Hi all
A friend of mine is considering a C 338.
Does anyone here own the C 338 with Chromecast Built-In?
According to this review, it supports 192kHz via Chromecast Built-In.
Just wondering if any owner can show a screenshot with Roon playing 192kHz to the C 338 via Chromecast?
Showing the Roon signal path.
Thanks!
I just bought a factory refurbished C338 and have been using it for about a week. Replaced a 30-year-old Yamaha RX500U who’s volume pot finally gave up the ghost.
For me, the C338 downsamples to 96kHz and plays 96kHz without any processing. Here the screenshots of my signal path:
Can’t beat the convenience. I could probably get ethernet to it, but I would have to explain why I was drilling holes in the hardwood floors in my house to my wife and so I’m sticking with wifi for now. I only have around 200 total tracks in my library at either 96 or 192 kHz, so I don’t think I’m missing out on much for the 19 192 kHz tracks that are getting downsampled.
If the C338 correctly reports the HI_RES_AUDIO_SUPPORTED device capability, Roon will send up to 24/96 audio to it. There’s no current way to send more than 24/96 to a Chromecast device in Roon; Google’s SDK currently doesn’t have a way of exposing capabilities beyond 24/96, so we have no way to programmatically detect devices that are capable of more. From @kneville’s screenshots, it looks like the C338 reports the flag correctly, so we treat it like a device that caps out at 24/96.
Soundstage are usually pretty good with their reviews but it looks like their comment “NAD’s implementation supports up to 192kHz” isn’t correct.
It’s hard to say without having the C338 in-house to observe; it’s possible that if you send the C338 Chromecast implementation 24/192 content, it will play without downsampling. There’s at least one third-party Chromecast implementation on the market that we’ve seen do this (though that particular implementation doesn’t even report the HI_RES_AUDIO_SUPPORTED flag…). It’s just impossible for us to tell in our own code when a device has undocumented/extended hi-res support; all we have to go on is what’s the SDK tells us.
It seems as though my C338 is downsampling 24/192 to 24/96. Is there something else I can/should do in terms of settings that would make it more likely to play without downsampling, assuming it has that capability?
I read it another way. The line “NAD’s Implementation” suggests to me that it is very much a NAD custom implementation and not something open to general usage, aka Roon. Have you setup the 338 and tried streaming 24/192 from your phone or tablet without Roon?
Roon will not send anything greater than 24/96 to Chromecast devices. In the world of the Chromecast SDK, devices either advertise that they support 24/96 or they do not; there is currently no way for developers to determine with certainty that a device is capable of more. The signal path in your screenshot shows that Roon is resampling 24/192 content down to 24/96 before sending it to the C338, which is exactly what is expected. My statement was more of a hypothetical question regarding what would happen if we had a C338 in-house and what would happen if we blindly fed 24/192 content to the Chromecast implementation on the device.
If you’re concerned about avoiding downsampling of 24/192 content, I would look into a Roon Ready bridge device plugged into one of the C338’s digital inputs or an external DAC via one of the analog inputs. I don’t think Chromecast ecosystem support for >24/96 is a high priority for Google and we can’t do much without the right developer tools.
No, not yet. As I understand it, the 24/192 capability comes via the integrated DAC. However, there are only Toslink and coax inputs that can feed that DAC, no USB. Not sure if any of the streaming capability (Google Cast via Roon excluded) supports 24/192. If I get to fiddling around I’ll post back. Good suggestion, thanks!
Hi Kevin
Are you one of those that signed up for the 3 months Qobuz free trial with the promo code that was shared around here a couple months ago?
If you had Qobuz you could test casting PCM192kHz tracks from the native Qobuz iOS/Android/Windows/Mac app, directly to your NAD C 338. And see if the NAD displayed PCM192kHz incoming. The native Qobuz app streams to Chromecast devices. Actually all the streaming services’ native apps stream to Chromecast devices, other than Apple Music - but Qobuz offers PCM192kHZ to use for this test.
No, not me. I’ve been happy with my Tidal subscription but would be glad to see more than one streaming service integrated into Roon. So, no Qobuz here. Not sure there would be another way to stream to the device via wifi? The iOS Tidal app sees it, but via Chromecast and no 24/192 there anyway. Might have to wait until the official Qobuz unveiling in the US and give it whirl then.
No problem at all.
I signed up for the free 3 month trial using a VPN (Qobuz UK account) but I understand it would be a pain in the bum for you to try and setup, just to see if 192kHz works over Chromecast.
Once Qobuz does launch in the US, then yep, you can easily do a 1 month free trial to test it out.
