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- Mar 28, 2014
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WAY too many posts with (primarily) Classic Rock and Southern Rock music THAT I LOVE (and my listening sessions keep me from being the subject of a National News story)
So it's been a while since I checked in here, and I don't have a lot of time right now,
BUT
I really want to share a "modern" music revelation that I have only been intermittently trying to "figure out" how to accomplish for over a year. I finally decided to latch on to my "problem" like a dog on a juicy rib bone until I found a satisfactory solution....
MUSIC STREAMING SERVICES, in particular "high resolution" audio quality. I'll say in advance, I found "CD quality" or numerically "44.1kHz/16 bit depth" is fine, ALONG WITH a codec (way of storing and sending) that isn't "lossy".
What really drove me to finally pursue a solution is my Verizon service has included Apple Music as part of my plan. I can't drop it to save $10/month, it's "inclusive" but I was able to cancel my 6+ years long Spotify premium subscription, and VOILA! I am saving that $10/month.
So...as amazing as music sounds on my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra phone, well...it's a PHONE, and honestly I know from being in the Audio/Video and Home Theater business for 20 years what "kick ***, over the top" systems sound like, and in the last 22 years I have put together some of the BEST equipment available, and I was honored to have my Theater Room in my previous house published in a magazine, and it has improved a significant amount since then.
The "problem" is most of this gear was made before streaming was so popular, and HDMI connections didn't exist for High Resolution audio inputs, so I needed a way to get the music IN to my receiver (circa 12/2004) via digital optical or digital coax inputs.
The one exception to "too old to stream" equipment I have is my Oppo BDP-105D disc player, decoder, and streaming service unit. I bought it mainly for its ability to use the modern Dolby Digital and DTS surround audio formats on BluRay DVDs and send the decoded analog 7.1 surround sound to one of two 7.1 analog inputs on my receiver. That works great, and while I don't have Atmos etc, it does an excellent job of realistically placing the viewers acoustically inside of the scene. The problem with using it for music streaming is I'm limited to the pre-loaded music streaming services on the unit, and Apple Music isn't one, but Tidal is and that's one of the best quality services but it's twice the cost at $20/month and I'm trying to not pay for services since I get Apple Music "free" and the Oppo app that controls it works about 30% of the time, a deal breaker.
Let me cut to the chase:
I bought a used Chromecast Audio device (puck) for $50 that Google made from 2015-2019 (they were $35 brand new). It works well and I have it connected to my receiver via a digital optical cable. In the following 2 weeks I learned of two new products by a company named WiiM, the WiiM Mini and WiiM Pro. I bought the WiiM Pro for $149 and it's amazing.
So if any of you want to have basically an unlimited CD collection available at your fingertips via either free or modest subscription cost, but your audio equipment is too old to have streaming services built in, I highly recommend getting the WiiM Mini or WiiM Pro, and UNLEASH the music of the ages over your own audio system instead of crappy little speakers in a phone or Google Home or Alexa device.
They can't compare to these:
So it's been a while since I checked in here, and I don't have a lot of time right now,
BUT
I really want to share a "modern" music revelation that I have only been intermittently trying to "figure out" how to accomplish for over a year. I finally decided to latch on to my "problem" like a dog on a juicy rib bone until I found a satisfactory solution....
MUSIC STREAMING SERVICES, in particular "high resolution" audio quality. I'll say in advance, I found "CD quality" or numerically "44.1kHz/16 bit depth" is fine, ALONG WITH a codec (way of storing and sending) that isn't "lossy".
What really drove me to finally pursue a solution is my Verizon service has included Apple Music as part of my plan. I can't drop it to save $10/month, it's "inclusive" but I was able to cancel my 6+ years long Spotify premium subscription, and VOILA! I am saving that $10/month.
So...as amazing as music sounds on my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra phone, well...it's a PHONE, and honestly I know from being in the Audio/Video and Home Theater business for 20 years what "kick ***, over the top" systems sound like, and in the last 22 years I have put together some of the BEST equipment available, and I was honored to have my Theater Room in my previous house published in a magazine, and it has improved a significant amount since then.
The "problem" is most of this gear was made before streaming was so popular, and HDMI connections didn't exist for High Resolution audio inputs, so I needed a way to get the music IN to my receiver (circa 12/2004) via digital optical or digital coax inputs.
The one exception to "too old to stream" equipment I have is my Oppo BDP-105D disc player, decoder, and streaming service unit. I bought it mainly for its ability to use the modern Dolby Digital and DTS surround audio formats on BluRay DVDs and send the decoded analog 7.1 surround sound to one of two 7.1 analog inputs on my receiver. That works great, and while I don't have Atmos etc, it does an excellent job of realistically placing the viewers acoustically inside of the scene. The problem with using it for music streaming is I'm limited to the pre-loaded music streaming services on the unit, and Apple Music isn't one, but Tidal is and that's one of the best quality services but it's twice the cost at $20/month and I'm trying to not pay for services since I get Apple Music "free" and the Oppo app that controls it works about 30% of the time, a deal breaker.
Let me cut to the chase:
I bought a used Chromecast Audio device (puck) for $50 that Google made from 2015-2019 (they were $35 brand new). It works well and I have it connected to my receiver via a digital optical cable. In the following 2 weeks I learned of two new products by a company named WiiM, the WiiM Mini and WiiM Pro. I bought the WiiM Pro for $149 and it's amazing.
So if any of you want to have basically an unlimited CD collection available at your fingertips via either free or modest subscription cost, but your audio equipment is too old to have streaming services built in, I highly recommend getting the WiiM Mini or WiiM Pro, and UNLEASH the music of the ages over your own audio system instead of crappy little speakers in a phone or Google Home or Alexa device.
They can't compare to these:
