Got a question? Please ask it in a way such that anyone might answer.

Just a small point, streams are never “pushed” by servers, they are always “pulled” by clients such as phones or Spotify connect enabled devices. This is necessary for all sorts of network and security reasons. For Spotify connect, your phone talks to the local device which then makes the request directly to the server. UPnP works similarly... players request streams from servers.

I always watch your videos as soon as I see them posted, I enjoy them, and I always come away with something. Thanks.

I really appreciate how thorough your videos are. Your videos are very transparent and musical....

This is a great overview of streaming. Perfect for someone, like me, who is an old audiophile somewhat mystified by all of this new digital stuff. I think I (mostly) understand now. Thanks

Great start, I'd like to see an explanation of the quality of all these streaming options.

Thabks John I'm liking the direction this is moving in. I'm very much at the beginning of getting into audio and I like a lot of your videos but still have gaps in my understanding. Keep it up, I'll be here for what comes next.

Thanks John for this video.I am slowly beginning to see the light at the end of the wormhole

That was very helpful introducing each slightly different streaming systems. Thanks!

Keep this stuff coming for sure. Very informative

Excellent summary John. As a newbie to streaming, the issues of 'yeah but where is the music'? and 'how can I control it'? are the two key questions. The interface between the listener and the source of the stream/stored music is at the heart of this, and is central to online sales/streaming, music listening and hifi hardware purchasing for the foreseeable future.

Good video, at the very least for reminding me that I’ve got to look for my caps as well.

Streaming that Sakamoto. Nice! Great video. Informative and entertaining all at once. Cheers!

Just wanted someone to explain that to me. You just do that so well. Same with the video about DAC's. Just what was required. Thankyou. I await the following videos.. 👍

Just what I wanted, about to dip my toes into streaming. Happy to hear your going to make more vids for the uninitiated, thanks for the advice. Stay safe and keep up the good work John

Loved seeing the Huckaby track at the beginning! RIP. Love from Detroit.

Awesome video as always, one thing I got to say is I love that little puk.

Cap to basics! Looking forward for the next ones

Just love watching You, thanks for Your work!

Thanks, I'm just starting with streaming so this really helps!

John, no problem understanding your explanation. Good idea laying it out. Not everyone is a streamer, but you make it clearer than others who aren’t as well spoken. Good job John! Stay safe to you and your crew!

Great video. There are so many ways and means of streaming depending on your setup and preference, and a lot of minor annoyances (like gaps between songs!) that folks wouldn’t even consider before spending $$$. Looking forward to the more of these sorts of videos :)

Apparently someone attempted to cut his own hair!

Slightly different representation would be more accurate: All casting protocols tell the streamer to “fetch” from the cloud by passing the “stream location” (usually a URL) from phone to the streamer. It is not the phone telling cloud server to “send” to the streamer.

Wow a good change . Theory time 😲. Will want to see more for sure.

Nice explanation of Airplay/Chromecast/Spotify connect. Not sure why Google have decommissioned the Chromecast audio - if you have already invested in quality speakers it is a good companion for getting your streams played easily.

Great video. Im still a bit confused what roon exacly is so i need to get back to you roon video. But im reallly grateful for basic videos as a person that is getting in to hi-fi game.

Thank you John, very informative :)

Just what I needed, thanks.

Being poor: I found it is pretty easy to just plug my old (not so old) iPad with Lightning to Micro USB adaptor into a Schiit Modi 3 DAC and there into my system. Control the whole thing with Spotify Connect and amp remote app or remote. But, I also like to stream FLAC from a particular Jazz station that, only streams FLAC from its web page. To do this, I set up the iPad so I could “remote control” it via an Apple BT Touchpad. It mostly works but, is no joy to use. I only need to do this at all because my set up does not allow the iPad on a coffee table in front of me. It has to sit on the console near the DAC. Oh well. Sounds great! If Amazon Music HD or even Tidal would do a “connect”, I would probably leave Spotify. But I suspect Spotify will start doing HD before that happens and then, the Nordic streaming invasion will be complete.

Streaming has changed a lot since this video. I’d appreciate part 3 on changes to streaming in 2022.

Thank you, learn something new everyday. My goal is to build a home music system.

Once again a great one, thanks John. There’s so much given for granted in all KZfaq videos dealing with liquid music, while in reality there are so many people approaching it for the very first time and they need a common vocabulary (at least I do!). Looking forward for the next ones, I hope you will also address the Sound Quality aspect of it and not only the features (e.g. why should anyone chose Roon over UPnP or the other way around?)

Hi again, I have just watched your 3 basic videos backwards 2,3,1.and found them all very interesting. I now understand streaming a lot more. Thanks very much Regards Richard Herbert

Thanks for video John. I have learnt something. UPnP and Bubble UPnP were a mystery to me !

