Best OS/server to stream Tidal/Qobuz via Raspberry PI

[BDWoody]

You'll still be able to use Tidal even if you can't use MQA, but then I suppose you would be paying for a service that you don't receive (the hi-res part).

The part you can't hear...

The little magenta light, letting him know it sounds better now, would be all that's missing.

I have an MQA DAC (M500), and while I don't disable the conversion, I haven't yet noticed any benefit from any final unfold vs other non MQA DAC's. I wouldn't go out of my way, or pay anything extra for it.

 

[Sukie]

The part you can't hear...

The little magenta light, letting him know it sounds better now, would be all that's missing.

I have an MQA DAC (M500), and while I don't disable the conversion, I haven't yet noticed any benefit from any final unfold vs other non MQA DAC's. I wouldn't go out of my way, or pay anything extra for it.

I have to agree. To be honest I can't reliably hear a difference between CD and Hi-Res on Qobuz (or on anything else that I've listened to). I don't have young ears (I'm 47 so does that place me in the middle?).

I'm happy with the price I pay and the quality that I get. As has been said on here so many times before, it's the original mastering, the transparency of DAC/amp (or otherwise if you want colour/distortion) and the quality of speaker/headphones (with room layout if using speakers) that counts.

 

[Thunder240]

It seems the disliking of MQA covers 2 areas. There are those who don't like it because it's a lossy format and others who don't like it because it's another proprietary addition. I don't have particularly strong feelings on the matter

Perhaps this is splitting hairs, and it’s covered within the overall category of MQA being a lossy format, but I’d add a 3rd area: during encoding they apply some sort of special sauce which the dislikers (including me) view as an alteration to the original master

 

[Thunder240]

I recently learned I can push tidal master track to Volumio via upnp - Volumio doesn’t support mqa either, but it can output bit-perfect to external usb DAC which can then decode mqa. Just want to ask if moode Also supports it

I take it that the MQA light pops on?

Even though I don’t listen MQA and have no immediate desire to, this would be good info. Any particular settings you had to enable on Volumio to get the bit perfect MQA to pass thru?

 

[somy]

The part you can't hear...

The little magenta light, letting him know it sounds better now, would be all that's missing.

I have an MQA DAC (M500), and while I don't disable the conversion, I haven't yet noticed any benefit from any final unfold vs other non MQA DAC's. I wouldn't go out of my way, or pay anything extra for it.

It’s not the final unfold - open source players can’t do 1st unfold. So you get 48/44.1khz w/o mqa decode. If you don’t want mqa it’s better to go for the “unpoluted” cd quality.

 

[BDWoody]

It’s not the final unfold

It can be, and in choosing where whatever unfolds happened, I didn't notice any difference with whatever combinations there were to choose from, but either way, whether I'm unfolding from 44/48, 88, whatever...beyond Redbook it's all Rock and Roll to me.

I agree it's better to go for the unpolluted, meaning non-MQA source when possible.

 

[OlafV]

HifiberryOS worked best for me with RP4 and "Audiophonics Digipi+AES Toslink TCXO Digital Interface" to stream Tidal MQA with mConnect-lite (Android) to Mytek Brooklyn DAC (AES input). HifiberryOS also has a decent radio index based on TuneIn. Works flawless and many sources (plugins) can be activated. I like the clear user interface in the browser.

I've been playing with:
MoOde audio felt like a Volumio look-a-like, but without the radio index and less plugins.
Rune audio needed a long search to find the latest version. I could not find/hear any benefit relative to moOde.
Volumio seemed unstable with UPnP (?). Spotify in the Volumio UI seems unlogic. Sp-Connect did not work. License costs when you want to stream Tidal from within the Volumio UI.
piCorePlayer does not support MQA. I could not connect to my music library on Synology NAS.
RopieeeXL seemed OK. No radio index. Unclear if MQA is supported.

My system:
RP4+Audiophonics Digipi+AES > Mytek Brooklyn DAC > 2x Audiophonics PA-M250NC > Mordaunt Short Performance 6

 

[jpo]

Hi everyone,
Considering that Tidal recently has launched a sort of Spotify connect, called tidal connect (+ 1000 points for original feature naming), that will do seamless streaming, with gapless and almost all the features that room does by itself, do anyone knows if some in the open-source environment is working on it?

