Here is yet another post about Google Chromecast for audio. The eBay seller who sold me a new Chromecast Audio player for $50 started charging $75 for them, and now they’re sold out. So I was lucky to get one when I did, at the price I did.
Considering the utility and quality of this inexpensive product, it’s a shame it was discontinued by Google. Amir at Audio Science Review had high praise for the technical quality of Chromecast Audio, especially when used with a Toslink cable connecting to an external DAC. And he had no complaints about its internal DAC, which is how I use the player.
When I started testing my Onkyo receiver’s Chromecast Built-in feature, I noted the difference between the behavior of the SiriusXM app on my phone and the TuneIn app.
The tech site reviews I’d read agreed on one point about Chromecast Audio. That it establishes a direct Internet connection between the audio renderer and streaming services. The app doing the controlling is just that, a remote control. The reviewers should have done some deeper digging.
It was very curious to me that TuneIn had some success with the Onkyo, but the SiriusXM app didn’t, requiring the workaround of using the Google Home app. I wanted to know exactly what was going on. To my satisfaction, the excellent HiFi Cast app not only revealed why SiriusXM failed — which turned out to be the Onkyo’s broken Eventing Mode — but also why TuneIn had some success. The answer is in this screenshot.
Casting has an option the reviewers missed — that it can play through an app. The stream comes to the phone and is then redirected to the audio renderer in the player. Switching to “Via Hi-Fi Cast” causes the same sputtering effect I hear when casting with the TuneIn app. The sputtering disappears when I use the Google Home app to do the casting. The implication is the TuneIn app is redirecting by default. That’s why it was somewhat successful with the Onkyo, whereas the SiriusXM app apparently runs in direct mode.
That’s enough for now. To the exasperation of at least one of you, there is even more about Chromecast Audio that I will explain later.