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Thanks man. Yeah it’s a 1980 SIII petrol. The needs case is very flimsy, but had to have one!

New car day. After driving her 25 miles home I’m deaf, shaking and grinning like an idiot.

Thanks. More I read, less I like about that Chord setup.

Yeah lovely thanks!

Interesting, thanks!

Good point! I can at least get started without it though. I’ve always wanted to do something with Raspberry Pi.

And much appreciated it was/is.

I guess I hadn’t appreciated how far things have moved on and the scope of the investment i might be making. I was originally imagining just a dongle to stream my CDs to Hifi. Now with stuff like Roon and streaming services, i’m looking at pretty much a new platform, in fact a new relationship with recorded music and especially new music. Very exciting and worth throwing a few quid at if the hat fits.

Sorry should have been clear: I would get new ‘phones to work with the Chord if that’s how I roll.

Might ninja-edit that post where I said I was only gonna spend half a bag.

Right, I have a vague plan.... starting from the top and trying to keep it logical (spoiler: I think I fail).

I don’t need the Brennan B2, cos I already have a CD ripper; I’ll use the iMac to gradually rip* my collection to ALAC. I can run trusty iTunes as a fallback, even build a nice little office system :)

On media storage, I reckon i’ve only got about 500CDs tops, and for now i’m not looking at video, so we’re looking at <<1TB setup ... I reckon a NAS is overkill (future upgrade?), maybe for now a half gig USB SSD or even SD card with the iMac.

Server... well I love the look/idea of Roon. It might be just what I am looking for... so I’m gonna give it a trial. Let’s see... if it works I could run a Roon Core on my iMac. I’d like to trial Plex too.

For multi room, well I don’t like really like Airplay 2 because it only works from iTunes / Apple Music**. I do like Sonos, it’s clearly the market leader for usability, my mum and dad use it FFS. I know from my years of green marker pen, clocking, and upgrading decoupling capacitors around TDA1541As (who’s with me?!) that the DAC section is crucial... but thanks for reminding me @freddo! Then I remembered my old (epic) Musical Fidelity Digilog DAC ... it’s 16/44 of course, but I’m not drinking the hi-res Kool Aid just yet (not saying I won’t glug it in the future). So I could dust that down and with a Sonos connect, it could be a nice client/renderer for my two-channel system. Thoughts? Cost: £350 for Sonos Connect.

Looking at an alternative i.e. high-res DAC I would probably lean towards DLNA rather than Sonos because it opens up some very nice integrated client/DAC options and lots of endpoints choice. I like the look of the Aurilic Aries Mini. This can take a 2.5” SSD too within the chassis and become a streamer ... neat solution for my storage. Cost: £450 (plus say £80 for 512GB SSD)

I am swooning at the Chord Poly/Mojo combo. Yes, that did escalate quickly. My internal case for this is that I could use it as a headphone source as well as Hifi client. ‘Phones is actually how I do most of my listening nowadays, what with an office job, commute, and young kids. Anyone else use this setup? I have Bose QC35s currently but I find them quite fatiguing and not that engaging. Obviously they’re Bluetooth too so I am sure can be improved on. To go tethered again would take some getting used to though. The Chord Poly also has a micro SD slot so again for a hundred quid it could host and stream my library.
Cost: £1k plus £100 for micro SD plus headphones £???!

Thanks to all those who helped so far. Looking forward to spending some dosh.

*Yes, I know I should really just save myself the trouble and not bother, because it’s all available on Spotify or tidal, but I can’t do it. I’m gonna rip ‘em. At least it’ll remind me of what I have. I like the idea I think @Airhead said about whittling CDs down to a classic shelf of albums... I’m not chucking my CD player away just yet.

**One thing I did discover, don’t remember it being mentioned here, was Home Sharing on iTunes. This is limited but elegant: it just lets you access and stream your iTunes library from the iMac to iOS devices with the same Apple ID, but only while on the home network. So you can listen to lossless on your iPhone. And then bounce it on through AirPlay 2 I guess.