Thanks!!

 

[Glasvegas]

Hi everyone,
Considering that Tidal recently has launched a sort of Spotify connect, called tidal connect (+ 1000 points for original feature naming), that will do seamless streaming, with gapless and almost all the features that room does by itself, do anyone knows if some in the open-source environment is working on it?

Thanks!!

I read on the Volumio forum that they are in the process of obtaining commercial authorisation from Tidal to use this feature. However, they don’t give any timeline.

 

[TabCam]

HifiberryOS worked best for me with RP4 and "Audiophonics Digipi+AES Toslink TCXO Digital Interface" to stream Tidal MQA with mConnect-lite (Android) to Mytek Brooklyn DAC (AES input). HifiberryOS also has a decent radio index based on TuneIn. Works flawless and many sources (plugins) can be activated. I like the clear user interface in the browser.

I've been playing with:
MoOde audio felt like a Volumio look-a-like, but without the radio index and less plugins.
Rune audio needed a long search to find the latest version. I could not find/hear any benefit relative to moOde.
Volumio seemed unstable with UPnP (?). Spotify in the Volumio UI seems unlogic. Sp-Connect did not work. License costs when you want to stream Tidal from within the Volumio UI.
piCorePlayer does not support MQA. I could not connect to my music library on Synology NAS.
RopieeeXL seemed OK. No radio index. Unclear if MQA is supported.

My system:
RP4+Audiophonics Digipi+AES > Mytek Brooklyn DAC > 2x Audiophonics PA-M250NC > Mordaunt Short Performance 6

Odd that you could not connect to the Synology NAS. I had no trouble connecting to my QNAP NAS. I like that PiCorePlayer supports a lot of streaming services, just Qobuz being the missing one to connect directly.

 

[thejck]

does the CCA allow tidal to play in MASTER quality? I have the regular chromecast and it only seems to play in hi-fi

 

[Taddpole]

does the CCA allow tidal to play in MASTER quality? I have the regular chromecast and it only seems to play in hi-fi

no

 

[Aldo]

hello
I have been a Qobuz user for a few years. I have never downloaded an album from them. On the other hand, I have many favourite albums (150 ? 200), sometimes favourites of the moment, or favourites that are essential to me (ears ?!).
Just to find my way around it's hell !! classical ++, jazz ++++, rock+, variety +, everything is sorted by artist order or selection date ... in short, I pull my hair (the ones I have left...) when I want to find an old favourite that I can't find the name of !! or when I say : "I'd like to have a little jazz album tonight, hmmm, which one ?" and it's panic all over the place so I only listen to the same ones in the end ...

Do you have an idea if there is an OS that could offer me the luxury of being able to sort out my favourites as I please ?
I don't think it's a madness to conceive ?!! yet I haven't found anything so far, not even Audirvana ...

If someone has a solution I thank him in advance.
At the beginning I wanted to create a new thread for this request, but in the end, this one seemed to me quite appropriate! otherwise I create!

 

[abdo123]

hello
I have been a Qobuz user for a few years. I have never downloaded an album from them. On the other hand, I have many favourite albums (150 ? 200), sometimes favourites of the moment, or favourites that are essential to me (ears ?!).
Just to find my way around it's hell !! classical ++, jazz ++++, rock+, variety +, everything is sorted by artist order or selection date ... in short, I pull my hair (the ones I have left...) when I want to find an old favourite that I can't find the name of !! or when I say : "I'd like to have a little jazz album tonight, hmmm, which one ?" and it's panic all over the place so I only listen to the same ones in the end ...

Do you have an idea if there is an OS that could offer me the luxury of being able to sort out my favourites as I please ?
I don't think it's a madness to conceive ?!! yet I haven't found anything so far, not even Audirvana ...

If someone has a solution I thank him in advance.
At the beginning I wanted to create a new thread for this request, but in the end, this one seemed to me quite appropriate! otherwise I create!

