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Streaming: Qobuz, DLNA, UPnP etc

I’ve just compared the official Qobuz iPad app via AirPlay to the Poly/Mojo vs. MConnect to the Poly/Mojo via DLNA. The former will be downsampling to Apple’s (I think 16/48) format. The latter is in a whole different ballpark sonically. Just obviously more alive, dynamic and open. The AirPlay route has that ‘dead in the water’ thing I associate with streaming. The DLNA route works musically. I was using a 24/96 album.

The negative is the Qobuz app is just way, way nicer than MConnect with so much more to read and explore. Hopefully Qobuz will add DLNA support to the app at some point.
 
Tony L said:
Surely Roon is just a monthly idiot tax for people who can’t get streaming to work? It is grotesquely overpriced given it just appears to be a wrapper/interface. It looks cool, but should cost £20 as a one-off lifetime payment IMHO.

PS As I’ve mentioned previously I have zero interest at all in local music storage. Genuinely none. If I want to hear something I know and like I’ll just play the record or CD, as I’ll certainly own it and it is what they are for! My use for streaming is purely education/exploration. I want to hear new things, and it is already proving very useful for this.
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I’d definitely be a bit more open minded on this Tony. I never thought it would appeal to me but having all my digital media in one place, a single library is amazing. It’s a total game changer & makes even more sense for someone like you who moves media on.

Innuos app is amazing, their equipment just works & gets regular updates. I have the latest Cindy Lee magnum opus downloaded in HD WAV.

Now listening to The Smithereens - 11 on Qobuz, great & I can buy a download or drop on a CD copy.

No need to be King Canute.
 
I’m just too much the collector. If I want to play Unknown Pleasures, Ziggy or whatever I have an original that sounds amazing, and so much better than any remaster. Many modern titles don’t sound better than the digital, but even then I prefer to buy the vinyl and get a nice signed limited edition or whatever. In some cases I’d be tempted to play the digital if the mastering is better, but I still want the physical item. It is just who I am. Some folk want families, holidays etc. I don’t. I want records!

I’m also so crazy obsessive in these matters that assembling a library becomes a full-time job. I hate to think just how many hundreds of hours I spent tagging my old iTunes library so it sorted correctly in every view (by artist surname, then release date etc). It just isn’t worth the hassle, especially once one owns a record deck as good and pleasing to use as mine.

I enjoy streaming as an exploration tool, it is really useful for checking new releases before ordering, e.g. I ordered the new Justice album today after playing it on Qobuz. That is what I want this for. It certainly isn’t going to stop me collecting or enjoying my collection. Buying records is the best thing I ever did both enjoyment wise and as an investment. The knowledge gained has provided me with a secondary income for 45 years so far. A secondary income that covers my own collecting habits.
 
Monthly idiot tax! I thought better of you Tony! I for one can use a streamer and messed about with pi’s but I like Roon, simple as.
 
I'm using Audirvana Studio going DLNA to an Eversolo A8

Macbook Pro (Audirvana) >> WiFi >> Router >> ethernet >> Eversolo A8 (DLNA)

I used Roon from the start in 2015 but binned it off earlier this year as I got so fed up with the number of bugs and lack or response or support from Roon. I was always ok with the sound being the worst of those I tried because of the functionality but the final straw was the Ios issue where it kept pushing the volume to 100%. With 105dB horns you can imagine the damage this could cause, I had to put a pot inline to limit the max volume.

IMHO audirvana sounds much better than both Roon and the eversolo app with Qobuz
 
Tony L said:
Surely Roon is just a monthly idiot tax for people who can’t get streaming to work? It is grotesquely overpriced given it just appears to be a wrapper/interface. It looks cool, but should cost £20 as a one-off lifetime payment IMHO.

PS As I’ve mentioned previously I have zero interest at all in local music storage. Genuinely none. If I want to hear something I know and like I’ll just play the record or CD, as I’ll certainly own it and it is what they are for! My use for streaming is purely education/exploration. I want to hear new things, and it is already proving very useful for this.
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Well I think Roon, although far from perfect, is good value for money, there’s a free trial and you can make up your own mind, as I have. I don’t regard myself as an idiot, and I think it is rude of you to call me one. It is you who can’t get streaming to work, so maybe you should reconsider who is the idiot. Unlike you, I have had local streaming working without glitches for well over a decade, and streaming from Qobuz working since it came out.
 
