Anyone switched to 100% radio over WIFI yet?

Lietuvis91

I was looking to get a nice pre (JC2 or Pass Labs XP10 or comperable), but most of them don't have a tuner built it, which means I either buy an external AM/FM tuner, OR stream ALL of my radio over the net trough one of the streaming gadgets. I wonder if anyone has switched to 100% wifi based radio, what gear do you use for streaming and what do you think about the quality of the sound compared to true FM?

I'm going to be researching over the weekend, so any and all input/discussion is welcome!

tonyb

I think anyone who is streaming music in general has already dumped their tuner. Plus with streaming you can get radio stations from every corner of the globe if you wish.

Does it sound as good as say a vintage tuner ? No...but then what does, right ? You can always add a nice vintage tuner to any pre amp if you like for fairly cheap too.

voltz

I for one don't use the radio anymore ,even in my car I have Cd's or memory sticks, and use spotify and other services at home. except for bad weather then we have KFDI country station with spotters everywhere there is activity.
I not knocking the radio or anything about them, just I like to pick my music.
here some tuners I have looked at
http://www.audioadvisor.com/Tuners/products/16/

gudnoyez

I have a few receivers so I can listen to terrestrial radio also have a decent Cambridge tuner on one of my Integrateds, but prefer streaming over terrestrial, especially during the morning as the morning show yucksters won't shut up I want tunes in the morning not the morning crew laughing it up ( Bob and Tom) or your local yucksters.

I rarely listen to FM anymore clear channel has ruined any classic rock stations playing the same songs over and over with the 100 song setlist, you can only hear Freebird, or Peace Of Mind so many times right. I prefer streaming.

Lietuvis91

Well, I listen to the local music stations quiet a bit, so I was looking for a way to have access to them and ran across this GraceDigital doohickey, which made me think of going all WIfi. Looking at it now I see it also has an FM antena connection, so i could still get FM stations through it too. For $150-$180 on Amazon, not bad. The cheapest option I have seen, thought not sure about sound quality.

I don't suppose anyone here has one?! Wish it had HD radio too...


Features

Accesses 50,000 radio stations, podcasts, and on demand content
Supports internet music services like Pandora, Live365, and Premium SiriusXM internet radio
Compatible with the Grace iPhone® / Touch remote control application
2 line backlit display w/ large font
Displays Station, Song Title & Artist info
Full function remote w/ 10 presets
10 presets on the radio + 99 station folder
Built in FM radio receiver

Audio

1/4″ Stereo headphone jack
High quality RCA analog audio connectors
TOSLINK Digital audio connector
COAX Digital audio connectors
FM antenna connector
Supported audio formats: AIFF, AIFC, WAVE, CAF, NeXT, ADTS, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WMA
Supported playlist formats: ASX, M3U, PLS
Supported streaming protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, RTSP, WSMP, Shoutcast
Built in media player streams your audio files from your PC or MAC
Built in dual band equalizer
Up to 24bit / 96K sampling rate via digital outputs
Play music on your SD card. Up to 4GB support
Connect up your external/USB Thumb Drive with up to 2500 songs (2TB max).
SD Card/USB Drive supports VFAT (FAT32).

https://gracedigital.com/shop/tuner/#.VMLakPmszjI

Lietuvis91

gudnoyez wrote: »

I have a few receivers so I can listen to terrestrial radio also have a decent Cambridge tuner on one of my Integrateds, but prefer streaming over terrestrial, especially during the morning as the morning show yucksters won't shut up I want tunes in the morning not the morning crew laughing it up ( Bob and Tom) or your local yucksters.

I rarely listen to FM anymore clear channel has ruined any classic rock stations playing the same songs over and over with the 100 song setlist, you can only hear Freebird, or Peace Of Mind so many times right. I prefer streaming.

Terrestrial seems interesting. Do you have an internet enabled receiver that you stream it with?

Glad you mentioned it. Starting to realize there really could be some interesting content out there that would be much more pleasant to listen to vs same same old crap on the FM radio. (even when it's just back round music)

Conradicles

I did. While there are thousands of stations, the quality is no where near as good as the old trusty FM "tuna".

msg

Interesting question, and timely post, for me as well.
I've been using a Squeezebox Touch for around a year and a half now. I like it a lot for access to streaming content. It works pretty well for my needs.

