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Mayday- What streamer/player for Qobuz (rookie)

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hugo86e

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Interesting to hear about the MS/iPeng lack of ability to add Qobuz favorites directly from those UIs. I was thinking of switching from MoOde to PiCorpPlayer and giving those a try. However, I may just stick with mConnect and MoOde since I’m able to manage favorites from within the app.

The mConnect interface is a bit clunky, but useable once you learn it. My biggest issue with mConnect is the battery suck it puts on my iPad. If I leave the app connected to my RPi for UpNP it keeps an active connection and drains my battery relatively quickly. The app doesn’t seem to have a Stand By or Sleep mode. As long as I remember to switch source from MoOde UpNP to iPad when I’m finished listening things are ok.

I thought about trying MoOde as well but I am not really fond of the look of the mconnect app.. Regarding audio quality and feeling, I don't know what's best between MoOde/UPNP and pCP/LMS..

Concerning your battery issue, I suppose it is the same with Material Skin/iPeng?
 

Foxenfurter

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Assuming you are playing the same files there should be absolutely no difference in Sound quality. LMS plays gapless and has smart normalization which definitely helps the experience, with UPNP these features may not be available on certain servers. The biggest difference in SQ is whether you want to EQ or not.
 

SKBubba

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I don't think it's a Wifi issue. I have had no problems with streaming Hires files in my network to the CCA and no issues with Qobuz via UpNP to my RPi streamer.

I also own 2 CCAs. One is the source for tube amp and the other is hooked up to my integrated amp, but seeing a lot less use since I setup the RPi streamer.

Over on the Computer Audiophile "official" Qobuz support thread, Qobuz acknowledges there are problems with chromecast in their apps and they say they are working on a fix.

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...issues-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1114849


https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...issues-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1120576
 

Mindhead1

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I thought about trying MoOde as well but I am not really fond of the look of the mconnect app.. Regarding audio quality and feeling, I don't know what's best between MoOde/UPNP and pCP/LMS..

Concerning your battery issue, I suppose it is the same with Material Skin/iPeng?

It's possible there would be a similar issue with iPeng. I suspect the app keeps an open connection to the RPi for quick control capability. The app is very responsive and there is little to no lag when navigating between songs while playing. The Material Skin web interface will probably not have this issue as it's a web page being served from the RPi. The MoOde web interface has no lag when playing local files or radio stations. You can't control Qobuz through the MoOde web interface.
 

Mindhead1

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Phorize

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I thought about trying MoOde as well but I am not really fond of the look of the mconnect app.. Regarding audio quality and feeling, I don't know what's best between MoOde/UPNP and pCP/LMS..

Concerning your battery issue, I suppose it is the same with Material Skin/iPeng?
The good thing about the mconnect app is that you can add favourites. That makes living with mconnect with the pi and the qobuz app on my phone when I’m on the move a more joined up experience.
 

MrDogg

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My biggest issue with MConnect is once I exit out of the app for it to find MOode again I have to restart my Pi which is an annoying extra step.
 

amper42

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Before getting into Roon/Audirvana, etc. I recommend experimenting with a simple Raspberry Pi to USB DAC setup and trying the different OS options available. Volumio has the most polished UI with iOS and Android apps, but integrating with Qobuz comes at a price.

I use MoOde on my RPi and access Qobuz via mConnect HD app on my iPad. It‘s not the most polished app, but it works well and the music sounds great which is the most important thing. MoOde is easy to install and get up and running.

piCorePlayer is supposed to be another good option which I plan to try in the near future, but seems to have more complex configuration process based on my reading.

Roon and Audirvana are great, but I would see if the options mentioned above meet your requirements before investing in those software product.

I'm using Audirvana 3.5 -> Raspberry Pi4 (MoOde installed with UPnP enabled) -> USB RME ADI-2 FS -> Purifi amp ->F328Be. The sound is amazing.

Audirvana offers a great interface with Qobuz and the local lossless CD content all available on my 13" MBP screen. It's far superior to the Qobuz app. I wanted UPnP so I could access the DAC wirelessly and the simple Raspberry Pi4 with UPnP enabled allows Audirvana to control the volume. As long as I don't mess with the RPi4 web interface and simply select all my music playlists in Audirvana the UPnP works flawlessly.

