My journey for the perfect stream
I’d like to share my journey in the music stream world.
When I bought my Yamaha HS8 I was excited by its sound quality.
The next question was, how do I bring the music to it? Though it has an XLR input, my first application was with a non balanced 3.5mm jack to TRS Phone jack cable. I simply connected my phone to it and enjoyed the music. Of course very quickly I realised this is probably the most inconvenient way to listen to music and I began to think about a solution. I believe in searching for a sophisticated solution, while keeping the price sane. I searched and came to the Google Chromecast Audio.
Google Chromecast Audio. This is a very interesting device. Most of you familiar with the “usual” Google Chromecast, that one with the HDMI cable, meant for your TV. The Audio version as you guessed, is the same, just for your speaker connection. It has a 3.5mm socket for any 3.5mm cable. It can be your headphones or a cable to any Audio System. It uses the quite nice AKM AK4430 DAC. This DAC is quite enough for the casual listener.
Of course the idea of Chromecast is that instead of streaming your music from your phone, PC or any device, like with Bluetooth, you just command it what to play and it plays it by itself from the network. This way your device is free, doesn’t waste its battery and provides you the freedom you need.
In addition, this tiny “hockey puck” has an optical TosLink output, physically located inside the 3.5mm analog socket. This is really neat. You get two outputs in one physical place. I switched to the optical out, when I added the Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus to my Audio System. You can find in a price of a penny at eBay an adaptor from 3.5mm to JIS F05 optical connector.
Since Google made a really good job in spreading the Chromecast standard, it is available in any Android device and many applications support it. Even if your app does not support it, you can cast the audio from your device with a built-in caster in the Android OS (but this option needs your casting device, like with Bluetooth). Of course it includes main music services like Spotify, Soundcloud, TuneIn, Tidal, Deezer, recently Amazon apps too and many more. You can monitor and control it with Google’s Home app. Controls like volume, treble and bass are available. Chromecast Audio can be powered by any USB socket available near it. It connects to your Wi-Fi but also can be used with any USB cable with Ethernet socket for improved network stability and response.
Last thing, it is SUPER cheap! at this point, with all the features it presents, I had to finish my article and say how happy I am. But, unfortunately I’ll have to disappoint you with one cardinal disadvantage. Something like each fifth time I tried to command it to play something, my Spotify app or even Google’s native Home app could not see the device. I verified I’m in my Wi-Fi network, so this is not a network setup issue. My router told me it has it. All looks right, except that I can’t command it. It was very frustrating. I even researched on the web and found people complaining about the same issue. Investing so much in your Audio System by buying Studio monitors, Hi-Fi DAC, Premium Spotify account and in the end of day, you just want to relax with some music and you can’t. I had to restart the Chromecast or do some other tricks to bring it back alive. At this point I said “enough” and began to look for a better solution.
Xiaomi Mi Box. During my use of Spotify, I came across a very interesting feature called Spotify Connect. Just like Google’s Cast feature, Spotify has its Connect feature to command any Spotify player what to play. It is better than Google’s Cast because it is controlled over the internet and not only inside the network you are connected physically. Meaning that I can leave my home and continue to control it from anywhere. So I began to look for a solution that will have Spotify Connect, Google Cast and digital output to connect my DAC. I found the Xiaomi Mi Box. It is also quite cheap and has all my three needs. You’ll probably will raise your eye brows and tell that it is a TV device and it needs a screen to see what’s happening. You are right! but, if you leave this streamer with the Spotify app, its Spotify Connect will be always available and you won’t need a screen to command it to play music. Same for its Google Cast feature, just command the Cast and it will play. You’ll need a screen just to initially configure it and very seldom to perform some system updates, but it was OK for me.
This box even has a remote control so you can control the volume for example. It has the Google voice assistant so you can operate it blindly by voice from the remote control. same analog and TosLink 3.5mm socket. You also can extract digital audio from its HDMI socket. Or even better than that, connect to it a screen to see the album cover of the music you hear. last thing, it has a USB socket and I used it several times as a USB audio device for my DAC.