FWIW the DSX is back perfectly happy with Qobuz for the last hour (24/96), so I’m pretty sure it was the Qobuz end earlier as taking the Poly/Mojo out takes some doing. That one is (since the last firmware update) really solid IME. It hasn’t given me any grief at all.

PS I do fully understand that the DSX is a network player not a streamer and that I am pushing it beyond its original design intent. If I can get it working reliably most of the time I’ll take that as a win as it can sound so good! If folk heard how good it sounds they’d understand my persistence. I’ll get there...
 
I pretty much just use Qobuz for music now, I have no local media and rarely play records.

It's been a while since I've had any glitches with Qobuz and I'd say they happen very infrequently i.e every few months.

mikeyb said:
Qobuz is notorious for dropouts. Seen it reported many times.
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Only with Roon, the 24/192 dropouts are well reported but I've found it to be fairly if not very stable and reliable.
 
Tony L said:
I’m just too much the collector. If I want to play Unknown Pleasures, Ziggy or whatever I have an original that sounds amazing, and so much better than any remaster. Many modern titles don’t sound better than the digital, but even then I prefer to buy the vinyl and get a nice signed limited edition or whatever. In some cases I’d be tempted to play the digital if the mastering is better, but I still want the physical item. It is just who I am. Some folk want families, holidays etc. I don’t. I want records!

I’m also so crazy obsessive in these matters that assembling a library becomes a full-time job. I hate to think just how many hundreds of hours I spent tagging my old iTunes library so it sorted correctly in every view (by artist surname, then release date etc). It just isn’t worth the hassle, especially once one owns a record deck as good and pleasing to use as mine.

I enjoy streaming as an exploration tool, it is really useful for checking new releases before ordering, e.g. I ordered the new Justice album today after playing it on Qobuz. That is what I want this for. It certainly isn’t going to stop me collecting or enjoying my collection. Buying records is the best thing I ever did both enjoyment wise and as an investment. The knowledge gained has provided me with a secondary income for 45 years so far. A secondary income that covers my own collecting habits.
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I don’t really understand your logic here. I still have records & still buy CDs, I also buy digital downloads. If you buy a ‘rare’ vinyl record from Bandcamp you get a download for nowt. If the rare record become really valuable you can sell it.

None of this is mutually exclusive. It just widens choice & opportunity.
 
Woodface said:
I don’t really understand your logic here. I still have records & still buy CDs, I also buy digital downloads. If you buy a ‘rare’ vinyl record from Bandcamp you get a download for nowt. If the rare record become really valuable you can sell it.
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Not while keeping the download you can’t! The record holds the copyright for that transaction and your right to play. It is the same as ripping CDs and then selling them, it is basically software piracy.

That said I do have an SD card stuffed in the Poly holding all of my Bandcamp purchases plus any records with a download in Bandcamp format (actually quite a lot of stuff), plus a few selected things I copied across from my old now abandoned iTunes library of CD rips. I view it as my travelling solution. Something to listen to on the train etc.
 
Tony L said:
Not while keeping the download you can’t! The record holds the copyright for that transaction and your right to play. It is the same as ripping CDs and then selling them, it is basically software piracy.

That said I do have an SD card stuffed in the Poly holding all of my Bandcamp purchases plus any records with a download in Bandcamp format (actually quite a lot of stuff), plus a few selected things I copied across from my old now abandoned iTunes library of CD rips. I view it as my travelling solution. Something to listen to on the train etc.
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You can keep the download, do you expect the G-men to knock on your door? The vinyl record & the download are two separate things, Bandcamp app offers unlimited streaming also.

You can access Qobuz via mobile so dead easy to carry your library around with you.
 
vacuum_tubes said:
I pretty much just use Qobuz for music now, I have no local media and rarely play records.

It's been a while since I've had any glitches with Qobuz and I'd say they happen very infrequently i.e every few months.



Only with Roon, the 24/192 dropouts are well reported but I've found it to be fairly if not very stable and reliable.
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I can’t recall any drop outs.
 
