Chromecast Audio sound quality

Please do compare.

And USB vs. Toslink does not matter in this case. Simply looking at price difference between units

Ok, I did the comparison.
I have compared Chromecast Audio with Toslink, MicroRendu and USB direct from Nucleus into a Hugo 2.
I listened with headphones, the Audeze LCD-4z.

I found no differences with 96k content or with 44k content.
In fact, when using the remote to switch source on the Hugo, it switched instantaneously when going to USB (took about a second to lock onto optical), and once I had the album synced well enough that I heard no interruption or change, I had to check the color of the indicator light on the Hugo to see that I did in fact switch.
That is impressive with a $35 device.

One caveat: I did notice a bit of harshness on an EST track — the piano is a bit harsh and jangly on the beginning of Dodge the Dodo, obviously intentional because it is perfectly smooth at other points in the track, but I thought the CC made it extra harsh. Which might indicate that it has trouble with the complex high frequency tones of an abused piano. I could investigate more. And I never noticed it elsewhere.

But note that I did hear differences yesterday with the Bel Canto DAC 3, which is a fairly old device (about 2010, I guess). So this supports my standard theory that the importance of the quality of a producer depends on the sensitivity of the consumer, and the Hugo 2 is very new and brilliant.

I should also mention that I used the CC with the ugreen adapter for wired connection. Yesterday I tried both wired and wireless, but today when I moved it to another room, it didn’t work at all. Wasn’t visible in Roon or the Google Home app. I finally managed to get wired working, but not WiFi. Setup is infuriating. You go through the setup, initiating with Bluetooth and then provide WiFi credentials, it finally shows this screen; you notice the absence of any suggestions and of buttons to do something. This is the entire screen on my iPad!


Hit the X in the corner and it says Setup is not completed, Resume or Exit. But there is no way to Resume. Both the app and the documentation are written on the assumption that you are an idiot, beautiful when things go well, but hopeless when they do not. Took a long time to get it working yesterday, I thought I was done, but had to start over today, took equally long.

(The three dots in the upper right include Help, which was useless, and Feedback, which I provided, forcefully.)

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That’s very cool. Thanks for doing that.:+1:

Nope - still using my Lumia 950 Windows Phone, despite Microsoft stabbing it in the back

Wow that is taking stubbornness to new levels. You could hardly find anyone using one of those internally two years ago when I worked for Microsoft. On other phones these days Geoff you can get these things called applications; you should try an application some time, they are great :slight_smile:

I had all the apps I needed on my phone, until my bank dropped support for their banking app. Now I have to use a crappy web app. As I say, Microsoft stabbed Windows Phone in the back. Whatever happened to “eating your own dog food”?

It tasted bad so they spat it out :wink:. Seriously though good basic OS, good hardware but no apps. Heck even internal apps were developed for iOS and Android first.

Exactly - you (Microsoft) killed your own child…

I bought a CCA for testing and have it plugged into the optical input of my Holo Audio Spring (NOS setting). I’ve been comparing it to a micro-Rendu into the USB input and (with a cable swap) micro-Rendu/Matrix Audio X-SPDIF2 into the IIS input.

I was surprised to find the CCA into Optical louder (about 5 dB) than the other inputs, which made it difficult to compare properly as I had to take a dB reading at the listening position for a known track (The Lotus Eaters by Dead Can Dance 16/44.1) and then alter the pre-amp volume to match for the other inputs. I would then alter the volume control by eye for other tracks. I wouldn’t call it calibrated, but it was an attempt.

I listened through Roon only to the Dead Can Dance and also to Beck - Morning Phase (24/96) and Brad Mehldau Trio - Seymour Reads The Constitution (Tidal MQA 24/88.2).

The CCA is excellent value for money and quite good enough for casual listening when doing something else, but I found it slightly harsh compared to the mR inputs. It was a more digital sound and more fatiguing. I wouldn’t want to back myself to tell them apart blinded, but I did feel a measure of relief when swapping to the mR inputs.

I was surprised how dynamic the CCA was, as the mR was a step up in dynamics for me from various other network endpoints (Pi, BBB, CuBox). I didn’t compare those SBC endpoints to the CCA, but I suspect the CCA has better dynamics.

