Chromecast adoption

In high performance gear I would be expecting that the kit would have as few limitations as affordable. Between two streamers of reasonably equivalent audiophile pedigree, I will purchase the one that allows the greatest flexibility in the ways I can interface with it.

With Chromecast (CC), anything playable in a browser window can be ‘casted’ to the hardware. That keeps the hardware viable for the foreseeable future. Also, the manufacturer’s development team doesn’t have to be all things to all people. Further, CC doesn’t rely on wireless technology so audiophiles won’t have to confuse it with inferior Bluetooth and Airplay. Mobile integration becomes easier as there are dozens of apps available, not just the one written by the streamer’s dev team.

CC supports at least 24/96 bitrate, so it’ll satisfy 90% of most music catalogs - online or local.

The manufacturer can, and should if they desire, continue to develop the holy grail of music server software. But if someone out there doesn’t care for what they’re coding, the hardware can remain relevant, and an attractive purchase option as VLC, Plex, even Videostream (to name a few off the top of my head) can step in to support local file delivery via CC to the streamer. In all cases, I would be connecting such a device to my DS, not relying on the streamer’s internal DAC.

Options.

It’s a shame that Google is not easy to work with. That’s certainly a real, unforeseen limitation of this technology. I guess I have my answer as to why more aren’t adopting it. Thanks for your feedback, Paul.

Chromecast (the protocol) supports a sufficient bitrate that would qualify it as ‘audiophile’ friendly. 24/96.

I was rooting for Google to release improved hardware but Naim and Cambridge already have that covered. Besides, an improved Google puck wouldn’t be taken any more seriously than a Naim device by people who seek a certain build quality.

I like my DS so I personally wouldn’t care what DAC is incorporated into a streamer. I would be using SPDIF out exclusively. That’s why paying for Naim DAC technology to only use digital out is less attractive to me.

I happen to agree with you that 24/96 is sufficient but most “audiophiles” want their hardware to support the highest rates available whether they will ever use them or not. Regardless of what they chose for a DAC chipset the streaming engine would need to be upgrade to something at least along the lines of that used in the Aries Mini or Node 2. Those higher grade cards need more room than the puck sized device allows. Also more output options would be nice too.

Agreed. As add on functionality, the Chromecast protocol doesn’t seem to require much in terms of physical dimensions. The way I understand it, Cambridge added it to their CXN form factor with a firmware update in their V2 unit. I read that it did require additional compute power over the V1 which might have been a reason for the hardware rev.

Darko has a nice video about the naim uniti that has Chromecast embedded.