Hey man, thanks again for your posts. I knew this was going to be a rabbit hole, and i’m fully in it now so may as well see it through!

So, about this part:

You can get a Gigbyte Brix with optical and analogue out with 512Gb SSD which will kick seven shades out of a cheapo NAS and Sonos Connect

In what sense will it be superior? It’s a genuine question: I don’t want the source in my Hifi to be compromised. I’m guessing processing power, which translates to streaming capability? A consideration with high demand applications e.g. video, multiple users etc?

Edit: my late night baby-cradling Internet trawling also indicates that increased ability to buffer audio is beneficial to sound quality.

Nah. Yeah! Dunno. Need to google the six new abbreviations @freddo has introduced :^]

Seriously though. Maybe.

Well, it’s good to go in eyes open, because the investment of time is significant. But, from the snippets i’ve picked up about you over the years I reckon you’d find it rewarding.

You could always take the hive and suit, clean them and put away. Join the local BKA (find it here) , take their introductory course usually held in the winter and get on the swarm list for next spring.

Or after that if you decide it’s not for you, pass the gear on.

Here’s where I’m at.

First up I get the benefits of a NAS over an islanded hard drive. No point trying to jury-rig a cheap NAS just to take advantage of my existing 5TB HDD. It’ll be inferior, and it’d be sensible to use that anyway for backup, even if I am using a RAID setup on the NAS.

So, i’ll buy a NAS and rip my CD collection to it. I will point my client device(s) at the NAS. Right-o.

A 2TB NAS (£300) and Sonos Connect (£350) is gonna stand me at £650. If I want to add extra rooms it’s easy with Sonos One.

But the Brennan B2 is also a 2TB NAS with a client device integrated. It’s £550. It works with Sonos. The DAC section might be a little nicer. But I am not sure if it’s as versatile as a true NAS? Could I store DVDs and photos on it for instance? Need to read up on that.

Airplay 2 ... Files remain on iMac, stream to iPad, digital out to DAC (no dock required).

Ok I done a bit of digging and this doesn’t seem to be possible. You can stream from an iPad, iPhone etc, but only to supported receiver devices e.g. active speakers, smart TVs etc. So I don’t think this option would be a cheap fix.

What are factors in your debate?

Also, sorry to say it but your budget probably won't even stretch to covering the NAS, let alone any drives to go in it or client devices

Hiya, so I reckon a NAS would be a Good Thing. Anything massively wrong with this one for instance?... £300

Synology DS218J 2TB 2 Bay NAS Solution | Installed with 2 x 1TB Western Digital Red Drives https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077DD68MT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Ycw3CbWWB4MGE

Oh, pants. Sympathies.

Haha yeah I don’t have a space issue here. I’m thinking of putting a hammock up in it :)

have a look at your home broadband router. It may well have a USB socket into which you can plug a USB hard drive

It does, but only one and it turns out i’ve already plugged a dongle for my smart thermostat into it. FFS.

It’s 2011, okay great I was reading a different summary which said different. Looks like i’ll just have to have a tinker!

@mashton that option sounds good too. I’lol have a look at that.

What will work for you is Airplay 2 which does all these things. What I'd probably suggest is get an old iphone or ipad mini, add a mobile DAC

Got an iPad mini in a drawer somewhere. Didn’t realise you could extract digital out, with a bit of tinkering of course :)
All very interesting.

EDIT: maybe I am being a dumbass here, but I am not quite getting how this would work. Where would the hi-res files be stored? And how would the iPad mini access them (assuming you envisage that as the ‘client’ device on a digital dock with a DAC)? iMac doesn’t support Airplay 2.

Thanks. I do like the idea of a NAS. I am currently in the rabbit-hole of whether I can create one for free using my HDD and an either my iMac or an old Linux laptop I have... plex looks great too.

@freddo and @mashton thanks for clearing that up. Actually now i’ve thought it through, I don’t think I need to access my library outside the home, but I would want to sync compressed versions onto my iPhone (which is what iTunes does).

.