Streaming: Qobuz, DLNA, UPnP etc

[Tony L]

- I’m personally cautious about relying on streaming services in the long term. Within video streaming, we’ve seen two rather concerning issue. The most obvious being the fracturing of the market, such that if you want to watch anything and everything, you now need to subscribe to multiple services. The 2nd being the example of some movies being deliberately pulled from ALL streaming services such that they can be written off as an asset loss, for accounting purposes. If you lookup “cocoon”, apparently that’s an example. I’m not saying it will happen to music services, but it might

Agreed, and for clarity I do have huge, mainly political, issues with streaming. I’d be exceptionally reluctant to view it as a primary music choice, though as an exploratory tool it is likely exceptionally useful to me.

I saw the rights thing way back when I first looked at Spotify well over a decade ago. Again I just viewed it as an exploration tool to shortlist stuff to buy. I remember spending many hours exploring the ECM catalogue and shortlisting a load of stuff I was interested in exploring further. Then one day none of it was there. If this was a primary music source that would be devastating, overnight it would no longer be fit for purpose. A life with no Keith Jarrett, Nik Bartsch, Paul Motain etc? Screw that. Unsubscribe!

The deliberately writing off a movie or title is a new one on me. I didn’t know that was the case with Cocoon, but it certainly isn’t on Amazon Prime (I’ve just looked). I don’t like that idea at all. File under book-burning/banning art/rewriting history etc.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Here we go:

HBO Max Is Reportedly Removing Content To Save Money: Heres What That Means For You - IGN

With shows like Aquaman: King of Atlantis and Sesame Street being pulled from HBO Max by Warner Bros. Discovery, we're breaking down what it means for you.

www.ign.com

I believe that Disney were doing something similar.
I’ve started buying BDs again

 

[Dowser]

I have a UPC (bought by Sunrise, but still on core UPC network) 25 Mbps cable internet service. I still use their limited functionality switch/router device - but a year or so back added a decent ASUS router in front of it, and deliver WiFi/LAN services via the Asus with a single Ethernet between Asus WAN and UPC hubs single 1 Gbps port on the switch). Primary reason was to enable me to use VPN services, but I’ve never set it up. What I did notice though was a huge performance uplift on both local WiFi & LAN services.

 

[paulc]

Thanks for this. Clearly we have different experiences of the same kit! My Smart Hub 2 used to occasionally drop the broadband connection entirely but (a) when up and running it never ever presented any latency issues, far from it and (b) now I've gone to full fibre, it has yet to miss a beat. For music streeaming purposes (into Innuos into dCS) it's proven itself here in spades.

We use smart TV plus other laptops/tablets etc simultaneously but we're not gamers... so maybe a hifi system counts as a "small low use setup".

My suggestion stands: if anyone is experiencing latency/dropout issues (basically digital network issues) then they should look at the entire chain including the router, but the last item I'd suspect as the cause would be a decent modern router like the BT Smart Hub 2.

All the best.

I’m no gamer, but with the growing amount of smart tech that uses WiFi, it can add up. I’ve 30-40 devices connected to WiFi just now with lights, plugs, cameras, washing machine etc. Then add basic services routing, dns, usb, dnla, fire walling etc….That BT smart Hub 2 is rocking a 2007 Arm cortex A9 with 2 x 1.0ghz cores & 32K of L1 cache. Not hard to see how they can get latency issues

It’s just another opinion, but would be my first place to look.

 

[TheFlash]

My personal belief is now that avoiding all types of interface between streamer and DAC is a good thing, whether that’s SPDIF, USB etc. Having both the streamer and DAC nicely sidesteps that potential issue, and is the only solution that I’d now use.

That's a fair point, though it does limit the potential solutions to manufacturers making both... and rules out choosing your best streamer manufacturer and your best DAC manufacturer. I use an Innuos streamer into a dCS DAC; the chances of my deserting dCS in DACland to buy a combo streamer/DAC from Innuos are probably close to zero, despite my huge respect for Nuno and Innuos. Likewise, while I love what dCS do with DACs, it appears that most dCS users prefer not to use dCS's own streamer tech and the Mosaic control app. I fear that for some (many?), to narrow one's search to only combined streamer/DACs is as attractive as narrowing one's turntable choice to those manufacturers who make turntables AND arms AND cartridges.

 

[TheFlash]

A few additional thoughts;
- I’m personally cautious about relying on streaming services in the long term. Within video streaming, we’ve seen two rather concerning issue. The most obvious being the fracturing of the market, such that if you want to watch anything and everything, you now need to subscribe to multiple services. The 2nd being the example of some movies being deliberately pulled from ALL streaming services such that they can be written off as an asset loss, for accounting purposes. If you lookup “cocoon”, apparently that’s an example. I’m not saying it will happen to music services, but it might

I agree and share the concern. Fundamentally, we're talking about renting/hiring our music vs owning it. I love Qobuz but have just bought someone's collection of nearly 100 CDs. Whilst I love Qobuz, I can't imagine relying totally on it for my music library... and my vinyl is going nowhere!

