In 2023, I wrote another entry: The quest for simple, high quality music and video playback in 20231 My plan was to turn that entry into a digital garden2 entity, but I came to realise it'd be an overgrown garden if I only ever just add to it. So: new post it is.
No capes snowflakes!
In my previous entry I established the following:
- things need to be able to run on their own, long term
- they need to be simple enough so any family members can use it, children included
- someone with a baseline IT knowledge can learn how to maintain it
But that second point... just because it's not snowflake, it can still be too complex.
The 2025 Chromecast Audio Troubles
When 2025 started I had the setup of:
- a streamer or renderer, in form of:
- a TV
- a Chromecast with Google TV
- a Chromecast Audio
- tablet, phone, etc as controller and as data source
- amplifier
- speakers
So at this point I already got rid of the separate NAS.
Early March in 2025 however, brought something unexpected: The Chromecast Apocalypse - Reddit will tell you a lot about it3. To keep it simple, the on-device certificates expired after 10 years and Google took a week to fix it, but I wasn't sure there will be a fix at all.
I have been having troubles with the Chromecast Audio connectivity before, I decided to dust off the Rasbperry Pi approach once again.
It was a pleasant surprise that Raspotify, MPD, and upmpdcli works perfectly, just as I left them 2 years ago. I bought a Hifiberry DAC+4 off ebay to boost the quality a bit, and it's so far pretty nice, and sold the CCA.
And it was fun... until a Spotify API update, at which point it broke, again. Or when it randomly stopped playing and refused to do anything until a reboot.
Source! Controller! Renderer! ... But... why?
After the both the Chromecast Audio and the Raspberry Pi failures I decided to revisit the whole source - controller - renderer idea. Is it possible to merge them?
There are fanastic all-in-one solutions now, but I'm sceptical how long they'll last. Given how the CCA failed in 10 years, unless I go for something extendable, like a NAD C 30505, chances are it'll go bust as well in no time. The WiiM Ultra looks like a fantastic option though6.
So I decided to run an experiment: to use a Samsung SM-T545, better known as Galaxy Tab Active Pro7 tablet, with a 2TB microSD card, as the center of it all. It's 10.1" tablet aimed at enterprise and light industrial use, as comes with a protective case by default, IP65 rating, so it's somewhat child-proof. Has a replaceable battery (sic!) so there's a bit of longevity, and still has a 3.5mm headphone jack.
After some troubles I eventually got that microSD card - the envelope arrived dirty, weeks later, after I kept chasing DHL, but at least it got here. It can hold my whole media collection - yes, it fits on 2TB. An easy feat when they are ripped CDs and DVDs, or flacs from bandcamp.
Loaded with local data, and official apps for streaming, this setup is much closer to a physical media collection, then having a NAS, a renderer/streamer, and a controller separately.
DAC? I already have one...
There's a lot of information out there. And a lot of opinions. And, in many cases, people confuse those two. One forum claims to be scientific, but limits their measurement by not taking the human ear and perceived hearing into account. Other base everything on human hearing, without relable scientific approach. There are good attempts, but they are rare8.
Among the many things these two camps can't agree on is if there's a difference between DACs - as in the chips and devices that convert bits to sound. I was curious, so I bought a second hand Cambridge Audio DACmagic XS - a micro, portable DAC. It did sound nice, but I couldn't shake the feeling that (a) it's louder, than any other output I have and
- it colours the sound.
Mainly though it's utter pain to have it with a tablet that has a single USB-C connection: I need to connect a hub that can do PD charging; it's micro USB, and the last time I tried a USB-C to microUSB cable, it overheated the DACmagic.
The tablet already has a jack output. At the level I can afford to listen to music, which isn't only limited by wealth, but by space, time, a young child, hearing, and so on, the built in jack of that tablet is already crystal clear, and it's convenience is inquestionable.
I checked my hearing. With good headphones I seem to hear up to 18kHz at the volume I'd listen music; 19kHz if I push the volume up, but basically nothing abouve that. This is less, than the people who can hear the differences between DACs9. I'm 40 years old, so it's most likely downhill from here.
So at this point the stack has reduced to:
- a 32" gaming monitor with built-in speakers10 - my previous TV died, and I didn't like a single one of the new TVs picture, hence the IPS gaming monitor that actually lets me see the dark parts in movies, unlike UltraSuperMegaHDR OLEDs
- a Chromecast with Google TV
- a tablet
- an amplifier
- speakers
And it lets me focus on the music without worrying about stuff breaking every week.
(Oh, by the way: this entry was written by Peter Molnar, and originally posted on petermolnar dot net.)
