Hi guys - need some advice.
Presently, I have a Sonos Connect that I use to stream music from a folder on my laptop. It works fairly efficiently, and the Sonos app lets me play either the music on my hard drive or from Spotify.
However- there is a catch. This music in this folder is actually a bunch of 320 MP3s - which i had downressed to keep on my laptop for casual listening. I have the originals - about 700-800GB worth - of lossless CD rips and high-res downloads (ranging from 24/96 to 32/384) on a separate hard drive and on a NAS drive (an old basic Synology).
I want to overcome the following issues:
1). I’d like to be able to stream the original, high-res files. The Sonos doesn’t handle files larger than 24/96 - which in principle is fine, as i dont really think there is a discernable difference beyond that (is ok if others feel differently - let’s not get into that here). However, for me to play this would require me to convert all the high-res files into lower-res: which i dont want to do, unless there is absolutely no other option.
2). I find the NAS drive very clunky to use. It takes minutes to boot up, it is slow as hell to access, etc. I’d like to find a solution which is quicker to be “ready to use”. In an ideal world, this would be a single audio-specific device into which i could insert a HDD with my music loaded, hit a power button to turn it on and it would let me either access the music from the HD or from Spotify.
Most streamers i see basically rely on an externaL NAS drive for serving up the music - is there a relatively inexpensive, ready-to-use, plug-and-play device that is both a music server AND a streamer, and which can play the higher-res files i had mentioned above? App played music control from my phone or iPad is a must.
I assume if i spend around 30-40k on a nicer/faster NAS drive, it would accomplish the task of acting as a music server. And a simple streamer - eg, the Audiolab 6000N - is around 40k. So i’d like to keep my outlay to around 1L or less for this.
As an aside: I am aware of Roon. I am done with paying annual subscription fees for stuff. Nor am i willing to pay $500 for a lifetime subscription. I am, however, ok to pay a more reasonable one-time purchase fee for an alternative which accomplishes the above. But the main thing is i dont want to faff around with building a Raspberry Pi or doing complex installation of softwares/uPnP servers/blah-blah-blah. I just want to plug the damn thing in, access my original high-res folders or Spotify from my phone/iPad and listen to music. And all for 1L or so, preferably.
Is that possible? TIA,
