Photograph: Chris Haslam
Plugged into my father’s 20-year-old Arcam amplifier, powering a pair of equally old Mordaunt Short floorstanding speakers, the Streamplayer works smoothly. This required a 3.5mm to RCA cable (more on this below) but Dad’s box of old cables is a technical treasure trove. I was impressed by its smoothness upon first listen, and switching between Qobuz and Spotify Lossless certainly didn’t hurt. But when the same songs were played simultaneously using a mid-range Cambridge Audio CD player, the difference was obvious.
Playing the album “Music from Big Pink” by The Band, and the power and scale of the CD version easily eclipsed the streamplayer. Rick Danko’s bass lines soared and the layers of the instruments sounded surprisingly pronounced via CD, while they were noticeably diminished during streaming. Same speakers, same amplifier, very different DAC.
This isn’t a disaster by any means, and it’s hard to argue with the streaming feature – in lieu of a large CD collection. Even with quality components, performance will only be as good as the audio quality played.
Cables and Connectivity
The Atonmo makes a big deal at being able to power “all” legacy speakers. The box includes a 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio jack, giving the ability to plug into active speakers, vintage radios, cassette players, boomboxes, and anything with a 3.5mm aux-in port.
But to power analog speakers, you’ll need a separate amplifier and alternative cables, whether it’s a 3.5mm to RCA or SPDIF RCA to 3.5mm jack cable. Atonmo told WIRED that he considered including multiple cables in the box, but opted for a 3.5mm audio jack since most hi-fi people will already have one. They also plan to sell a range of cables to suit “all” vintage speakers. I think it would be a good idea to include some cable options, especially at launch, to avoid any friction points with first-time installation, as not everyone has a box of old cables like my dad.
Competition
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Photograph: Chris Haslam
Atonmo isn’t the only option when it comes to breathing new life into old hi-fi components. The WiiM Mini Music Streamer ($89) is cheaper, offering AirPlay/Chromecast/Spotify Connect streaming capabilities and an XX DAC. Similarly, the FiiO SR11 Desktop Streaming Music Receiver ($110) also supports Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, FiiO Music, and PCM 768 kHz/32 Bit and DSD256 (DOP) quality. And for a further boost in audio quality and one of the best hi-res streaming multiroom platforms, the $379 Bluesound Node Nano Streamer is hard to ignore. If audio quality, or the ability to enjoy multi-room audio, isn’t important to you, there are plenty of basic Bluetooth dongles available as well.
But what Atonmo has done well is remove any technical barriers to use. The app is incredibly simple – in a good way – with no bloat or pretense, doing anything other than facilitating streaming between your old speaker and a modern streaming platform.
Yes, it could (and probably should) include a better DAC and a more extensive collection of cables, but these are deliberate omissions, not serious mistakes. Anyone who wants to tweak and tune, and generally geek out about bit rates, is already well served elsewhere.
