage streaming and saved music on a SD card, or putting together a Chromecast --> amp system with streaming via wifi from an existing source. I would also like to have the capacity to add on or upgrade later if I want without having to start from scratch. Budget is around $100 and that is a major factor in those options above.

With all that in mind, is one of those options superior to the others or it just a pick 'em? I guess I'm asking "what's the best way to spend a $100 to get the best sound from streaming Spotify premium on the highest resolution and saved high resolution files?"
 
For mid-fi, music to study to, might as well see if a Chromecast Audio (or Apple Airport Express, since you have I-things) is all you need. You can add a DAC later if you decide you want more fi.
 
Back
Top Bottom