Who's listening online? And with what?

Testing out the new Alexa "preferred speaker" functionality. Echo Dot in Office grouped with the Sonos Play:1 stereo pair. No longer need to ask Alexa to play ___ "In the Office". Just "Alexa, play ___", and the music comes out of the Sonos pair.

Works for music services, but skills like The Jazz Groove still play via the Dot, so not quite as good as a pair of Sonos Ones, with Alexa built in, but a nice feature.

On the Show, was hoping this would play to Sonos while displaying on the Show. Nope, it plays on Sonos ok, but the Show drops out, goes back to its home screen.

The Google Home Hub does display while playing to another Home device, so will be eagerly awaiting Google Home integration with Sonos, hopefully early next year. Meanwhile, I have a CCA into a Sonos Connect to emulate this, which works nicely.
 
Using Amazon Music to listen to Kero Kero Bonito - Bonito Generation. Very light, fun, pop. Could be annoying to some. Lately I have kind of wanted some lightness to counteract other things I listen to.

220px-Kero_Kero_Bonito_-_Bonito_Generation.jpg
 
hi all!

i have been an fm fanatic for decades. i have ~50 analog fm tuna that are an indication of this. :D

but, i think it's time to thin the school a bit. i mean seriously this time! ;) why? because of my grace gdi-irdt200 internet tuna. its digital out feeds a highly modified art di/o dac, and it seems to get >90% of the playtime these daze. yup, even the vinyl collection use and the cd use has dropped off dramatically.

sound is actually amazingly good. no need to go "lo-rez" on any ancillary equipment. i can sit in the "sweet spot" of the main rig, and the sound is great. in case anyone was wondering, i can't actually sit and listen to something like sirius for even a minute - literally. and, sirius as background music has given me a headache on more than one occasion, after ~30 minutes or so. again, this is not hyperbole - it happened on several occasions when at a friend's house, who was a long-time sirius subscriber. i say "was", because, since he purchased a grace internet tuna, he cancelled his sirius account a few months after.

re: the grace gdi-irdt200, it's been discontinued for some time, and grace told me at the beginning of this year that it was coming out w/a new replacement in may - obviously didn't happen. these are still worth picking up used, imo. another option is the ocean digital wr10, typically f/s for about $150. it's pretty-much a clone of the grace, w/a couple of minor differences. and, denon also has an internet tuner, dn-350ui, which sells for ~$300; i have no 1st-hand info on it. i queried denon for specs, and it was never able to respond. i was interested in its distortion levels, and especially what its digital out khz spec is. the grace and ocean digital are at 48khz; if the denon was at, say, 96khz, it might be worth a try. but, if they cannot answer this basic question, i'm not interested in trying it.

ok, so here's my fave station. perhaps the best station on the planet?
https://www.fip.fr
to say the playlist is eclectic is like saying einstein was sort of smart. if you're wanting something more focused, they do have eight other genre-oriented stations, but honestly, i like the eclectic mix. ymmv. (192kbps isn't too bad, either..)

other fm stations not accessible w/my rooftop yagi that i enjoy:
https://www.radio.net/s/radiosingsing
https://radiostudent.si
https://www.naba.lv

and, i do have ~25 different stations programmed into it. linn has a nice jazz station...

and, you can find hi-rez stations if you look; one link w/a lot:
http://radiobit.50webs.com

some others:
https://community.auralic.com/t/lossless-internet-radio-ogg-flac/852/17

happy listening!

doug s.
 
Doug -

I have read your notes on unobtanium/great f.m.tuners for years, with pleasure. Thanks for reviving this old thread.

Theoretically, I prefer f.m., but years ago theory ran up against the location of my home on the wrong side of a down hill slope from my little town's highest point. It effectively ruins reception of the area's public radio stations at home, and I work at the local t.v. station, so my office is a Farady cage.

So online it's been for me, mostly, for the last decade. I use Squeezeboxes, both old stock from Logitech and for the last few years Raspberry Pis running software that emulates Squeezeboxes. There's a strong community of Squeezebox users, and if your interest is primarily in listening to radio online I'd experiment with a Pi. It's cheap and fun. Squeezeboxes use TuneIn as their radio source, and I've found TuneIn to be the best of the radio aggregators.

At work, wifi is fussy, so I literally run a USB cable out of the back of my computer to a KingRex amp/dac combo, and keep a Chrome window open all day with whatever I want to listen to. The very minor down side is, I get the computer's noises - the bleep it makes when new mail arrives,etc. But not a big deal.

One thing: you're right about how bad Sirius is off satellite. I subscribe, but mostly so I can have CNN/Fox/MSNBC in my car. However, the online feed is decent, to my aging ears.

best,

s.
 
chicks said:
Listening to the new Amazon Music Unlimited HD service via the office Sonos Play:1s. Uncompressed FLAC!
Click to expand...

I gotta ask - can you hear the difference? I love my Play:1s, but I'd take good money my aging ears couldn't tell FLAC from well-recorded lossy files.

s.
 
satkinsn said:
I gotta ask - can you hear the difference? I love my Play:1s, but I'd take good money my aging ears couldn't tell FLAC from well-recorded lossy files.

s.
Click to expand...

Nah, not really, even via the QUAD ESLs. I’ll do the 30 day freebie, then decide whether to go back to the regular bitrate. Most of what I listen to was recorded in the 50s. “Hi Rez” isn’t going to improve a thing on those recordings, obviously.

I’m always amused by old farts who insist they can “easily” hear a difference, despite all evidence to the contrary. Gives them purpose, I suppose, so I’ve stopped arguing.
 
chicks said:
Most of what I listen to was recorded in the 50s. “Hi Rez” isn’t going to improve a thing on those recordings, obviously.
Click to expand...

My tastes increasingly run toward the 50s, 40s, 30s. I've wondered whether there's any point in even CD resolution for those recordings, let along hi-res. There are some Louis Armstrong sets you can only buy as mp3 files, and I've been tempted, but held off because I couldn't buy them as FLACs.

s.
 
satkinsn said:
My tastes increasingly run toward the 50s, 40s, 30s. I've wondered whether there's any point in even CD resolution for those recordings, let along hi-res. There are some Louis Armstrong sets you can only buy as mp3 files, and I've been tempted, but held off because I couldn't buy them as FLACs.

s.
Click to expand...

FWIW, I counted just over 200 Louis Armstrong albums on Tidal HiFi. I'm sure they'd also all be there on the 320kbps basic "Tidal Premium" version.
 
I'm fairly new to all this but love the convience of this Dot3 streaming Pandora+ via it's 3.5mm into my amp. If I go with Amazon HD would it use an app on my phone as well as a streamer like the Link with it's digital out into my DAC for best results?

P1010001.jpg
 
PG -

Maybe the easier, cheaper path forward would be using a computer, if one's near-by. You could just take a USB out to your DAC. I'm not sure I fully understand what the Amazon Link does, since you still need a Dot if you want use voice commands.

s.
 
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