Recommend me a music streamer to replace home cinema

[CarbonV12V]

We are in the process of repurposing a room that used to be a cinema room. It therefore had TV with cinema surround sound. I have removed the TV amplifier, central speaker and sub unit etc but have left the 4 wall mounted speakers. They are Bose double cubes so probably not that great but hopefully fine for what's now required.

They are wired behind plaster walls so all that now remains is a face plate with 8 banana plug sockets that connect to the 4 speakers.

I want a decent music streamer & amp which will connect up to the 4 remaining speakers - appreciate I may have to join the speakers in pairs if the unit has only 2 speaker outputs.

Any recommendations - a quick Google earlier resulted in the following which look like they will tick most of the boxes:

Marantz Melody X M-CR612
Denon RDCM41DAB
Bluesound Powernode

The Mrs would still like a CD player and hence the first 2 - will only be used for music and most of the content is either Spotify or on our phones although I do have a network player so a connection to that would be great (QNAP). I also like a colour display with album details but not essential if using an app or phone etc.

Any good suggestions with pictures - don't want to go too crazy on the price - I really liked the look of the Naim Uniti Atom until I saw the price!?

Thanks

Edited by CarbonV12V on Tuesday 28th February 17:45

[Techno9000]

Consider a Denon player with their HEOS system built in for streaming etc. It's all controllable via an app on your phone should you wish and would allow your NAS to be connected to play music from that.
This one has a built in CD player.> Denon Ceol RCD-N11DAB

I've recently purchased a Denon AV receiver that has HEOS built in and the wife has fallen for it. Rarely does a day go by without her playing music off our NAS just because she finds the app easy to use.

[Sporky]

I have a Powernode 2i in my office and like it. Mostly Spotify, but my PC is also connected, via optical. Easy to set up and works well. I'd say the remote is pretty much essential.

[Miserablegit]

Just be careful your amp can handle 2 speakers in parallel on each channel- impedance should be written on back of the speakers- if they are 8 ohm then in parallel they only present a 4ohm load to the amp.
Most of the mini systems are likely to be wanting an 8ohm or above load.

https://audiovolt.co.uk/blogs/av-insight-backgroun...

You could also wire them in series

[CarbonV12V]

Miserablegit said:

Just be careful your amp can handle 2 speakers in parallel on each channel- impedance should be written on back of the speakers- if they are 8 ohm then in parallel they only present a 4ohm load to the amp.
Most of the mini systems are likely to be wanting an 8ohm or above load.

https://audiovolt.co.uk/blogs/av-insight-backgroun...

You could also wire them in series

Thanks - never too old to learn!.

The Bose speakers are rated at 8 ohms (tested at 6.7 ohms ~ 7 ohms) from Prof. Google. The Denon has 2 channel output of 65W at 4 ohms with a technical specification of Output terminals: Speaker: 4-16 Ω/ohms (impedance).

Therefore wiring a pair in parallel will draw an impendence of say 14 ohms which is still in the technical range. In series they will drop to 3.5 ohms which is just below the range and therefore a potential problem so my understanding is just wire each pair in parallel and it should be alright?

Sound sensible or maybe a quick trip in to Richer Sounds is in order!

[Sporky]

You have series and parallel the wrong way around. But either way us compatible. Parallel is generally easier to wire.

[Lucid_AV]

CarbonV12V said:

I have removed the... sub... but have left the 4 wall mounted speakers. They are Bose double cubes so probably not that great but hopefully fine for what's now required.

I want a decent music streamer & amp

I really liked the look of the Naim Uniti Atom until I saw the price!?

Just hold on a second there. By the sound of it, you had (or still have) a Bose Acoustimass sub/sat system or a Lifestyle system. Now you've disconnected the sub, and you're considering spending a wedge of cash on an amp/streamer combo. You're expecting the cubes on their own to carry this water? Seriously???

Qualms about Bose sound quality for the whole AM5/Lifestyle kits aside, if you have an AM5 then you're really going to need to put the Bose sub back into the room. The cubes on their own are going to sound parp. If it's a Lifestyle system then all the speakers will need to be changed or just put the head unit and sub back in.

Bose doesn't work right when you start parting in out. AM5 is a complete speaker system where the passive sub filters the sound for the satellites. The whole thing is driven from the speaker outputs of a conventional amp. The Lifestyle system is even more dependent on being run as a whole package. The sub is powered. That's where the amps are for the cubes as well as the sub. The signal running onto the Lifestyle sub isn't speaker-level. It's line level, but with level dictated by the head unit.

The problem here is the crossover frequency.

Cubes have 2.5" drivers. They're not full range- or even bookshelf speakers like you would use with any of the amp/streamer front ends you've listed. These little drivers start losing volume once the sound heads south of around 280Hz. That's where the sub starts to take over. The centre of the crossover frequency is at something around 230Hz. Those frequencies might not mean a lot, but male speaking voice is from 80Hz to 180Hz (unless you're Barry White, LOL), and female speaking voice is 160-250Hz. Singing voice is a bit higher, but you'll still be missing loads of the range out.