I love my Roon Nucleus for a lot of different reasons including the fact that you can use your DAC of choice with it. Thanks for the good info John.

Big fan of your channel, I struggled understanding the tech lingo in this one. I will see if you have previous vid explain TOS link, upnp etc

Its easier for me to understand a diagram, like iphone to ? via? Internet cable, wifi, etc , as this gets more complicated then diagrams make more sense to me, thanks (just a suggestion)

Great video John

Very interesting (as always). I am very curious to see where you want to go with that discussion.

Thanks so much! I use Roon and BluOS apps. I learnt at lot from this episode. Keep them coming please.

Great video as always! I always stream music via Roon Nucleus and the experience has been great although we’ve had some syncing issues with Roon and Tidal, seems this issue has now been resolved with the updated firmware 😊

I connect my iems to my fiio btr5 and either use bt or usb mode (in wired) Sorry if I am not so advanced 😅 Btw that was a very informative video and explanation was very good. Stay safe :)

Informative and well presented as always....thanks for sharing 👍👍

Would be interested to see this tied into your videos on the Raspberry Pi. A full “how to” guide for buying and setting up a Pi as a wifi music streamer for Spotify Connect would also be really useful.

Hey John Darko! the CCA does gapless by roon and is amazing. I have a kind of expensive system, and meanwhile my analog chain is in the thousands order of cost, the CCA compares quite well using roon to it. Such a bummer that it went discontinued. BTW, lovely video!

Thank you for the video tutorial. Very helpful as I am tryin to understand Roon and the myriad of other streaming services and delivery protocol options like Airplay, Upnp, etc. Ultimately I want the best quality sound, as does everyone, and with so many options it can be confusing. All my digital music is on iTunes. I miss the days of just CD, tape, and vinyl. Less choices made it less complicated. Great vid as always Jim, Portland, Oregon

(Comments surpressed, but) Good basics video. I didn't realize how important gapless playback is to some people. But it makes sense to preserve the art as the artist(s) intended. Great way of explaining the phone being a remote vs being the source. Looking forward to the series. 👍

Looking forward to the other related videos

Streaming is a very important issue. Good background, hope to listen about the quality of the diferent devices. Now I'm using my play station as a streaming of spotfy via optic output to a dac + amp from Cambrige.

Music streaming ... a great way to discover or rediscover Kraftwerk... Florian Schneider, one of the cofounder just passed away. As you live in Germany, I took the liberty to evoke a band so ahead of his time ...

Great video as usual. Do you recommend using a nuc to run Roon with Windows or just using it as a Roon rock server?

Thanks John for your Videos you have made lock down so much better since I found your channel you explain things so much better than almost all other Audio videos. Questions i've got a few but one to start I listen to TV as the Spotify, You tube etc source is that equal to other sources like streamers or phone, PC or does it depend on the TV? Thanks

John, love your videos. Question, what are the Stainless steel with rubber weights I see you using?

Hi, can I ask you why you don't use intel nuc as a core/streamer but only as a core for roon?

Hello John, after more than forty years of enjoying music playback through a variety of dedicated 2-channel systems, decades ago I had settled on the old-school peripherals of tuners, turntables and CD players. Now in 2020 I have finally decided to take the plunge into the modern era of digital audio. In the past I have had a decent understanding of what areas I might be willing to make compromises (example: integrated amplifier vs separate preamp and amplifier) and others where I was not so keen to do so (separate external phono preamp vs built-in phono preamp). The specifics in these cases do not matter, so much as that I was able to figure out where I felt my money was best spent for the gains in performance I was after. I will be watching your Back To Basics series of videos with some interest as I am hoping that I might walk away with a similar understanding when it comes to the modern digital realm of audio. Over the course of years I have ended up with a couple thousand CDs and a great CD Player that I truly enjoy, but that is aging. So I would like to figure out my best path forward sooner rather than later. Am I always to assume that bits are not "just bits" when it comes to things like streamers or dacs or whatever? Where might my money (which is not unlimited) best be spent in terms of of functionality (i.e. streaming, ripping, storing, serving, digital to analog conversion, etc.). Which of these areas stand to provide the best bang for the buck or reveal the most potential for overall improvement. Likewise, when does it make sense to combine these things together physically (for instance, using an all-in-one streamer/ripper/server) as opposed to separating them and making use of a Mac/PC for some portion of the task at hand? At any rate, so far so good. It seems that avoiding gapless playback through streaming is lesson one, although you might have explained why exactly you feel this way. When making similar points going forward I hope that you might expand on such strong feelings in a bit more detail. In the meantime, I've subscribed and plan to watch, listen & (hopefully) learn. Thanks!