Tony L said:
I’ve just compared the official Qobuz iPad app via AirPlay to the Poly/Mojo vs. MConnect to the Poly/Mojo via DLNA. The former will be downsampling to Apple’s (I think 16/48) format. The latter is in a whole different ballpark sonically. Just obviously more alive, dynamic and open. The AirPlay route has that ‘dead in the water’ thing I associate with streaming. The DLNA route works musically. I was using a 24/96 album.

The negative is the Qobuz app is just way, way nicer than MConnect with so much more to read and explore. Hopefully Qobuz will add DLNA support to the app at some point.
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Airplay? This streams from your device, doesn't it, albeit via wifi? Does this mean that if you switched off your iPad or flipped it into flight mode, your music would stop?

You really don't want your mobile device in the playback chain. Qobuz should stream directly, without using Airplay.
 
On the Roon front, I'm aware of a lively debate going on about convenience vs sound quality and some former Roon users are choosing to use other software for sound quality reasons. Not for this conversation as Tony clearly isn't interested but I thought I'd flag it for others.
 
TheFlash said:
Airplay? This streams from your device, doesn't it, albeit via wifi? Does this mean that if you switched off your iPad or flipped it into flight mode, your music would stop?
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Yes.

TheFlash said:
You really don't want your mobile device in the playback chain. Qobuz should stream directly, without using Airplay.
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Agreed. This is why I don’t use this method. I was just pointing out a limitation with the official Qobuz iOS & iPadOS apps; they can’t do DLNA (as far as I’m aware). I use MConnect, which whilst a far less good user interface does work.
 
I would never suggest anyone use Roon it is just a GUI that makes things look better and offers up pages of review details that most will never read . Material Skin does exactly the same under LMS but is free . Tony wants to stream a music service and just needs something stable that works . I use LMS 90% of the time for my own Library rips the opposite of Tony and the slight use of Tidal . For me this works well and is very stable and to my ears it sounds excellent as well . I also think LMS is very dynamically supported and has fixes and plugins for things like Radio Paradise , BBC Sounds , Tidal , Deezer , Spotify , Qobuz and more . Given my use it makes sense for Tony probably less so but I would say that it has now excellent sound quality .
 
Tony L said:
Yes.



Agreed. This is why I don’t use this method. I was just pointing out a limitation with the official Qobuz iOS & iPadOS apps; they can’t do DLNA (as far as I’m aware). I use MConnect, which whilst a far less good user interface does work.
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Thanks for clarifying.
 
bencat said:
I would never suggest anyone use Roon it is just a GUI that makes things look better and offers up pages of review details that most will never read . Material Skin does exactly the same under LMS but is free . Tony wants to stream a music service and just needs something stable that works . I use LMS 90% of the time for my own Library rips the opposite of Tony and the slight use of Tidal . For me this works well and is very stable and to my ears it sounds excellent as well . I also think LMS is very dynamically supported and has fixes and plugins for things like Radio Paradise , BBC Sounds , Tidal , Deezer , Spotify , Qobuz and more . Given my use it makes sense for Tony probably less so but I would say that it has now excellent sound quality .
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I would certainly like more detail; biographies, reviews, recommendations etc, though as I do everything from my iPad it is less significant as that stuff is only a couple of clicks away from whatever source I choose. So far I’ve had good results just browsing the Qobuz new releases page and combining that with my usual pre-release emails from Rough Trade, Assai, Bandcamp etc etc. It is actually proving remarkably expensive so far, I’ve ordered an irresponsible amount of vinyl over the past few weeks!

As I think I said upstream if Roon was a sensible one-off payment I’d buy it, but no way would I pay a hefty subscription for what in effect is just information that is a click or two away. Given it is just a wrapper I guess it pays nothing to artists too.

Using this stuff as a radio has potential too. I should be able to do that as-is with the BBC Sounds app and the Poly/Mojo via AirPlay, but I don’t think there is a way using the UPnP/DLNA-only DSX. I don’t use radio much at all though, but nice to know I can if needed without plumbing in a proper tuner (I’ve got a lovely Sony ST-5150 and a Quad FM3 shelved as ornaments at present as I currently have no space in either system, nor a roof aerial). The only radio in use is a Roberts portable in the bathroom!
 
My new DrayTek 2927ax router lands late afternoon today. Just downloaded the manual. 708 pages, and all in English. This may take a while…
 
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