So once again, it sounds like I could finish my quest and this article here. But, there is a really tiny issue that bothered me. Since the Mi Box runs on Android, its TosLink output seems to be fixed on 48KHz sampling rate. While most of the music I listen to is 44.1KHz. It means that the Mi Box has to upsample it from 44.1 to 48KHz to output it through the TosLink. I didn’t like the idea that something, without any actual need, messes with my digital audio stream. I wanted to bring to my DAC as much as possible the original digital data. Trying to find a solution, I tried the USB output. As I stated before, the Mi Box has a USB socket. It can be used for various uses and one of them is to connect an audio device to it. Luckily, my DAC can be used as a “USB sound card”. I can connect it to my PC, for example, and play my PC’s audio with my DAC. So I did. Connected the Mi Box to my DAC by USB. “Eureka!” I screamed, my DAC showed it receives 44.1KHz data and here I had to finish. But… not so quickly. It turned to be, that for some reason, the USB audio stream was with too noticeable kind of jitter. You listen to a song and then suddenly you hear some kind of a jump, then another jump and so on. I thought I had it, but no. In that case I already prefer the fixed optical 48KHz option. But no worries, I opened the hunting season again and began to look for what I initially wished for: Spotify Connect, Google Chromecast built-in and a digital output.
Teufel Connector. It seems it is quite hard to find a device that will do the most common tasks a music streamer should do. Then, when you happy you finally found one, You can get a heart attack from its price. How about a music streamer for €750?! Yes, that’s is the right price! I found a B&O BeoSound Core streamer that costs that much! It is true that its arsenal is impressive. It has Spotify Connect, Google Chromecast built-in, Apple AirPlay, Bluetooth, DLNA and more. It is small and stylish, just as B&O knows to do. But €750?! Seriously? Not for me, sorry. I continued my search but all I found had something missing. Either it is without a digital output, or it has no Google Chromecast built-in, or some other issue.
At the end, when I was already totally frustrated, I came across some unknown brand, with a bit boring plastic box called the Teufel Connector. I said OK, let’s give it a chance. I began to learn about it and my mind blew out! It had all I wished for, plus much more features I wanted but gave up looking and its price is a joke for what it gives!
So a few words about Teufel in general, before I approach the streamer itself. Teufel turns to be quite senior manufacturer. Back to the 1980. It keeps pace with the Hi-Fi world very well by doing a very cool “smart” speakers that can be wireless, can be streamed to them and many other features. It also does the usual mobile speakers everyone else does and many other cool products. But let’s learn about the Teufel Connector.
The Connector is a basic rectangular box. With two white LEDs and a button on top. The more interesting thing is going on on its back. There you have all the connections you need:
While it has Wi-Fi, you can connect Ethernet cable for better network performance. Digital TosLink output, analog output, analog input, USB for additional accessories, including a Bluetooth dongle and the power socket.
Unlike the Mi Box, this device was designed to work without a screen, so all the controls, settings and monitoring is done with its dedicated app that you can download to your phone.
When all is set and ready, you can let the fun begin. In the most easy manner, you setup your Chromecast built-in feature, Spotify Connect and Tidal. then, though you can command the Chromecast built-in to play services like Soundcloud or TunIn radio app from your phone, you can setup a direct use of those services from the device’s app. Meaning you don’t even need the Soundcloud or TuneIn app to play its content, you simply can play it from Teufel’s phone app. With a Bluetooth USB dongle, you can pair any BT device. You can switch to the analog line-in. You even can play music from your network accessed storage like your PC, network drive or any IP accessed device. That means that even if your friend, for example, shares a folder with music from his home and your Teufel Connector has a network access to it, it will play music from your friend’s storage. In addition you have the usual controls like Volume, Treble, Mid and Bass. you can also increase the optical output signal gain. It has very interesting feature of multiroom, in case you want to control several streamers in different rooms. To be frank, this feature is not relevant for me for now, but if to think about it, when my girls will grow up it can be actually quite useful. Lastly, of course it can stream music from your phone. Supports all common audio formats such as MP3, FLAC (up to max. 96 kHz), Ogg Vorbis, M4A with AAC, OPUS, ALAC, ASF, WMA, WAV.
And that’s it! set it up, configure music sources and services and simply enjoy your music! without any jitter artifacts, sample rate transformations, every time you need it, it can be commanded and found on your network. Very fair price. What more do you need?
I hope you enjoyed my article. This is my first one basically. You are welcome to comment, correct and criticize, Feel free, I will only learn more.