Thank you for your informative video. Would you, or anyone reading this comment, know if there today on the market a system where we can play and memorize I-tune radio stations without having to suffer a 15 to 20 seconds gap when we just want to jump from a station to another ? (Most of my streaming is from I-tune radios stations through a Pioneer Elite SX-N30 receiver which has this gap). Thank you for any insight.

Where or how are you getting the music onto your rune server to stream from. Great videos by the way.

Ha ha... I like it... this is really back to basics :)

this was very insightful.. does the Echo link amp work the same way?

Hi, how good does the Tidal app sound when streaming to Chromecast Audio directly via say Android phone using Toslink? Did you observe any jitter problems? Any differences to how it sounds when streaming Tidal via Room app? Does it do full 16/44.1k streaming for Tidal? Thanks

What do you think about Yamaha’s WXC-50 Pre amp network streamer ?

Hey, I’m really new to Hifi systems so slowly building up. I am currently using a Denon DM41 paired with some Dali Spektor 2 as speakers, and I’m thinking about possible getting a dedicated streamer ideally the Bluesound node 2i, would the Nodi 2 pair well with my set up already? Currently just using tidal streamed over Bluetooth.

Hello John, what do you think about the Airport Express sound quality as a streamer? Can it be used with Roon?

Hopefully this will be addressed in a related video..... My older/dedicated iPad pulls Spotify from our network wirelessly and feeds it via lightning cable to my modest Schiit DAC. I'm on a limited budget and am wondering how my next upgrade options compare... Insert a streamer connected via network cable in place of the wirelessly connected iPad, and use either the existing DAC or onboard DAC (i.e Bluesound Node 2i), OR Retain the iPad but insert a 'better sounding' DAC (like Denafrips)

Perfect timing for me. Looking for streamimng solutions right now.

Thank you for the discussion. How does SiriusXm fit into this, if it does?

Theoretically would be a difference in sound quality between streaming directly to the streamer from the service vs. streaming from smartphone to a streamer, as happens with Airplay?

thank you John , basic question but it kinda important .. i use an integrated amp with good Dac chip ( sprout100) if i want adding streamer like bluesound 2i feeding the amp an analog signal so the amp will do the amplification (Only) to the signal without using the dac that build in the sprout100 , So in this case iam using the dac of the streamer , the QUESTION is it better using system with streamer build in like bluesound Powernode 2I to benifit of matching the dac , amp, and streamer or feed the integrated amp from spirit streamer

Hi John, speaking of streamers: Which power cord do you enjoy with the Node 2i? I am thinking of the Nordost Purple Flare or something from AUdioquest, but not quite sure what to expect. Thanks!

Baseball cap! Who are you and what have you done with John Darko?..... Look forward to the more complex reveal but good groundwork.

Still trying to understand the streaming process. Could you include in a future video a discussion on how the Powernode 2i handles its streaming process, specifically with Roon and Tidal. I know you recently did a video on the powernode, but I'm still a bit confused. Thanks much. I Enjoy your videos.

my biggest problem with dlna is that i can't rate the song like i do in a music player it seems like the file goes into a "read only" mode

Assuming you are comparing gapless systems, and all audio equipment is the same, will the device receiving the streaming signal influence the quality of the sound? Or is a signal, a signal and the only true differentiator will be the audio equipment and not the system receiving the streaming signal? I am wondering if receiving a streaming signal through my pc is influencing the final audio product.

Great video. I think that, at some point, you'll need to create a table or graphic of what streams to what and through what, then to where... And what's the issue w/gapless? Albums aren't gapless...or am I showing my age?

I was thinking of buying a Node2i. I'm confused on whether I need a server in addition to it, to stream Amazon HD audio?

Does anyone know when Qobuz will be available in Canada? Thank you.

Hey John great video, might be worth mentioning the new Bluetooth protocols as well. By the way who swithces off their cell phone?

Hi John, excellent videos as usual. Question; why anyone review the new Technics gear? I have de network streamer (ST-C700d an it´s great for me..) Regards from Chile !

What speakers and amp should I look for streamed rock music? Is there anything I should be aware of, in regard to rock/ metal music?

Thanks for the vid - I'm just getting started in music streaming. Anyone used the Audivarna app? Is it a viable alternative to Roon?

Thanks for this. So do you need the Roon server to stream or can you stream only using the Aries and your computer set up? I’m thinking you need the Roon server for Roon. Sorry I’m a complete novice, but very interested in a set up that isn’t too costly.