 

[TheFlash]

I’m no gamer, but with the growing amount of smart tech that uses WiFi, it can add up. I’ve 30-40 devices connected to WiFi just now with lights, plugs, cameras, washing machine etc. Then add basic services routing, dns, usb, dnla, fire walling etc….That BT smart Hub 2 is rocking a 2007 Arm cortex A9 with 2 x 1.0ghz cores & 32K of L1 cache. Not hard to see how they can get latency issues

It’s just another opinion, but would be my first place to look.

30-40 devices!! Just switch everything else off when you're listening to music...

 

[Tony L]

On the subject of routers has anyone here any direct experience with the Amazon Eero range? Thinking of a Pro 6 or 6E. They look pretty dumbed-down UI wise, no QoS, but the performance, speed, latency etc seems to be seriously good from what I can tell from reading around. Conceptually I hate the fact some features are locked to a subscription, but thankfully nothing there I’d want to use, let alone want to pay for.

The lack of ports doesn’t matter, just one in from the WAN and out to the switch is all that’s needed. I have very little wired stuff; the DSX, a Brother printer (which is only turned on if I’m actually using it, so doesn’t count) and a Hive Hub for controlling the house lights, which will be very low traffic. I can stick those three in the Cisco switch. Everything else (TV, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Raspberry Pi and Chord Poly are WiFi, the Poly needing 2.4gHz).

 

[vacuum_tubes]

Bought the eero 6 and got rid of them fairly quickly.

Found they were fairly limited with functionality around SSIDs. I wanted to have a separate 2.4Ghz SSID for IoT type gadgets but eero only allows a single SSID shared between 2.4 & 5

 

[HifiDan]

Interestingly, I was looking on eBay, the Draytek routers are peanuts if bought used. My concerns where security and setting it up as I’m a dummy when it comes to network stuff, what I know could barely fill a stamp. Having said that, I’ve learnt quite a bit just from these threads of late. I bought a NETGEAR xr1000 then realised, I’d need a modem to use (yeah that’s my level of knowledge ) I either need a modem router which Incan plug WiFi extenders into or get a modem to run the xr1000 plus extenders.

 

[Tony L]

Bought the eero 6 and got rid of them fairly quickly.

Found they were fairly limited with functionality around SSIDs. I wanted to have a separate 2.4Ghz SSID for IoT type gadgets but eero only allows a single SSID shared between 2.4 & 5

That’s actually not an issue to me as I have to share SSID as the Chord Poly is limited to 2.4gHz. I’ve no choice if I want to use the thing! I’ve also got so little in the way of IoT type stuff. It is raw speed, low latency and low bloat I’m after. I actually have very little on the network, at any time most is turned off. I don’t think I’d need to mesh-extend either as I live in a crappy terraced house. The Smart Hub Two reaches everything with ease.

Ignoring your SSID criticism did you feel they performed well? There’s £50 off the Pro 6E at present, I’m tempted just to buy one and if it doesn’t consistently get ‘A’ on the various bufferbloat tests just send it back!

 

[gavreid]

Interestingly, I was looking on eBay, the Draytek routers are peanuts if bought used. My concerns where security and setting it up as I’m a dummy when it comes to network stuff, what I know could barely fill a stamp. Having said that, I’ve learnt quite a bit just from these threads of late. I bought a NETGEAR xr1000 then realised, I’d need a modem to use (yeah that’s my level of knowledge ) I either need a modem router which Incan plug WiFi extenders into or get a modem to run the xr1000 plus extenders.

The Vigor 130 is to goto modem

Vigor 130 VDSL & ADSL2+ Modem

The DrayTek Vigor 130 is a VDSL2 and ADSL modem with an Ethernet connection. It’s extensively tested and tuned to provide a reliable DSL connection

www.draytek.co.uk

 

[vacuum_tubes]

That’s actually not an issue to me as I have to share SSID as the Chord Poly is limited to 2.4gHz. I’ve no choice if I want to use the thing! I’ve also got so little in the way of IoT type stuff. It is raw speed, low latency and low bloat I’m after. I actually have very little on the network, at any time most is turned off. I don’t think I’d need to mesh-extend either as I live in a crappy terraced house. The Smart Hub Two reaches everything with ease.

Ignoring your SSID criticism did you feel they performed well? There’s £50 off the Pro 6E at present, I’m tempted just to buy one and if it doesn’t consistently get ‘A’ on the various bufferbloat tests just send it back!

I actually gave them to my dad and he's using them fine in an old house and they handle the AP handover well so yes as an AP product they are fine. I just didn't like the lack of functionality and don't like using iphone apps.

