I used a Logitech Touch for several years, upgrading the streaming capability, first with wired ethernet instead of wireless (would never go back) and next with Touch software mods making it - in theory - able to playback PCM 24 - 196. Its wasn't cheap and the sound was a little disappointing.so it remains in the kitchen, where nothing resembling critical listening will occur. The BlueSound Pulse speakers have streamers built in, can serve as endpoints for well synchronized sound originating from the Node 2i and they aren't bad as wireless, remote speakers go.but the don't come close to most, spare stereo systems most of us have. The only thing missing, in my opinion is a BlueSound receiver that could be plugged into aux inputs on systems in other rooms for nice, whole house sound. The internal DAC wasn't bad at all.but would be out of place on many of the higher end systems owned by subscribers to this forum. I'm using it with an external DAC (not high end at all) and it sounds slightly better than it's internal DAC did. make sure it does what you need it to do, and has a UI (user interface) that doesn't drive you crazy. When shopping for a lower price streamer, do a lot of research, read reviews, etc. When you pay less for a streamer, you may lose quality, interoperability, a user friendly interface, or all of the above. All that interoperability costs money to create and often involves paying a fee to those services or protocols. It supports Spotify connect, roon, bluetooth, Google cast, etc. The node 2i can stream directly or in some cases, through the mobile app. Plus, they often have to create an iOS and Android app to accompany the streamer. The streamer must be compatible with lots of providers and different protocols. When a company builds a streamer, hoping to sell 10,000 or 50,000 with no advertising income, the more complex development costs are spread over fewer devices. I'm thinking that software development, API's, etc play into the price of streamers.Ĭommon phone apps, small and relatively simple, are downloaded to millions of phones and through advertising, generate money to cover development costs. Or maybe someone is doing this, and it's just not well distributed? If produced in sufficient number, there is no good reason such a unit with a decent DAC couldn't be built and sold for $200 or so. A dealbreaker for most of our clients in terms of added complexity. As you might imagine, analog audio out is not great. For a mere $50, expectations were of course also modest. We recently tried one of the Dayton WBA 31s. Both not only required a display, but were pretty terrible implementations overall. There were some early efforts by Sony and Dlink a few years ago. Among other issues, is that the budget options are defaulting to HDMI out, and omitting Optical, Digital, and Analog out. And yes, most disc players are "smart" and can stream audio and video just fine. Or roll your own with a Raspberry Pi solution. Oh sure, you can pair a computer or tablet with a cheap DAC, and get by. Probably the least expensive that's of decent quality is the Sonos Connect. Many options in the high end, but what seems odd is the lack of budget options. Whether from a local host, online, and so on. The new frontier is of course, streaming. Sure, not the best quality, but they work well enough for most. New ones would eventually drop to under $200, and new players that also play most all formats can still be had around at that price or less. When CD players were first introduced, they were $1000 and more new.
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