Best mini pc for Tidal

[Standing in the rain]

What's the best sounding mini pc for streaming tidal to external dac. What spec should I be looking out for.?

 

[Samoyed]

Innuos zen mini mkiii

 

[somebodyelse]

A Raspberry Pi with PiCorePlayer would probably sound identical and cost a lot less. For measurements to confirm see various posts from Archimago or the measurements here for things like the Allo DigiOne. It depends what your requirements are.

 

[BentonF]

Innuos zen mini mkiii

Would the linear power supply make an audible difference?

 

[Standing in the rain]

No

 

[flyingplatypus]

If you want a better form factor than raspberry pi, i suggest the intel nuc nuc6cayh. You can get them around 120ish and with 20 bucks for hdd and 20 bucks for ram you have a decent pc.

 

[Fernando]

Anyone who can control with mobile and do without screen?

Maybe with my shanling M3s it's enough ...

 

[Daverz]

Anyone who can control with mobile and do without screen?

Maybe with my shanling M3s it's enough ...

The Logitech Media Server (LMS) based solutions (e.g. the previously mentioned piCorePlayer) won't handle MQA, if you are into that, just standard 16/44 playback from Tidal. But they are controllable with iOS or Android apps, or via the web. I've been a long-time subscriber to Tidal Premium, and it works very well with LMS (but, again, no MQA).

 

[somebodyelse]

The Logitech Media Server (LMS) based solutions (e.g. the previously mentioned piCorePlayer) won't handle MQA, if you are into that, just standard 16/44 playback from Tidal.

Why won't they handle MQA? So long as you're not using the software volume control they've been shown to be bit perfect, so an MQA-capable DAC should decode it just fine shouldn't it?

 

[Daverz]

You may be right. I don't have an MQA capable DAC to test. I was thinking of how the Tidal desktop app works by doing the first unfolding.

 

[somebodyelse]

Apparently it's complicated. If I understand it correctly LMS / piCorePlayer can correctly play MQA files (from 2l.no say) if software volume and replaygain are disabled, but the LMS Tidal plugin doesn't stream full MQA content, although it gets enough that an MQA indicator may light on the dac. I have neither Tidal nor an MQA capable DAC.

 

[Fernando]

Maybe try this:
https://volumio.org/product/allo-sparky-sbc/

Has anyone tried?