jazzin2009's profile

DAC/Headphone-Integrated Amps are the general solution

DAC/Headphone Amps are the general solution, but this item is a Sonos killer. I used existing AV, HiFi, and radios to multicast audio to my home. Google (and Amazon) put their digital streaming products on sale as "multi-pack" offerings. Watch for the Black Friday sales and offers. When you purchase a used item like this, you can not get any warranty repair or take advantage of any Google Play Store offers that would go along with the item. For travel, auto, and home headphone listening I will use a dedicated DAC/Headphone amp, which is still compatible with iTunes, Google Play, and my own collection of streaming music. Expect the price of Chromecast Audio hardware to drop in order to compete with the multitude of new 2016 DAC offerings coming from Asia. Keep in mind that the Cast App and even Google Play Music doesn't even yet offer an equalizer-compressor-dsp software module (either in Chromecast Audio hardware or smartphone Google Cast software) to improve on the audio quality. MSFT PC's have been doing this for years. Go figure :( This is truly a good time to be getting into digital audio. Global capitalism is providing the consumer many, many good choices :) Out the door $30 for a new CCA, and even less in multi-packs :) But don't forget to look at other offerings such as the SMSL Audio M3, and all the new 2016-17 offerings hitting the street now. I think we're probably due for a CCA upgrade, Version 2.0 of Chromecast Audio, not unlike the Chromecast Video product updates we've seen ;)