HOWEVERRRR...
I've found what Conradicles mentions above - the quality is lacking. I'm not even talking just a little. I've found streaming radio to be essentially lifeless in immediate A/B comparison. streaming radio is very clean and clear, no doubt, but for as much as I enjoy streaming, this is one place where I have to say I prefer the old analog-ey choice. FM Stereo of a nice, old timey program coming in over a nice tuner, to me, helps create the "atmosphere" I enjoy. to me it's a clear night and day difference, and again, I LIKE streaming services.

tonyb wrote: »

I think anyone who is streaming music in general has already dumped their tuner. Plus with streaming you can get radio stations from every corner of the globe if you wish.

Does it sound as good as say a vintage tuner ? No...but then what does, right ? You can always add a nice vintage tuner to any pre amp if you like for fairly cheap too.

this is essentially where I am with right now. it's worth it to me to keep the tuner for the two public radio stations I listen to for a few of their music programs. I stream everything else, and yes, agreed, I do enjoy the access that streaming radio offers to the stations I don't get locally, though I rarely use it in this manner

Lietuvis91 wrote: »

Well, I listen to the local music stations quite a bit, so I was looking for a way to have access to them and ran across this GraceDigital doohickey, which made me think of going all WIfi. Looking at it now I see it also has an FM antena connection, so i could still get FM stations through it too. For $150-$180 on Amazon, not bad. The cheapest option I have seen, thought not sure about sound quality.

that GraceDigital looks pretty neat. some stations offer HD streams and they may be better bitrates than the standard streams, and this may address your desire for HD radio access. you should be able to check ahead of time. the two local ones I listen to used to have HD variants for streaming, but have apparently dropped them. I didn't get a chance to see what sort of bitrates they were pushing. besides - they had different programming on them, so I rarely used them anyway.

gudnoyez wrote: »

I have a few receivers so I can listen to terrestrial radio also have a decent Cambridge tuner on one of my Integrateds, but prefer streaming over terrestrial, especially during the morning as the morning show yucksters won't shut up I want tunes in the morning not the morning crew laughing it up

I rarely listen to FM anymore clear channel has ruined any classic rock stations playing the same songs over and over with the 100 song setlist, you can only hear Freebird, or Peace Of Mind so many times right. I prefer streaming.

this is also probably mostly why I enjoy streaming as well, in general - convenience, choice, and variety. I've also noticed a bit of repetition on some of the 181.fm stations I stream. even to a degree on Pandora. seems like they have a limited selection. still hear enough variety to keep me satisfied, but I do notice a lot of it's the same if I'm listening for hours on end, like in background situations. I use the Spotify for most of the purposeful listening anyway.

maybe look into a used Squeezebox Touch. you can find them for between $250 - $300 in pretty nice shape. I think they'll do everything the Grace Digital Tuner does, except, uh, physically tune, but it will give you streaming internet radio and also access to more services than that GD seems to offer. just seems more versatile to me, for the money, and personally, I'd prefer a vintage tuner that I know to work well for any actual local radio use. you'd have to do some research to figure out how well the GD Tuner sounds and how it compares to a solid vintage tuner?

be interested to hear how this project develops and whether you find anything that can deliver the FM Stereo body through streaming.

jhw59

I have a Grace digital tuner/streamer coming tomorrow. I'm hoping I like it as the next step costs hundreds of $$ more.

tonyb

I have too by way of my Sonos. Getting radio stations from around the globe is pretty cool.

Erik Tracy

I live at the bottom of a canyon/preserve, so OTA FM reception is poor, so at home I listen to the Music Choice channels via TWC - no commercials, no DJs, just music based on practically any genre I want.

I still listen to FM in my truck when driving around town - but can't take the inanity of FM Rock stations. I've found solace and immense enjoyment of the listener supported traditional jazz station, KSDS in San Diego. Fantastic music playlists and DJs.

Lietuvis91

jhw59 wrote: »

I have a Grace digital tuner/streamer coming tomorrow. I'm hoping I like it as the next step costs hundreds of $$ more.

Please, please, please post your impressions when you get it. Very curious to see how you like it.



I've been playing around with the configuration of my system, trying to settle on a set of components that work best for my taste. I'm talking cables (speaker and ICs), amps, sub vs no sub. It all makes such a big difference it's kind of crazy... That LSI9 can sound so different depending on what you have connected to it....

but why do I even mention this...

Well, everything you guys have mentioned about the online streaming quality seems to be spot on.

Interestingly, when I had the monoprice 12g cables running the show, everything sounded more or less pretty good. FM Radio, various streaming radio sources (mainly: I heart radio and di.fm), CDs. They all seemed to have very minor differences in sound quality, and overall were all enjoyable. I then switched to a set of Audioquest type 4s that I had sitting in the closet. Holly cr*p... so quality of FM radio and CD playback vastly improved! Much more detail and sharpness across the board. But... the streaming music now shows its true colors and sounds dull/anemic relative to the other (better) sources. I didn't realize how much more revealing these AQ type 4s actually were.

