Item — HN Reader

Separating the internet-connected (and therefore low life-expectancy) bits from the analog sound-reproduction (and therefore expensive and high life-expectancy) bits is a great way to build a solid system that can grow and adapt over time.

This is a super cool and gratifying way to deliver the internet-connected bit at low cost (at least for those with hardware inclination, and access to means of production). For those without, Sonos' Port product does a great job filling the same niche. Though at $450 its a ... multiple ... of the cost of the project presented here!

3 comments

Thing is, cool as this box is, this outputs analog and has DAC inside it. One of the key reasons that people wouldn't use Alexa input, Muso Cobblestone (these were pretty great in all fairness), etcetera long term is that the internal DACs were not even remotely "audiophile" quality.

If these devices had some sort of digital output so we could attach our own DACs, it would be much nicer.

I use a raspberry pi running https://ropieee.org connected to a USB dac. I can play to it with Roon or Spotify. It's fairly plug-n-play

The Chromecast Audio had one, but Google discontinued it.

For similar reasons, I think the future of mobile connectivity is a screenless device that handles your WiFi/cellular connectivity, CPU, and storage, while connecting wirelessly to speakers and displays around you as needed. Including an earbud or screen device you can carry when you so choose.

I don't really know why they stopped selling chromecast audio (outside of wanting to sell more speakers I guess), but I have (and had) a bunch of those and bookshelf speakers with Lepai T Amps. It worked great.

I've though since replaced most of them with Nest Audios, mostly for the WAF.

A hack is to use a regular chromecast and a hdmi to rca/spdif adapter/splitter. Works pretty well and you can get them pretty cheap (in the ballpark of $20). But it will be more expensive than the chromecast audio unfortunatley

A lot of those are really iffy in terms of quality - I had one which when run through my HiFi sounded like it was completely unshielded.