Streaming spotify to traditional analogue hi-fi system?

[mattb46]

Hi All

I feel like one of those Papua New Guinean tribesman stepping out of the jungle and making first contact when it comes to this kind of thing..Can anyone set me on the path to enlightenment please?

I have the usual amp/cd/speakers separates and would really like to know how to best go about playing spotify/tidal through them. We have wifi and a laptop but no apple stuff

I have a couple of Sonos Plays which were a doddle to set up and they are ok, but really want to use my hifi system and create a hi-ish end audio streaming chain .

I assume that I need to buy a DAC (something like an Audiolab MDac) which will convert the digital signal to analogue but assuming that is correct, how, via my laptop and wifi do people stream the music accessed via tidal/spotify to the DAC and control what music they are actually listening to? I see that Sonos does something called Connect so that could be an option...

Any help whether that be advice or links to stuff to read would be much appreciated

[anonymous-user]

If you are already using Sonos you would probably be best with a Sonos Connect.

Plug into an input channel on your lamp and voila.

[anonymous-user]

A Sonos connect will do what you want. You use it as a source for your amp and run Spotify through it.

There are probably lots of others on here who will tell you other options soon

[mattb46]

Thanks guys. Is there a way to turn the internal DAC off on a Connect and run it into a dedicated DAC which is hopefully doing a better job of things?

[lostmotel]

mattb46 said:

Thanks guys. Is there a way to turn the internal DAC off on a Connect and run it into a dedicated DAC which is hopefully doing a better job of things?

They have digital outs to run to a DAC, nice and simple. If you can find one (eBay), an Arcam Sonlink would be a wife friendly match for a Connect: http://www.arcam.co.uk/products,rSeries,Wired-DAC,...

[mattb46]

Connect bought and hooked up (dedicated dac to come). Very pleased with result, such a brilliantly simple thing to set up. Thanks guys

[anonymous-user]

I use a Chromecast audio (£20), that'll talk to my Spotify via phone/tablet/laptop and input into a spare on my amp. Even top quality Spotify is nowhere near as good as CD/lossless however....

[Tony1963]

I had a spare Apple TV2 sat around when I decided I'd like to stream to my Naim system. No digital inputs on my Naim pre, so I bought a FiiO Taishan D03K DAC from Amazon (£24 delivered) and feed that with the optical output from the ATV2. Easy and quick set up, cheap, and for Spotify at its highest bit rate of 320kbps, more than good enough. I just stream from iPhone or iPad and relax.

[anonymous-user]

There are lots of solutions, most of them cheaper than a Sonos connect.

However the OP already had Sonos on his network so surely that is the only sensible way forward?

[GravelBen]

Depending what your amp is and how old, it may have digital input/s and DAC built in which you could use instead of a dedicated DAC (though I guess it might not do quite as good a job of it as a dedicated unit).

[colingardner]

I also have an old hi fi set up im using a musical fidelity P172 pre-amp into a couple of monobloc amps. I have a sony cd player connected which says its a Current Pulse D/A Converter, but I dont see any other output connectors except the two that go to the pre-amp. How would I best connect spotify to that?

[outnumbered]

Buy a Chromecast Audio for £15 (or £30 if they've gone up in price again) and connect it to your preamp. The inbuilt DAC is fine for Spotify, and probably anything else, unless you are very picky. You can then control this from the Spotify app on your phone, the CCA will stream directly from the source, with the phone just controlling it. Although maybe you need a premium account for this to work.

[TEKNOPUG]

outnumbered said:

Buy a Chromecast Audio for £15 (or £30 if they've gone up in price again) and connect it to your preamp. The inbuilt DAC is fine for Spotify, and probably anything else, unless you are very picky. You can then control this from the Spotify app on your phone, the CCA will stream directly from the source, with the phone just controlling it. Although maybe you need a premium account for this to work.

You can also connect the Chromecast via optical and then it will pass through the data to a DAC of your choosing.