Advice on streaming

Paulx10111

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I have a external 4tb hard drive (with all my audio) plugged into an Asus laptop using Foobar then USB to a Myryad Dac to a Linn Kolektor/LK 85 set up. The problem is the laptop I can't position it close to the system so have extended power USB cables running along one wall and there is a lot of moving around room to interact with the components. Been looking at IFI Zen or Pro-ject stream box S2, am I right in my assumption that I can plug my HD USB into either the Zen or S2 then from there to my Dac, removing the need of the laptop and controlling using an android phone. If correct any advice on which is the better for my usage, I don't use any streaming services so it would just be for my hard dive audio (Flac,wav,Hi res Flac, & some DSD)

 
If you bought a netbook secondhand for 50 quid and used that connected to your dac you could get high quality music also.
 
A netbook is no different to the laptop I am using at the moment. I cant sit anything that size near the Hi-Fi rack
 
Ok. I misunderstood, thought the laptop was in use somewhere else
 
I have a external 4tb hard drive (with all my audio) plugged into an Asus laptop using Foobar then USB to a Myryad Dac to a Linn Kolektor/LK 85 set up. The problem is the laptop I can't position it close to the system so have extended power USB cables running along one wall and there is a lot of moving around room to interact with the components. Been looking at IFI Zen or Pro-ject stream box S2, am I right in my assumption that I can plug my HD USB into either the Zen or S2 then from there to my Dac, removing the need of the laptop and controlling using an android phone. If correct any advice on which is the better for my usage, I don't use any streaming services so it would just be for my hard dive audio (Flac,wav,Hi res Flac, & some DSD)

Not aware of the ability to plug hd into a zen, perhaps @iFi audio can help. Otherwise, cheapest way is to use a raspberry pi. Plug the hd into that and then have the pi going into your dac via usb. You can then use your phone or laptop to control the pi to select what music.
 
I was also going to suggest a Pi. Tiny, cheap and brilliant! Requires a little bit of setting up but the only skill required is the ability to follow some pretty simple instruction and have the willingness to tinker with some settings. There's plenty of us on here that can talk you through that.
 
I was also going to suggest a Pi. Tiny, cheap and brilliant! Requires a little bit of setting up but the only skill required is the ability to follow some pretty simple instruction and have the willingness to tinker with some settings. There's plenty of us on here that can talk you through that.
Agree, whilst it can seem scary its actually pretty easy as plenty of guides (pretty much cut and paste commands into a terminal) and people who can help.
 
Agree, whilst it can seem scary its actually pretty easy as plenty of guides (pretty much cut and paste commands into a terminal) and people who can help.

I know you are far more into this than me but you don't even need to go that far do you? My recent picore LMS set up just involved burning an image to an SD card, booting up and then setup completed with my pc browser using the picore player interface. It was very easy indeed.
 
I know you are far more into this than me but you don't even need to go that far do you? My recent picore LMS set up just involved burning an image to an SD card, booting up and then setup completed with my pc browser using the picore player interface. It was very easy indeed.
Yep you are right, was thinking of other guides for some of the other programs I run. So even easier than copy and pasting😊
 
Agree with others - get a raspberry PI 4 and load a suitable image onto it and have that connect to the DAC via USB. I have several in my home for streaming purposes though they are all as audio endpoints and/or displays for the Roon music streaming system.

I think a project stream box S2 is basically a very expensive R-PI 3B with pre-loaded software and some USB filtering which shouldn't really be needed with a well designed USB DAC (Yes I admit - I really am not a fan of these severely over priced network boxes - the concept yes, but the reality of such a vast markup on the backs of common hardware and open source code - no).
 
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Not aware of the ability to plug hd into a zen, perhaps @iFi audio can help. Otherwise, cheapest way is to use a raspberry pi. Plug the hd into that and then have the pi going into your dac via usb. You can then use your phone or laptop to control the pi to select what music.
Thanks for tagging us TheHighFlyingBirds! Yes, the Zen Stream can play back files from a connected hard drive. There is even a dedicated USB socket for it - the top one with SS written over it. When you plug it in for the first time, it'll take some time to map the files. Then you are good to go. All controlled through a smartphone, or via a webpage accessible on your computer.
 
Thanks for tagging us TheHighFlyingBirds! Yes, the Zen Stream can play back files from a connected hard drive. There is even a dedicated USB socket for it - the top one with SS written over it. When you plug it in for the first time, it'll take some time to map the files. Then you are good to go. All controlled through a smartphone, or via a webpage accessible on your computer.
Thats interesting, didnt realise you could do that. Is there a dedicated app for controlling it then?
 

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