PS - ignore bufferbloat you are going down a rabbit hole of problems where they don't really exist. Unless you are absolutely hammering your LAN and internet connection bufferbloat is a non-issue. It's an old thing from the early days of networking and was mainly an issue on routers that bridged LAN to much slower interfaces like WAN based frame relay etc. One of the reasons QoS was developed was to mitigate/manage buffer overload or tail drops on queues

It gets attention these days for gaming where you will also be uploading large amounts of data so bufferbloat will then be a factor as your upload speed will be vastly less than your LAN speed, for the average home user streaming (downloading) music or video it really won't be a problem.

 

[jay]

That’s actually not an issue to me as I have to share SSID as the Chord Poly is limited to 2.4gHz. I’ve no choice if I want to use the thing!

Slightly off topic but how are you finding/using the Poly Tony? I spy one on offer locally second hand and it would be compatible with my Mojo2. What's the sound quality like, I assume you use with headphones?

 

[John Phillips]

Interestingly, I was looking on eBay, the Draytek routers are peanuts if bought used. My concerns where security and setting it up as I’m a dummy when it comes to network stuff, what I know could barely fill a stamp. ...

On the basis of possibly unreliable generalization from my current Draytek Vigor 2765ac modem/router, I would suggest they may demand more network understanding from the user than usual.

Mine is very versatile. There are many things you can do if you need to. Things that my old (and good until its modem chip failed) more user-friendly Asus DSL-AC68U modem/router could not do. The Draytek manual is extensive and tells you what you can do, but largely not when and why you may want to do it. You need to figure out the latter for yourself.

 

[Tony L]

Slightly off topic but how are you finding/using the Poly Tony? I spy one on offer locally second hand and it would be compatible with my Mojo2. What's the sound quality like, I assume you use with headphones?

It is remarkably good, but can be simultaneously a little irritating. I’d only be prepared to comment on the current firmware as that is the point it started working properly for me. The irritations are it is stuck to 2.4gHz WiFi, which is just less good than 5gHz. It is the only device I own that has that limitation so requires running a combined 2.4 and 5gHz WiFi network, and until the recent firmware it couldn’t see a UPnP server hosted on the other side, or even let me access its own SD card (which should mount via UPnP). If you buy one update the firmware immediately, it really isn’t worth fighting the earlier versions. Since updating this is all fixed 100% here. It now works as expected.

The second irritation is that when in place the Poly blocks all the other inputs on the Mojo or Mojo 2 (mine is a 2). As such if you want to hook it up to a CD player or computer you need to physically take it out of the case (if you have one) and pull the Poly off. It would have been really nice to have some pass-though, the optical or USB-C port on the other end of the Mojo or whatever.

As a third minor irritation I wish the Poly had some smart battery management like the Mojo 2 so it could be a proper desktop system where you didn’t need to worry about leaving it on charge. I bet the next version will have.

Minor gripes above aside (and they really are minor now the firmware is fixed) I honestly think the Poly/Mojo is a superb combo. A remarkable thing. It sounds excellent, works as a DLNA renderer, Roon endpoint, AirPlay device, even a UPnP server that can be accessed for other devices, and the Mojo is a great DAC, headphone amp and preamp in any context. As an example I’ve run it hooked directly to my Leak TL12 Plus valve amps using the Mojo’s volume control and it works a treat. As a modern solution with a nice pair of active speakers it could be everything many folk ever need. The headphone amp is superb, it drives my HD-600s with ease and is the best I’ve personally heard them (I’ve never had a proper audiophile headphone amp solution). Conceptually close to a game changer IMO as it is genuinely high-end performance, fits in your pocket, and has so many usage contexts. Almost a digital Swiss Army Knife, and exactly the sort of bridge product audio manufacturers should be attracting new young listeners with.

 

[jay]

Thanks Tony. Really useful and lots to dwell on there! I would use it as a bedroom/headphone setup. I have a WiiM Pro on the way to partner with the Mojo2 so I'll see how that goes first.

Back to the usual broadcast...

 

[deltaunit]

Apologies if this has already been gone over or if I've misunderstood but if the Poly is acting as a DLNA library/server, can you stream from that to the DSX locally via your phone as a controller?

 

[Tony L]

Apologies if this has already been gone over or if I've misunderstood but if the Poly is acting as a DLNA library/server, can you stream from that to the DSX locally via your phone as a controller?

Yes, that does work, though I didn’t try it long enough to stress test it. I’ll give it another go sometime. I’ve got some high-res stuff on a SD card in the Poly.

 

[Sonority]

Thanks Tony. Really useful and lots to dwell on there! I would use it as a bedroom/headphone setup. I have a WiiM Pro on the way to partner with the Mojo2 so I'll see how that goes first.

Back to the usual broadcast...

Just to chime in here very briefly - the Poly Update **SHOULD** take you to version 3.2.4
If you try to update your Poly, and it does not reach that endpoint, it was not updated earlier and is now attached to a different server.
It will say 'Your Poly is up to date' - but in general settings you will see a different (earlier) update.
Contact Chord via their website, and this can be sorted for you.

**2 Charging Poly / Mojo - best use case if you want to leave them connected full time to charge, then that is fine, just unplug and let run battery down once or twice a month.

Apologies for thread drift.