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We like the same music! But seriously, I wanted to ask if you think the difference you heard could be due to your DAC being relatively sensitive to jitter. As Alastair hypothesized above:

So basically, if a DAC handles “jitter” well, then it does not matter what endpoint / streamer we use?

An argument can be made that “garbage in garbage out”, no?

I am seriously considering buying a Chromecast Audio to compare it to my ultraRendu. Just to try it. I was 100% sure that ultraRendu was a noticeable improvement to the microRendu I used to have, and it would be shocking if CCA can do as well as ultraRendu. And my DAC is no slouch - close to $10K DAC

I think that is a very interesting test, I encourage it.

I think garbage in, garbage out is a common truth, but I think it is unacceptable. I think a good DAC should deal with reasonable kinds of garbage, specifically jitter. And I find my various DACs are very different.

We can only test and see. But in my understanding if you are using an optical connection the main issue is jitter. But perhaps if the DAC has to do a whole bunch of reclocking and jitter correction that will create RF noise and leak into the analog output?

In the pro world they can easily spend 1K on optical jitter correction (mutec etc).

Chromecast puck -> Mojo via optical vs Ultrarendu->Mojo would be a fantastic test.

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That could well be the explanation. The mR and X-SPDIF2 are both supposed to have low jitter. I’m not able to measure jitter but would be very interested in reading any comparison. I remember my old “dealer” pooh-poohing optical as having high jitter.

Power supply to CCA makes a big difference. I’ve tried a few battery packs and found this one (Xiaomi Power Bank Pro) to sound the best. Different USB / DC cables also have an effect (please don’t ask me why). Many experts have commented that such changes cannot have an impact (with bit perfect data), but since i have the cables and battery packs lying around, there was no harm in trying.

You can try this approach too - a bit cumbersome, but i think it helps too. https://www.usaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1465 2

I also have an Allo USBridge and iFi Power and still think CCA with my power bank and DC cables sounds better (less bright, more transparent and better definition of bass). I compared them through a Chord Mojo. YMMV.

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I have some battery units lying around, I’ll try.

But I’ll have to say — with the Ugreen wired network adapter, and a quality power supply or battery pack, plus I dug out an old Toslink cable that is very fancy, from back in the day when Toslink was the only option for some video gear, the poor little $35 Chromecast puck is surrounded by so much fancy gear, the ratio between the unit itself and the various “improvement” gadgets is completely upside down.

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haha… i hear you anders, but we do love to tinker, don’t we? :slight_smile:

Yes, the battery pack is around 25 USD (1500 rupees in India). But i use it with my Allo USBridge too. So, you can try the (linear) power supply bought for more expensive digital endpoints. All i found is that it helps CCA too. I guess good power is key for any digital device.

Since all battery packs have regulators (and mostly cheap ones), all will give different results when feeding a digital endpoint. So, keen to hear if something better is available.

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I have CCA running into a Chord Qutest purely for my Qobuz Sublime subscription, so no Roon for this test, with an AQ Cinnamon optical cable. I have tried it with a Powerbank as well as running from the mains. The amp is a Mcintosh MA8000 into Dynaudio Special 25 speakers - I couldn’t hear a material difference between songs streamed from Qobuz or when listening to the downloaded songs streamed (wired connection) from my Synology NAS to a USBridge > iFi USB 3 > iFi Gemini cable > Qutest. Listening to headphones with music streamed from the CCA via the Mc internal stage sounded good (Focal Clear and B&W P9) but I felt my bedroom headphone system was better; Qobuz streamed to Auralic Aries Mini and Chord Hugo 2 but that could also be difference between the headphone amps and again the difference was not sufficiently great for me to switch Mini back into my main rig. I can see the CCA in Roon but have not had time to see what differences there are when compared to my other Roon options.

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How do you power CCA ? If its a powerbank, do you a specific DC micro USB cable ? I’m trying out a short Canare 4S6 cable. It was highly recommended in a ComputerAudiophile thread on DiY DC cables.