You could easily use Audirvana and the MoOde RPi4 with most DAC, amp, speaker combos while having one of the best Qobuz interfaces available.

Audirvana.png
 

RuthlessRufus

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Oct 11, 2021
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Hello everyone,

I'm still a rookie regarding hi-fi and there is a point that I still don't understand: how to best wirelessly stream/cast Qobuz 24 bits hi-res files from the ios native app to my analog stereo integrated amp. FYI, I don't have a network NAS with flac files or anything- I only use Qobuz or Tidal.

First, I've seen that airplay is limited to 16/44.1 cd quality, so I thought that the right move was to use the toslink output of a Chromecast Audio with a nice reviewed DAC such as the topping E30 (btw, a big thanks to amirm's work and reviews- very interesting, I've learned a lot) to stream up to 24/92 files. However, I can read everywhere that one has to use another player such as Roon/Audirvana/Plex/etc instead of the Qobuz native app. First thing is, I just don't understand why?! Why is it so much better? As good as can be those players, their ios app are just remote apps and I don't want to have a desktop computer ON everytime I want to stream qobuz.

So then, is there any solution here?

I think I've read people are using raspberry pi 4 USB output to DAC and with something called ropieee xl but i'm not sure to understand.. Would I be able to use qobuz native app with that?

Thanks in advance for your help and sorry for the rookie questions :)

Hey mate. Qobuz to CCA will give you 96/24 max which is plenty. It sounds great.
 

NiagaraPete

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Can you update to Airplay 2? The audio quality is great.
 

MCH

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Now that i see PiCP/LMS and Moode/upnp in the same post. Is there a way to control both from the same android app and, for instance, stream from a LMS to a pi running moode with bubbleupnp or MConnect?
Thanks
 

Willem

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I want to argue that there is preciously litle evidence that formats with resolutions higher than 16/44 are sonicaly superior. The second thing I would like to comment on is that uncontroled listening tests of the sound quality of digital outputs are highly suspect. I have never heard any difference, and the measurements suggest there are none.
As for myself, I use a the digital output of a Chromecast Audio into an RME ADI-2 and it is superb, as one would expect from the measurements.
 

jmtocali

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Now that i see PiCP/LMS and Moode/upnp in the same post. Is there a way to control both from the same android app and, for instance, stream from a LMS to a pi running moode with bubbleupnp or MConnect?
Thanks
There are plugins for LMS that let you use UPNP players and Chromecast as endpoints.
 

MCH

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There are plugins for LMS that let you use UPNP players and Chromecast as endpoints.
Thanks! May i ask you or anyone else where to find additional information? (Rookie as well specially with LMS)
 

vitoruch

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Over on the Computer Audiophile "official" Qobuz support thread, Qobuz acknowledges there are problems with chromecast in their apps and they say they are working on a fix.

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...issues-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1114849


https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/...issues-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1120576
Hi Bubba and folks.

Sorry to resuscitate this thread from the dead, but.... it sounds to me that Qobuz problems with chromecast still occur, more than 2 years from Qobuz promissing to deal with the issue, isn't it? :(
 

HoweSound

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Volumio has a subscription fee for accessing higher level functionality like Qobuz access and Bluetooth. I like the Volumio UI, but I don’t like the subscription model they have. Not at $30/year.

I use MoOde and it works for me even though it’s not as polished on the interface front.
I have a Nanosound Raspberry Pi setup with ssd. I too like the Volumio interface, but also was unhappy with the subscription model and refused to subscribe. Also have a Linux based silent PC used for flac music storage. I decided the Eversolo DMP A6 would be a great all-in-one solution and, with an SSD installed, I find it works well as a file server. I have never subscribed to a music streaming service, but because Eversolo has a built-in Qobuz app, I signed up for the hires master subscription. The sound quality is excellent and the user interface is reasonably straight forward. I have no regrets with respect to either Eversolo or Qobuz.
 
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