Maybe do Roon (14 days trial) and see if it works for you?

 

[somebodyelse]

hello
I have been a Qobuz user for a few years. I have never downloaded an album from them. On the other hand, I have many favourite albums (150 ? 200), sometimes favourites of the moment, or favourites that are essential to me (ears ?!).
Just to find my way around it's hell !! classical ++, jazz ++++, rock+, variety +, everything is sorted by artist order or selection date ... in short, I pull my hair (the ones I have left...) when I want to find an old favourite that I can't find the name of !! or when I say : "I'd like to have a little jazz album tonight, hmmm, which one ?" and it's panic all over the place so I only listen to the same ones in the end ...

Do you have an idea if there is an OS that could offer me the luxury of being able to sort out my favourites as I please ?
I don't think it's a madness to conceive ?!! yet I haven't found anything so far, not even Audirvana ...

If someone has a solution I thank him in advance.
At the beginning I wanted to create a new thread for this request, but in the end, this one seemed to me quite appropriate! otherwise I create!

Perhaps ask on the squeezebox forums if the 8.x LMS version will do that for Qobuz content? LMS has fairly powerful custom arrangement via plugins, and suggestions for tagging schemes suitable for jazz, classical and other genres that are often underserved, and I gather the 8.x release presents Qobuz content integrated with the rest of your library, but as I don't use Qobuz I don't know how the two mix.

 

[Sukie]

hello
I have been a Qobuz user for a few years. I have never downloaded an album from them. On the other hand, I have many favourite albums (150 ? 200), sometimes favourites of the moment, or favourites that are essential to me (ears ?!).
Just to find my way around it's hell !! classical ++, jazz ++++, rock+, variety +, everything is sorted by artist order or selection date ... in short, I pull my hair (the ones I have left...) when I want to find an old favourite that I can't find the name of !! or when I say : "I'd like to have a little jazz album tonight, hmmm, which one ?" and it's panic all over the place so I only listen to the same ones in the end ...

Do you have an idea if there is an OS that could offer me the luxury of being able to sort out my favourites as I please ?
I don't think it's a madness to conceive ?!! yet I haven't found anything so far, not even Audirvana ...

If someone has a solution I thank him in advance.
At the beginning I wanted to create a new thread for this request, but in the end, this one seemed to me quite appropriate! otherwise I create!

I'd agree with giving Roon a go. It's not cheap, but the 14 day trial will let you make an assessment.

I totally get where you're coming from regarding Qobuz. I'm more than happy using Qobuz, but was very frustrated with the lack of ability to sort/catalogue my collection. I trialled Roon so as to combine Qobuz with DSP, but the ability to a create workable library has definitely been a pleasant addition. It's surprising what a difference this can make to one's overall listening experience.

 

[Aldo]

Really?!

You can sort your favourites as you like with Roon? I imagined Audirvana and Roon neck-and-neck regarding ergonomics ...

The idea of an extra subscription certainly gives me the creeps ... but then I'm going to fall for it in the end. Unless there's a better solution? ...

 

[Aldo]

I will enquire about version 8.x LMS
merci

 

[Sukie]

You can sort your favourites as you like with Roon? I imagined Audirvana and Roon neck-and-neck regarding ergonomics ...

Sorry, my post was misleading. You can't sort Roon as you like. What I was meaning is that Roon, unlike native Qobuz app, allows you to build a collection, a collection that will include your Qobuz favourites.

 

[Rodasch]

I will enquire about version 8.x LMS
merci

Logitech Media Server 8.x does allow for integration of local and Qobuz libraries. After a year of trying software on my Raspberry Pi, I've settled for now on LMS -> piCoreplayer -> Material Skin. This combination is subscription-free, and, with the addition of Material Skin as a control app, the best user experience so far. I was considering trying Roon--given the price, I'd expect excellence-- but I'm satisfied for now.

It seems you still need to use the Qobuz app to add and remove favorites, but as you rescan/update your library, LMS will show them along with your local files, and will superimpose a Qobuz icon on the cover art. Qobuz content is included in searches by album, artist, genre, etc., and you can create subfolders in the LMS Favorites folder.