Hi there!
I'm about to set up a solution that should look like this next week when the Topping E30 will finally arrive:
Tidal/Qobuz -> Raspberry PI (3 for now but will change to 4 if there are issues with the USB) -> USB -> Topping E30 -> NAD Amplifier
I'm wondering which OS to use best for this, the focus really is on just Tidal and Qobuz. Volumio has native Tidal/Qobuz integration so that would be my first shot but maybe you have other recommendations/tips on what works best.
The devices I want to use as the UI are all iOS. So Airplay would be an option (for downsampled CD quality) but then I can just subscribe to Amazon Music HD instead :shrug
Hey I thought I would add my two cents as I have a very similar set up. I have a Pi 4 and use Volumio with it set up as a Roon endpoint. The Pi feeds my Topping E50 which is an MQA capable DAC. This is great for me for a few reasons:
1. I can play Qobuz and Tidal easily, they are both on roon.
2. I can play MQA and know it's MQA cos my DAC and Roon tell me that, and they tell me the bitrate.
3. I can play ultra high res and can see that the files from Qobuz/Tidal are being also output at the same high res on my DAC easily in Roon.
4. I can choose from Roon which version I prefer to play - Tidal/Qobuz/local files. Once I make that choice Roon remembers and plays the version I want.
5. I have gapless playback MQA via roon. I have Qobuz high res files on roon able to be played gapless as well. My own library is also gapless. All on Roon. All in one place.
6. If I want I could pay for Volumio Virtuoso and get Tidal connect. I used the trial. I found it cut in and out and sometimes I couldn't see it in Tidal as a playback option. However when it worked MQA worked as well. So that was pretty cool. However I have chosen to just use Roon as well because Tidal connect doesn't add any value - except maybe if my Roon core was down I could just use Tidal connect instead. But I don't think that worth the price.
7. If you're going to use a CCA you should probably go to Qobuz. It streams at 96 kHz natively from its own app. Tidal only ever streamed at 44kz to CCA. I know this because my CCA is plugged into my Topping E50 and it displayed the bitrate. Roon also streams at 96khz to CCA.
8. If you want gapless Tidal or Qobuz you can do so if you use an Android and CCA. Yiu just use the "cast my audio" feature of the Google Home app and then just use the native Tidal or Qobuz app and just play. However the bitrate drops to 44khz if you do that - but it's gapless and I didn't notice any audible difference if I'm honest.
9. The interface of Roon is vastly superior to volumio. I found volumio find see all my library both via UPNP and when I plugged in a hard drive to my Pi. No such problem with Roon.
10. I found room reliable and sounds great.
11. My wife who is not a tech person at all is able to use Roon. She only started loving my amp (which is new) once she started using Roon.
12. Because it's so usable and streams bit perfect and because the platform is reliable it stopped being about files and bitrates and what app I needed for each use case it stopped being about the gear and just became a nice stereo again.
I hope this helps questions and feedback welcome. And on MQA if I want MQA it's there which is a nice to have. I personally think Tidal as a platform sounds pretty good, perhaps better than Qobuz, so I chose a DAC that could play MQA because that is the way you're going to squeeze the best audio performance out of Tidal. There is some catalogue that Tidal just doesn't have. For instance Neil Young left Tidal but those 192khz files are there on Qobuz. And I can play bit perfect as good as the streams can make them.
.