Adding a sub to the setup caused the gap in quality to become even bigger. Somehow FM and CDs sound amazing, while in sound of the streaming sources the bass is missing and the upper end sounds somewhat thin...

Now, when I refer to streaming sources, I am talking about streaming content via wifi through my phone. The phone is connected to my outlaw pre via a cheap rca. Thus, I suspect that the better speaker cable might be revealing the poor component quality of the source(phone and rca cable) as well as the lower quality of the recording being streamed.

So, next I will try to stream content through my laptop via hdmi into my pre in hopes that this sounds better. I'm definitely not giving up on it, nor am I switching back to monoprice 12g wire to mask the difference, lol! I'm confident there is some solution that will work well.

Lietuvis91

The chromecast doohickey is kind of neat. My brother got it for me for Christmas, but I hand't really used it until now. Since my pre has hdmi, I plugged the chromecast directly into the pre and am able to cast a browser window to it from my PC and also certain apps from my tablet can cast to it, iheartradio is one that works directly with chromecast. The audio quality is better than using my phone as a source through rca from the same app, but still not as good as FM. I'll try this out for a little while to see how well it works. Iheartradio is pretty cool because you can build your own stations based on artists you like (sort of like pandora), no commercials and it's free!

tonyb

The reason why your streaming sounds like garbage is because your streaming MP3 and you need a dac in the mix, a decent dac, not to mention better cables. That is, if you want your streaming to sound as good as a decent cdp.

Lietuvis91

tonyb wrote: »

The reason why your streaming sounds like garbage is because your streaming MP3 and you need a dac in the mix, a decent dac, not to mention better cables. That is, if you want your streaming to sound as good as a decent cdp.

That's definitely the case when I stream from my phone, no doubt. Thought, with the Chromecast HDMI dongle, I would have thought there wouldn't be much loss of sound quality from the original streaming source, since it's plugged into the pre directly and digitally (via HDMI). The streaming content quality might also be an issue since the free radio streaming services that I have tired tend to use a pretty low bit rate.

tonyb

Lietuvis91 wrote: »

Thought, with the Chromecast HDMI dongle, I would have thought there wouldn't be much loss of sound quality from the original streaming source, since it's plugged into the pre directly and digitally (via HDMI).

There isn't much loss of sound quality using the chromecast, it's just your starting with garbage and that's what gets transferred. The dac in a receiver will be better to some degree, but a separate dac is a must when streaming to get optimal sound quality. You can find PS Audio digital link 3's all day for 3-400 bones and that's my idea of a decent dac. Even a Cambridge dacmagic....or an Emotiva is cheaper yet but the PS Audio to my ears anyway sounds better.

Lietuvis91

tonyb wrote: »

Lietuvis91 wrote: »

Thought, with the Chromecast HDMI dongle, I would have thought there wouldn't be much loss of sound quality from the original streaming source, since it's plugged into the pre directly and digitally (via HDMI).

There isn't much loss of sound quality using the chromecast, it's just your starting with garbage and that's what gets transferred. The dac in a receiver will be better to some degree, but a separate dac is a must when streaming to get optimal sound quality. You can find PS Audio digital link 3's all day for 3-400 bones and that's my idea of a decent dac. Even a Cambridge dacmagic....or an Emotiva is cheaper yet but the PS Audio to my ears anyway sounds better.

That makes sense, thanks Tony. I'm ready for a quality dac in some form or fashion, I was just hoping there would be some all-in-one gadget that had a good DAC and could stream online radio and play FLAC from my network hard drive. Seems like quality units that incorporate all those functions come at pretty high premiums though, which may mean i simply get a dac as you suggest and stream from my laptop. Might be the simplest and most cost effective option for now.

tonyb

Lietuvis91 wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

Lietuvis91 wrote: »

Thought, with the Chromecast HDMI dongle, I would have thought there wouldn't be much loss of sound quality from the original streaming source, since it's plugged into the pre directly and digitally (via HDMI).

There isn't much loss of sound quality using the chromecast, it's just your starting with garbage and that's what gets transferred. The dac in a receiver will be better to some degree, but a separate dac is a must when streaming to get optimal sound quality. You can find PS Audio digital link 3's all day for 3-400 bones and that's my idea of a decent dac. Even a Cambridge dacmagic....or an Emotiva is cheaper yet but the PS Audio to my ears anyway sounds better.

That makes sense, thanks Tony. I'm ready for a quality dac in some form or fashion, I was just hoping there would be some all-in-one gadget that had a good DAC and could stream online radio and play FLAC from my network hard drive. Seems like quality units that incorporate all those functions come at pretty high premiums though, which may mean i simply get a dac as you suggest and stream from my laptop. Might be the simplest and most cost effective option for now.

