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Easy way to get Airplay now
#1
Raspberry Pi 3
HifiBerry Digi + -- https://www.hifiberry.com/products/digiplus/
One optical cable
One micro usb cable
One 4GB micro SD card

Load Pi OS - Raspbian Jessie Lite
Connect to wifi - Rpi 3 has built in wifi

Load Shairport Sync - https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync

You can also use Picore player (it replaces the OS and shairport sync above) - easier to setup.

Plug optical cable between Hifiberry digi + and dialog
Use USB port on Dialog to power Rpi 3 - it's all it's good for right now - and it supplies enough power to run the RPI3 and the Hifiberry board without an issue.
Set Dialog optical port to autoswitch when it detects input on the optical port.

And voila - Airplay

Once it's up and running it's invisible and no controls/maintenance required.  Just conect your iOS device to the airplay device and play.  If you have a Phantom Remote, you don't even need to start Spark

Less than US$100
Easy to find instructions on the internet
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#2
Super. How does it sound compared to direct streaming? With something like Chromecast, the audio is not as good as direct streaming it seems.
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#3
Or how does it compare to an Airport Express in terms of sound?

I bought a Chromecast and returned it. Did not like the sound quality.
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#4
Digital is digital. If it works, it will sound the same.
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#5
Take an AppleTV 2 or 3, connect it via Toslink to the Dialog or one of your Phantoms and you have Airplay, too. Aiplay however plays lossless only up to 24bit/48k.
Higher resolution music needs Spark, a Qobuz sublime subscription (and puchased hires albums) or hires music files stored on a PC or Mac accessible drive and Spark running on that PC or Mac. As alternative you can install a player like Moodeplayer on the RPi with hifiberry digi+ and play your music libraries that can contain music in almost any file format.
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#6
(03-Dec-2016, 04:19)Gremlin Wrote: Digital is digital. If it works, it will sound the same.


Yes. Totally logical.  As a former electrical engineer by training, I've always held the same viewpoint. 

Until, as a skeptic, I auditioned a humble little USB conditioner and the difference I heard was very significant.  So I'm a bit more agnostic about thinking bits are bits.  There are other things going that we may not possibly be able to quantify which can be heard.  Just a perspective.
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#7
And yet, no one has ever been able to repeatedly identify such differences in blind trials.

Two words: placebo and placebo. Smile
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#8
(03-Dec-2016, 07:24)streamy Wrote: Take an AppleTV 2 or 3, connect it via Toslink to the Dialog or one of your Phantoms and you have Airplay, too. Aiplay however plays lossless only up to 24bit/48k.
Higher resolution music needs Spark, a Qobuz sublime subscription (and puchased hires albums) or hires music files stored on a PC or Mac accessible drive and Spark running on that PC or Mac. As alternative you can install a player like Moodeplayer on the RPi with hifiberry digi+ and play your music libraries that can contain music in almost any file format.

Better to get an Airport Express than an Apple TV ( 2 or 3 as you said because 4 does not have optical out).  The ATV takes all Airplay input and resamples it to 48kHz before output on the optical port - the Airport Express leaves it at 44.1 which is what the Airplay limit is.
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#9
(02-Dec-2016, 20:24)MountainGuy Wrote: Super.  How does it sound compared to direct streaming?  With something like Chromecast, the audio is not as good as direct streaming it seems.

For audio files that re upto 16 bit / 44.1kHz there is no difference compared to using Spark

(03-Dec-2016, 00:10)cloudkicker Wrote: Or how does it compare to an Airport Express in terms of sound?

I bought a Chromecast and returned it. Did not like the sound quality.

It sounds exactly the same as an Airport Express.

The advantage of the RPi setup is that one can also use it to input higher resolution (upto 24bit/192kHz) music from other sources into the Dialog.

For example I use Roon (www.roonlabs.com) and the RPi setup above.  The RPi has both Roon's audio receiver software (Roon Bridge) and the Shairport Sync software for Airplay running simultaneously.  I can use either protocol to play music.

I've completely ditched Spark.  Only time I use it is for software updates. 

For volume I have the remote.
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#10
It looks you have a very nice setup with roon. Unfortunately, I really like Qobuz as streaming service and for hires purchases. And it looks very unprobable that Qobuz gets integrated into roon, so I stay with Spark and use the Rpi from time to time for my local files using digital room correction with brutefir and the Moodeplayer.
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