On the gapless issue, what puzzles me is that Chromecast Audio is gapless when the stream comes via Roon (just checked this on my system with some Kruder & Dorfmeister), but not when the stream comes via Spotify Connect. What's Roon figured out that is eluding other apps?

What I'm most interested in is a streamer that has built-in caching in addition to being able to connect to cloud servers like Tidal. I'm particularly interested in something like the Aurender line. So, I hope you'll include an overview of this kind of storage + streaming device.

I would love your take on the Lindemann Limetree Network Streamer.

Could you please discuss in your next video a streaming device that's roon ready works on WiFi, is still in production and easy to use? This streaming stuff is a headache.

Like many, I have a Rube Goldberg machine-like set up to stream music. I've got the Chromecast Audio to stream Spotify and I've got an Apple TV to stream music resident on my iphone or mac. Both are run through a MyDAC (Apple TV's music route looks like a scene out of Tron). Sure would be nice to have a simple, one box solution instead of all the switching, but I guess that's what Roon is for. I think.

I was never sure if Spotify Connect was gapless on Streamers. I let Chromecast off because it’s a cheap “means to an end” but it would’ve been a definite no-no for me if dedicated Streamers weren’t gapless. 👍🏼

I always feel a bit violated every time I add new music to my Google music folder just so I can Chromecast it around the house..really want to go for roon, Please tell us more.

I'm an old school stereo buff that enjoys my cd's and LP's and have mulled over various streaming services. But after watching your video for the 3rd time I'm going to take a couple of aspirin and revisit this video in a couple of days.😖

why not use an “older” iPad ? You wouldn’t need the “triangle” or am I wrong ? thank you

Hi, I want to use my old smartphone as music streamer with usb type c port. I have the Audio GD R-28 dac with inputs usb, coax, hdmi, i2s. Is it ok to connect the smartphone to the dac using usb c to usb adapter?

I know you don't do "what's best" advice. I'm thinking of going down the "streamer" route, with a bluesound node, I currently use Spotify with Amazon echo. Could you do something on matching such a streamer with amps, if needed, and speakers etc

Hi John loving your work. I have a Cambridge Audio cxn 2 streamer with CXA81 amp the cxn 2 streamer is a Roon point. I have a iPhone 11 I Thought I would use it as a remote but do I need a laptop IE my surface pro 4 as a Roon point staying on all the time to make it happen. The only thing i regret is not buying the naim atom cause you can buy it it’s over 2k but has mqa straight from my iPhone. So if I buy Roon for a year does that mean I can stream wirelessly from my laptop 24 bit. Tidal which I love hate plugging it in which works. Thx Martin

Thank you John for your great video. Does someone have the same problem than me with chromecast ? : when I cast music from any app (Qobuz, TIDAL,...) and when I wake up my phone after 10 minutes I don’t have any more control on the stream: no play, pause,...

Thanks for all your videos, BIG Help !! I’m a beginner with the streaming end & an Old 2 channel stereo that has moved to a 5.1 . There’s a pair of Klipsch on the patio for neighbors entertainment is it possible to connect a blue tooth to receiver in basement so ppl could connect there phones/music to enjoy everyone’s choices ? Stereo is 115’ from basement to fire pit .

If I stream from Tidal on my iPhone and then redirect the sound to an airplay device, such as a Yamaha receiver, and turn the phone off with the side button ("Soft turn off") the music continues to play. It does not turn off as you say. I can still control the volume on the left side buttons on the phone and on the crown on my Apple Watch, although the phone is turned off. If I instead turn the phone off completely by a long press on the side button and the complete the turn off with the slide button on the screen ("Hard turn off"), then the music stops. Is that what you meant? I guess very few people turn off their phone in that complete way very often.

Hi John, I see the Klipsch 600s are back. Did you buy them eventually? I remember you were considering buying them when you reviewed them. I am considering as well. So did you go for it in the end?

I've been trying to stream FLACs from my windows 10 PC to a Chromecast Audio (CCA) controlled by my Android phone. The problems are significant, both with very poor user interfaces and loads of bugs. What I'd like to get working is 'Hi-Fi Cast' which seems to work gaplessly to CCA but it consistently streams two tracks and then stops, requiring a whole load of faffing about to try to play anything else. I'm now trying WinAmp on Android. I'm not sure that outside of internet streaming services there's anything solid - any suggestions for a good Android app that casts (NOT google play music) would be most welcomed!

As a newbie to this streaming thing, thank you for this info. I've started streaming with a Tidal/Bubble uPnP/Raspberry Pi 4b/Volumio/USB DAC. Steep learning curve for me. I'm keen to get an MQA capable USB DAC to play Masters Quality tracks on Tidal (I'm subscribed to this). My question is, will it be able to work with my setup? Cheers John.