Thoughts on using the JPLAY app and SQ differences in general with server and player software.

[Fourlegs]

Generally my preference for sound quality is to use LMS on the server in my Antipodes Oladra and Squeezelite on the player board in the Oladra. However the controls for this are either iPeng or the web based Material Skin and these are a bit clunky even though functionally they work just fine.


My attention has been caught a few times therefore by JPLAY used as the controlling app on my iPhone but to use this I had to use MinimSever + MPD player and I have not been impressed by the sound quality of this server / player combination.

Lately though I realised I could use Squeeze (LMS) + MPD in conjunction with JPLAY and this seemed to sound somewhat better.

However I confess that was no match in sound quality for when I abandoned JPLAY and went back to Squeeze (LMS) + Squeezelite controlled either by iPeng or the Material Skin web based controller (they both sound the same).

But then this morning I started wondering if I was missing a trickand whether I could use Squeeze (LMS) + Squeezelite but controlled by JPLAY. As I already had my Antipodes Oladra set up with the Squeeze (LMS) server app + Squeezelite player app I just went into JPLAY’s set up and sure enough there was an option to change from the upnp player to the Oladra playeralready laoded with Squeezelite.





So now I am listening to Squeeze (LMS) + Squeezelite controlled by JPLAY (the configuration with the 6.52 time shown top left in the screenshot above). And of course the iPeng and Material Skin also work with this combination of Server and Player apps so I can compare and so far as I can tell they all sound the same but with the added advantage of some of the things that JPLAY does and the other two do not do.

Will I stay with JPLAY? Well the problem is that it does not give me access to the LMS plugins such as BBC Sounds but because I can also use iPeng with Squeeze (LMS) server that isn’t an issue because I just swop to iPeng when I want to listen to a BBC Radio 3 classical concert. So probably, yes, I will use JPLAY most of the time with LMS on my server and Squeezelite on my player.

For any that might be interested the Antipodes latest AMS v5.0 software release makes it very easy to swop between the various server and player app combinations offered and preloaded on their streamers. The pull down menu below shows the combinations available. Where there is just a single name shown such as Roon it loads both the server and player options from them.



Does anyone else use the JPLAY control app and if so what server and player software do you use?

Many might poo poo the thought that server and player software might sound different even when there is no dsp etc processing and all that is being used is a bit perfect stream but as I posted in another thread recently I was able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt to another OPM member last week when he popped in for coffee and a catch up.

 

[andrewd]

Thanks for doing all of this testing, some interesting observations.

From what I can see Jplay needs an annual subscription for £43 per year.
Is the solution you describe above fully integrated with HQ player like Roon is?

Is there any way to import a Roon library that incorporates local and streamed albums?

Is there any feature equivalent to Roon Radio for new music discovery?

 

[Fourlegs]

@andrewd I am sorry I do not know the answers to your questions because it has not been on my to do list to find that out (I do not use HQP). Nor about Roon libraries or having anything similar to Roon Radio. However the JPLAY developer is active on a thread (called JPLAY for iOS) on audiophilestyle and seems happy to answer questions such as the ones you are asking. He is Marcin_gps on there.

As you might have gathered I came at it from a rather different direction in that I was just looking to find something which sounded as good as I already had but has full Qobuz integration and a somewhat better user interface compared to iPeng or the Material Skin. I have ruled out using Roon because of the flawed sound quality (IMO of course but others report similar views!).

 

[Thetiminator]

Interesting thread. I’m a new Antipodes owner and don’t stream so I just use Mconnect via MPDMiniDLNA.
No idea if it’s the best set up SQ wise but I did try JPlay rather than Mconnect and couldn’t hear a difference.
I generally love JPlay products but I couldn’t get on with the format, sort and search options were a bit limited…