There are pal, look at the Sony units which are getting some good reviews, Mantis and PFB both are using one and enjoy them both for function and sound quality. Cambridge units too offer a lot for not that much scratch.

If your music files are only 16/44 lossless, a Sonos may be up your alley. If you want higher rez file capabilities, Bluesound may be your ticket.

recoveryone

I just skimmed over many of the post above so if I repeat something already said sorry. Streaming radio is manly dependent on the source, many station only stream at 64-96kbps and that results in poor sound quality. Some stations do stream/broadcast an HD channel that sounds very good, but those are really streaming over the internet and not really broadcasting live. In short its a crap shoot at best.

Lietuvis91

tonyb wrote: »

There are pal, look at the Sony units which are getting some good reviews, Mantis and PFB both are using one and enjoy them both for function and sound quality. Cambridge units too offer a lot for not that much scratch.

If your music files are only 16/44 lossless, a Sonos may be up your alley. If you want higher rez file capabilities, Bluesound may be your ticket.

Good deal. I didn't realize sony started to innovate again. That's good to hear.

I honestly have been playing around more with cables than anything else since I started this thread. I can't believe how different each cable sounds. And in reference to streaming: the better the cable, the bigger the difference in quality between my internet radio streaming and FM. FM sounds far better than online radio. The worse the cable, the less difference there seems to be between the two. But the devil may still be in the details. Right now the signal gets to my pre from my laptop through HDMI, which sounds marginally better than going through rca from my phone. Have not had much testing time with sources of various quality on this setup yet, cuz I keep changing the cables, lol!.

I wonder if you're talking about this little guy or something else from Sony?:

SONY Bluetooth® Music Receiver BM10

Lietuvis91

recoveryone wrote: »

I just skimmed over many of the post above so if I repeat something already said sorry. Streaming radio is manly dependent on the source, many station only stream at 64-96kbps and that results in poor sound quality. Some stations do stream/broadcast an HD channel that sounds very good, but those are really streaming over the internet and not really broadcasting live. In short its a crap shoot at best.

Yep, so far I have to agree with your findings. "I heart radio" is one that seems to sound "ok". It's not better than FM, but tolerable, IMO.

tonyb

Lietuvis91 wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

There are pal, look at the Sony units which are getting some good reviews, Mantis and PFB both are using one and enjoy them both for function and sound quality. Cambridge units too offer a lot for not that much scratch.

If your music files are only 16/44 lossless, a Sonos may be up your alley. If you want higher rez file capabilities, Bluesound may be your ticket.

Good deal. I didn't realize sony started to innovate again. That's good to hear.

I honestly have been playing around more with cables than anything else since I started this thread. I can't believe how different each cable sounds. And in reference to streaming: the better the cable, the bigger the difference in quality between my internet radio streaming and FM. FM sounds far better than online radio. The worse the cable, the less difference there seems to be between the two. But the devil may still be in the details. Right now the signal gets to my pre from my laptop through HDMI, which sounds marginally better than going through rca from my phone. Have not had much testing time with sources of various quality on this setup yet, cuz I keep changing the cables, lol!.

I wonder if you're talking about this little guy or something else from Sony?:

SONY Bluetooth® Music Receiver BM10

Nope.....this.

http://www.whathifi.com/sony/hap-z1es/review

Lietuvis91

tonyb wrote: »

Nope.....this.

http://www.whathifi.com/sony/hap-z1es/review

Dang.... that sure is a nice unit, but at $2k shouldn't it have come with DLNA capability, or any other kind of streaming feature from outside sources (like a NAS)?! And no USB input...?! so close Sony, so close... but you always seem to leave out something important.

At this point in my audio journey, I feel like I'd rather drop that $2K into a much nicer pre, or even speaker/power cables. For that matter, maybe even a new set of speakers, if I'm blowing that kind of cash...

tonyb

You can use outside sources, just has to be hardwired with the USB connection. You can find these much cheaper btw than retail.

tonyb

Ive also seen Marantz streamers with decent built in dacs for 4 bones used. Olive is another brand worthy of a look. If you want to go cheap cheap, then WD live or Amazons fire stick is about as cheap as you can get and retain some sense of quality.

jeremymarcinko

^^ If considering Amazon.. then choose the "Fire TV box" and not the "Fire TV Stick." It is more money but is way nicer in its connectivity and build quality. It has an optical out as well as the HDMI, is more responsive, and the remote is of much higher quality. Functionally they do the same thing, however.