Tír Na HiFi

looking for one of the above,like a marantz,pioneer or something like that.just dipping my toe into network streamers so not looking to break the bank.cheers(actually really looking for a device that i can plug a external hard drive into and play flac files off,i have a marantz hd dac in an other room that does it nicely,so even a dac like that)cheers.

Can I warn you off the Marantz/Denon? I bought one of the little Marantz CDR 610 boxes about two years ago and initially thought it was the best thing since sliced pan. Sound was fantastic - linked into Spotify, had front and back USBs, internet radio, upgradable firmware, was app and remote controlled (iOS and Android). Life was good.
Two years down the line, the apps are so buggy that they don't work (2.7 rating with 1,100 rating it one star and only 589 rating it five stars). Firmware is so buggy that the remote doesn't work properly with Spotify. Regularly loses connectivity. I end up resetting it to factory defaults every other month to keep it limping along (losing all presets, internet connectivity, Spotify account information, etc.).

I opened a complaint with Marantz Customer Care (UK) who closed the ticket without responding, and the app developers (dmh-global.com) who didn't have the courtesy to respond. Effectively, over two years, my network streamer has just become a manually operated CD player/radio.

The app explanation warns "We do not guarantee that this application works with all Android devices". I'd suggest it should read "We do not guarantee that this application works with any Marantz/Denton devices".

First piece of hi-fi that I've ever hated

See the recent discussion on the site here: viewtopic.php?f=8&p=83019#p83019
Plenty of good suggestions.

I was looking for an easy solution to access my FLAC files on an external drive. Because I have an old laptop, a USB box that outputs a digital signal, and a DAC, I ended up just installing foobar on the laptop and on my phone and I can remotely scroll through and play any of the FLAC files. Works for me but there are a myriad of other possible inexpensive solutions to your use-case.

Daphile on an old laptop and squeezer app for android or I think its ipeng for apple. A USB dac like the John Kenny cuinas and you have a rocking system for small dough.

thanks lads for the replies.i have a room down the end of the garden which i have my main music system(mainly vinyl)i actually did set up a computer and a dac(with foobar running bit perfect)but i set up my marantz hd dac down there and loved the simplicity of it.it only accepts wav files on hard drive so i had to convert my flac to wav and in the end just made a few 'best of files' instead of full albums and loved how simple it is.press one button and i am away instead of booting up a computer and scrolling libraries.i want to return my marantz to my house system and was looking for something that would play my higher res files,the marantz 'only' plays 48khz.

i will have a look at that discussion that you posted and keep up the search.thanks again.