But airplay and Roon Streaming are not the same in my research.
Also @antdroid that unit stays the same price according to their website. Unless dealers are marking it up for other reasons.
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Itās slick. I am also planning on using it with an amp though. The streaming for me has been flawless with roon. I got the WiFi hooked up and will listen that way for a while and see if anything fails.
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Thanks man! @mfadio appreciate it
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Happy to help! Iāll torture test it tomorrow while my 4 year old watches Bluey. If her connection stutters, I will be INFORMED.
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Ya direct roon support is probably better than airplay, but for those of us without Roon, Airplay allows for Qobuz, Tidal and Spotify, and other streaming services.
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Most definitely, I wonder why some dealers are marking it up and others are not. Interesting.
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crudā¦ guess I have to decide soon then.
I like the streamer function with the Element X and the DAC but itās a bit pricey at MSRP. This one seems much more reasonableā¦ curious how far different the sound will be.
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I was reading about it a lot last night thinking about getting one too. The only thing that kinda bugged me was one of the reviews I read said it presented the midrange is less natural sounding then some other DAC only options around the same price range. The reviewer said specifically that the D90 was actually a more natural sounding better option. Which made me rethink it, as I was hoping it would actually be a step up in sound over the D90. Again this is just one review. It might be worth trying and comparing the two, the feature set is incredible, especially with Roon.
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ideally for me, it would just be a streaming transport, and have coax or toslink out so i can use my standalone DAC.
I am looking at the Cambridge CXN V2 as a possible streamer too.
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@mfadio how does it present the midrange to your ears? Do you have another Dac to compare it too? I expect itās fairly clean and very neutral sounding as is kinda expected with Matrix audio, leaving the sound more up to the headphones and added amp.
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I have read good things about it, and it will sound warm too I believe according to a conversation I had with a dealer about it. Although you may give up some detail compared to the matrix. Complete speculation as I havenāt heard either. What is the size difference?
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Man, for that kind of money, what do you have against a RPi with a Pi2AES?
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At the risk of sounding like an idiot, it sounds like all the other chip based DACs I have had a chance to listen to. Without massive A/B time, I struggle to hear the differences between good implementations of all the chips.
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You donāt sound like an idiot buddy, I think you might hear a difference if you a/b a bit with the Bluesound Nodi 2i if you have one still.
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Returned it. Liked it, couldnāt justify the price premium over a Raspberry Pi and a better DAC.
edit to add: And I believe I would have heard the difference there. It sounded better digital out to my ancient Peachtree Nova, than RCA out.
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agree with @MRHifiReviews ā¦ you donāt sound like an idiot. If it doesnāt sound different or good enough to be worth it to you, nothing wrong with that. Itās your ears and your money.
And, honestly, if you have to put in a bunch of extra effort to even tell the difference between it and other stuff you have, is it really worth adding to the mix?
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I also returned mine after comparing it was a nice sounding piece of kit but lacked compared to other offerings.
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I have a Pi sitting around I could use, but I want an integrated solution with a screen and no fuss. I saw theres some pretty nice Pi software for ROON but I dont use roon. Just want a Chromecast or Airplay solution with screen displaying album art for hte most part.
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The Cambridge is a full-sized stereo component, so quite a bit bigger than the i3
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