Bass drum from a drum kit - 60~100Hz - that'll be gone
All but the smallest tom-toms - gone
Bass guitar - virtually all gone but the highest notes
Double Bass - gone

Lots of other instruments will give you only the upper part of their audio range and then the overtones (harmonics). This is the reason why small bookshelf speakers still get down to 60Hz or so.

Rethink your speaker plan before going any further. Either restore the Bose system so that the bass module can fill in what the cubes can't do, or use the wires buried in the walls to run proper speakers.

BTW, if you did the "looks neat" thing of putting the cubes up high and tight in the room corners then don't bother buying decent bookshelf speakers. Stick with the cubes. Room corners are bad for any speaker. At least with the cubes you're starting off with a fairly low bar so there's not much further they can fall.

Edited by Lucid_AV on Tuesday 28th February 23:45

[Sporky]

Lucid_AV said:

Room corners are bad for any speaker.

Almost any speaker. Cornered Audio are designed to use two or three adjacent planes, fer example, and sound very decent.

[clockworks]

Tried posting about using an Echo Show as a streaming device, with a Tangent Ampster. Got "403 Forbidden" again. No idea why

[WelshChris]

I have one of these...

https://intl.pioneer-audiovisual.com/products/syst...

A superb unit but hard to find for some reason. Probably does everything you need.

[Lucid_AV]

Sporky said:

Almost any speaker. Cornered Audio are designed to use two or three adjacent planes, fer example, and sound very decent.

It's possible to design speakers to combat the +3dB per wall boundary effect lift. Sealed (infinite baffle) speakers are the easiest in this respect, and those speakers you pointed to aren't the only ones designed for corner placement. For some reason, horn-loaded speakers seem realatively immune.

I doubt much can be done about 1st reflections though when the adjacent walls and ceiling are so close. That makes corners bad places in general still for speakers. How's that?

[Sporky]

Absolutely - I don't disagree with it in general.

The Cornered Audio ones are really decent though.

[Techno9000]

Talking of corner loading, the Bose units mentioned could well benefit from it!

Seriously though, corner loading doesn't automatically mean bad sound and certainly modern room equalisation can tune out the corner loading and give a flat response to lower frequencies than you would get from the speaker standing 'out in the room'.

[Tony1963]

As Lucid_AV posted on Tuesday…

The Bose systems in general aren’t great for the money, and removing the sub, and therefore all the bass and most/all of the mid range is going to leave a sound similar to a cheap transistor radio.

Some confused thinking going on there. Remove all the Bose system, sell it, but some proper loudspeakers.

[CarbonV12V]

Tony1963 said:

As Lucid_AV posted on Tuesday…

The Bose systems in general aren’t great for the money, and removing the sub, and therefore all the bass and most/all of the mid range is going to leave a sound similar to a cheap transistor radio.

Some confused thinking going on there. Remove all the Bose system, sell it, but some proper loudspeakers.

Yes - bought the Maranz MCR612 which does everything we need from a music streaming perspective. Hooked it up to just the Bose speakers and as suggested it sounded crap!

I have put the Acoustimass Sub back in for the time being and now sounds fine and certainly good enough for our current needs but accept that removing the entire Bose equipment is a future option.

Thanks for all comments.

[Mr Pointy]

WelshChris said:

I have one of these...

https://intl.pioneer-audiovisual.com/products/syst...

A superb unit but hard to find for some reason. Probably does everything you need.

Well it's 8 years old & discontinued so that's one reason. There are a couple on FB & one on ebay for £400 but that seems very spicy when you look at some of the current products from Panasonic, Marantz, & Denon. How does it compare to modern units?

[jimmytheone]

Doh, my reply has come too late - i was going to sound caution of the Marantz - i've got the MCR611 - the concept is good and the form factor (small) suited my needs but the execution is poor

Software (via Iphone/ipad) is a bit st - laggy and generally not nice to use
CD drawer lethargic
Seems to be a big delay using bluetooth so sound & vision are not coordinated
RH channel sometimes drops out, think its a dodgy terminal on the unit.

I hope your 612 beats my 611!

[CarbonV12V]

jimmytheone said:

Doh, my reply has come too late - i was going to sound caution of the Marantz - i've got the MCR611 - the concept is good and the form factor (small) suited my needs but the execution is poor

Software (via Iphone/ipad) is a bit st - laggy and generally not nice to use
CD drawer lethargic
Seems to be a big delay using bluetooth so sound & vision are not coordinated
RH channel sometimes drops out, think its a dodgy terminal on the unit.

I hope your 612 beats my 611!

Better late than never :-). So far so good. No issues with the software (on my Galaxy) and connected straight to my Spotify account and media server on the QNAP so overall pleased with what it does and how it sounds now.

[WelshChris]

Mr Pointy said:

WelshChris said:

I have one of these...

https://intl.pioneer-audiovisual.com/products/syst...

A superb unit but hard to find for some reason. Probably does everything you need.

Well it's 8 years old & discontinued so that's one reason. There are a couple on FB & one on ebay for £400 but that seems very spicy when you look at some of the current products from Panasonic, Marantz, & Denon. How does it compare to modern units?

Compares very well I'd say. Certainly sounds great through my unforgiving Linn speakers - 24/96 flac files streamed from the NAS are excellent. I've been looking to replace it, but frankly there's nothing at that price point that offers the same range of features. The colour display is particularly cool.