It’s going to be £10.99 per month for tidal; from 10th April a new pricing structure will be introduced.
Maybe look at the wiim pro streamer.
While the functionality of 1 streamer is essentially no different from another (giving you access to x,y,z streaming services) don’t assume that the 1 inside a cheap box is the same as the 1 inside a more expensive box. It’s all about the implementation and the power supply considerations.
If you want to see how this can be taken to the extreme, look at how the Naim nd555 is put together.
There is a Cambridge Audio cxa81 for sale locally at a good price. Would it sound better than the naim nait 3 & arcam r DAC ? It has DAC built in, 2 optical inputs, input for preamp and output for sub. Could I use the nait3 as a preamp? Bi-amp the speakers? Would 80w a channel be too loud, would it sound good at low volume? It seems to tick a lot of boxes.
What’s for sure is a) only you can figure out if it ultimately works for you b) power rating has nothing to do with the loudness or low-level performance, you anyway listen to several watts max in a typical room
Makes sense to use the TV’s apps if they’re better. Yes
I’ve had trials for the AppleTV+ streaming stuff but never watched a thing as most seem too US centric for my tastes but that was probably early on.
Bad sisters, hijack, severance, slow horses are some series I enjoyed on Apple TV+. I find it’s worth one month a year, whereas Netflix I get maybe 3 or 4 months a year, prime 2 or 3. I watch a lot of tv so they can’t provide new content fast enough for me.
I agree with a) but power rating has a lot to do with loudness and low level listening. I wish quality amplifiers still had a loudness switch to boost high and low frequencies for listening at low volume. Amps tend to sound too middly at low volumes, have a sweet spot where they sound their best and then start to distort as you increase volume. An amp with a higher power rating will probably have a louder sweet spot.
I’m a bit bamboozled with all the various products and how best to wire them up at this stage but I guess you’re making the point that a dedicated streamer is likely to give better results than wiring everything through the tv. I dunno, maybe, that’s why I’m asking opinions from people like yourself who may have more experience.
One of my systems is based around tube single-ended amplifier with astonishing 3 watts of power . It isn’t any quieter than most. My favourite solid state has 30w and believe me, if you don’t know that then while listening to it you’ll probably think there’s around 200)
Naim, Cyrus, probably others, make their components cater for off board power supplies from the start. Naim preamps don’t have power supplies, but are powered by the power amps.
So care and attention is placed on getting the power right. This is also the same for internal power supplies; making sure that where they exist, that they are designed inside the box to not interfere with other delicate parts of the circuitry.
RMS & SPL are good indicators of how loud. I agree Watts alone can be misleading. Advertised total power in watts can be massive, then you discover it’s into 2 ohms and speakers are likely 8 ohms so you can quarter the total for starters.
. It isn’t any quieter than most. My favourite solid state has 30w and believe me, if you don’t know that then while listening to it you’ll probably think there’s around 200)