https://youtu.be/ZWZXE2Rd9V8
Look at that! Thanks alot, I was able to find a program. Lag isn’t terrible although I’ve seen better. Honestly since scrolling itself is very slow I might just use the hiby app and then manually search for the artist lol. Will see but yeah think a streamer might not be needed in the end! Thanks alot everyone!
Edit : new update. I’m just using the Hiby music player since it has the remote function :theface:HAHAHAHA. I’m just opening the folders and playing music that way it’s organized. And it’s just much faster than the app o had been using
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Oh wow, I feel like you don’t see too many streamers that support AirPlay 2, thanks for the tip!
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If you use the hiby player the r62020 was able to be used from afar with your phone being the controller. As in you have hiby player on your phone and using it there will controll the dap. I would assume they carried that function to the r6s too.
Edit: looks like you already know that
If you want to get fancy a Pi solution is great, or a used bluenode
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Yeah, if anyone is curious I ended up using the hiby link afterall. It’s got an area where you can look at the folder instead which looks much better to me so that’s how I’m using it. It’s super fast and I’m loving it! Didn’t realize it would be so damn convinient!
Also if you look at the folder version instead of regular ui it has korean alphabet in correct order!
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I got a BlueSound 2021 and huge fan of the blueos. Sound performance is good but still haven’t tried usb output to ddc yet.
Just a random observation, that I think in the end indicates how important the PSU is in these things.
I had some issues with the network connection in the Pacific after a Roon update.
Short version is I resolved the issue, but in the process I confirmed what I would have guessed, that the Pacific uses an off the shelf Raspberry Pi model 3B running Roon Bridge connected via USB to the Pacifics USB interface, for it’s network connection.
One of my early tests with the Pacific was to compare it’s network connection to using my EMM Labs NS1 via AES, it was very close, to the point I chose the Pacific’s network connection.
This was in contrast to all the other tests I’d done with the Raspberry Pi’s where the NS1 was dramatically better even against shields like the PI2AES with a $300 Ifi Elite Power PSU.
The big advantage I can see the Pi has in the pacific, other than the shielding around it, is it’s driven off the Lampizators PSU, in fact it appears to be a separate linear power supply inside the DAC for all the 5V items.
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I wouldn’t be surprised at that level if they’re hand picking components based on 0.5% tolerances and shit like that.
I am surprised no one has mentioned Innuos in this thread (even thought the price starts at $1399). They have both many variations (I have the Zen Mini MKIII with the LPSU) and a very nice OS.
I run all my music from their OS and that is both local files and Qobuz. It has a super UI that looks good and they have a community, where you can suggest new changes, so they try to deliver what customers want.
But one of the real benefits is also their customer service. It is the best I have experienced with audio gear and the also help with experimental whishes. They installed streaming services on my unit, that they didn’t officially supported at the time.
It can be controlled from either a browser or their mobile app. It runs perfectly and I have never had the desire to go for Roon or any other similar service.
And it has both an build in ripper and a DAC.
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@Gordon_Freeman , so very happy you mentioned the Base Innuos unit. I want to second the fact that they have excellent service and support. I have tried their new software and found it very useable, i am well invested in ROON currently but were i to purchase a unit today and only have one streaming service the Innuos / Quboz combo would be 100% acceptable and worthwhile to me. 
I have been running a Zenith mk3 for 2 years now, I would not necessarily invest in this again, i think better units exist at the price point, but the fact that they finally have their own in house software to stream music makes the lower cost units extremely worthwhile IMHO…
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For an alternative slightly more DIY version this is my current plan. PI 4 with Audiophonics AES hat - this gives me AES out and a very small box. As far as I know it is the only alternate AES hat. PiAES is more reviewed and better known but the cost to import makes the value proposition very different.
My plan is to have AES out into a Mutec 1.1+ distribution reclocker. This will give me more outputs than I will ever need in a variety of formats - one input each of and two outputs each of AES xlr, AES bnc, spdif, toslink with all to all or one to all other format conversion. It doesn’t have USB in but as I like the pi a lot as a streamer box and I can then easily update the pi hat at any time I wish to, it gives me a lot more flexibility. As I already own a pi4 the total cost for the hat and Mutec will be around 450 Euros which I am pretty happy with.
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The reclocking will help the Pi and you can also up a Pi a lot further by using a quality power supply. When I was fooling around with them the best sound came from feeding the Pi and the hat separate quality 5v sources.
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Absolutely agree. It is currently on an ifi Ipower adapter. The Audiophonics hat can be set to either feed power to the pi, have power from the pi or to use an entirely separate power input which is a feature I do appreciate as it will allow me to deal with this easily later on - again helping me spread out purchases.
Shows how good the foundation of a Pi can be… I was floored with @Polygonhell said the Pacific basically has a Pi as the streaming interface but with a Lampizator level PS feeding it.
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You would be very surprised at the amount of higher end streamers and dacs with pi or pi like innards. Of course it’s not just a simple pi, most of them have extremely beefed up psu and component quality, separate reclocker or dsp daughter boards, extra isolation, etc. But I guess it makes sense, it’s a flexible platform that doesn’t have too much going on so I’d bet it’s easier to optimize for audio without as much cost as a fully custom solution. I think some of the well optimized PI work great as streamers, but on it’s own just the regular pi really doesn’t sound all that great as a source imo
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I think it also helps that the linux soundstack can be very low latency and very direct. I think a lot of them are using an MPD server daemon and alsa which would give them a very direct output with minimal driver layers and little to no software mixing. I know volumio, moode etc use these as I have dug around inside them when I was trying various configurations.
I found that using the airplay connection which lets me add the pi as a soundcard on my PC (running Ubuntu) causes virtually no delay when watching video. That impressed me a lot.
The only downside of this is that it makes it very hard to duplicate a stream to multiple outputs via the OS - which is why hardware hats or proprietary subscriptions work to allow multi-room setups.
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Anybody know if you can still play local files from a Pi2 streamer without an internet connection?
Home ISP currently down, and even though I’m connected to the network, it’s still showing the Pi2AES as offline.
Volumio shouldn’t require a network connection.
Ropiee shouldn’t either.
Roon does.
With Volumio or Moode you don’t need an internet connection. Volumio lets you connect a NAS drive with either NTP or SMB. I currently have an external SSD added like this via my router. You can also use a USB attached drive on the pi itself in both those OSs
You can also use them as an external sink via the network using airplay and play direct from a PC - this is very easy on Ubuntu but I can’t tell you how easy or difficult on other systems
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Roon needs it for the license validation heartbeat but it will actually work without an ISP if it goes down for a spell, I haven’t been able to determine how long but it will easily go over 20 minutes from what I’ve experienced.
Thanks, all. I use Moode on mine, but it won’t let me connect to the moode.local page or using the device IP, showing offline.