QOBUZ IN AMERICA

Sal1950 · Feb 22, 2020

LorenAmelang said:
So what are the Qobuz fans with Linux using now that "We had to close KODI / XBMC for legal and piracy constraints" ?

I used the web player all during my free trial and an extra month after that, then I let it expire.
I'm currently sub'd to Amazon and Spotify, I paid for a year of Spotify up front and Amazon by the month, still don't have any solution I'm happy with but the Spotify Connect in my Marantz along with the Spotify Linux desktop app build in my OS makes a convenient option.
First one to offer a way to stream bit perfect to alsa, or multich music, will get my support long term.

LorenAmelang · Feb 23, 2020

OK, so I have my notebook with Antergos/Arch, and a USB-to-optical dongle that goes to my DAC and stereo, with delicious sound from local drive music files. And I have an iPhone with the Qobuz app, which sounds decent via Bluetooth. But not nearly as exciting as switching to the real Qobuz Desktop Player and ASIO on the Windows machine (the only remaining use for it). Are you saying there is some way to send a better stream from iOS to Linux? Can an iPhone do it, or do you need an iPad? Or is there some magic to using a Pi? I have some, but not with audio hats...

StevenEleven · Feb 23, 2020

LorenAmelang said:
OK, so I have my notebook with Antergos/Arch, and a USB-to-optical dongle that goes to my DAC and stereo, with delicious sound from local drive music files. And I have an iPhone with the Qobuz app, which sounds decent via Bluetooth. But not nearly as exciting as switching to the real Qobuz Desktop Player and ASIO on the Windows machine (the only remaining use for it). Are you saying there is some way to send a better stream from iOS to Linux? Can an iPhone do it, or do you need an iPad? Or is there some magic to using a Pi? I have some, but not with audio hats...

See:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...y-pi-audio-streamer-for-you-in-minutes.11222/

I can say with metaphysical certainty it works well via the Qobuz app from my iPad or iPhone.

In general, I believe any properly functioning Airplay audio out device sees (and streams over WiFi reliably to) this Raspberry Pi 4 streaming receiver, as configured by my son. My son just built me a second slightly different one today.

Straight 44.1 / 16 (as set on Qobuz) until you get to the DAC, verified in the Qobuz iOS app, the Raspberry Pi / archlinux status indicators as it receives the audio, and a Behringer DEQ2496.

Sal1950 · Feb 23, 2020

StevenEleven said:
In general, I believe any properly functioning Airplay audio out device sees (and streams over WiFi reliably to) this Raspberry Pi 4 streaming receiver, as configured by my son.

Can I borrow your kid for a few days Steven?

GioF71 · Feb 24, 2020

LorenAmelang said:
So what are the Qobuz fans with Linux using now that "We had to close KODI / XBMC for legal and piracy constraints" ?

Hello, I have recently heard about this action from Qobuz from @jaynyc.
My subscription is currently stopped as I don't have currently a lot of time to listen to music. My kodi and upmpdcli boxes used to work while my subscription was running, so that was really a bad news.

If I ever decide to renew the subscription, I will have to use BubbleUpnp on Android, hoping this solution will still be working with all the upmpdcli installation I have at home. Not really a show stopper if you really want qobuz, but still I'd like to be able to use the desktop linux computer to stream to the sbc on my desk without the need of a tablet/smartphone.
Still, shame on Qobuz for their move, I am very disappointed.

LorenAmelang · Feb 24, 2020

StevenEleven said:
See:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...y-pi-audio-streamer-for-you-in-minutes.11222/

I can say with metaphysical certainty it works well via the Qobuz app from my iPad or iPhone.

Thank you so much, Steven! This seems promising... I have the Arch Community shairport-sync package installed (sudo pacman -S shairport-sync),

Plus:

Code:

systemctl status avahi-daemon
● avahi-daemon.service - Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Stack
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/avahi-daemon.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-02-21 22:41:46 PST; 1 day 13h ago
...
systemctl start shairport-sync.service
systemctl status shairport-sync.service
● shairport-sync.service - Shairport Sync - AirPlay Audio Receiver
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/shairport-sync.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2020-02-23 12:22:24 PST; 7s ago
...
aplay -L
...
usbstream:CARD=Device
    USB Advanced Audio Device
    USB Stream Output

Note that is aplay -[uppercase] L, not [lowercase] l !

So I set:

Code:

/etc/shairport-sync.conf
--> relevant fragment, after editing:
=====
alsa =
{
        output_device = "usbstream"; // 200223LA the name of the alsa output device. Use "alsamixer" or "aplay" to find out the names of devices, mixers, etc.
//      mixer_control_name = "PCM"; // the name of the mixer to use to adjust output volume. If not specified, volume in adjusted in software.
=====

And my iPhone connects happily to it. Haven't seen any output yet... Probably because of:

Code:

Feb 23 13:43:30 Gazp9 shairport-sync[5272]: ALSA lib pcm_usb_stream.c:486:(_snd_pcm_usb_stream_open) Invalid type for card
Feb 23 13:43:30 Gazp9 shairport-sync[5272]: alsa: error -22 ("Invalid argument") opening alsa device "usbstream".

When it hits an error like that it throws thousands of them into your journalctl stream! Seems one set would suffice...

So I have something to explore tomorrow... Unless someone happens to know what a card type error -22 is...

StevenEleven · Feb 24, 2020

LorenAmelang said:
Thank you so much, Steven! This seems promising... I have the Arch Community shairport-sync package installed (sudo pacman -S shairport-sync),

Plus:

Code:

systemctl status avahi-daemon ● avahi-daemon.service - Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Stack Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/avahi-daemon.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled) Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-02-21 22:41:46 PST; 1 day 13h ago ... systemctl start shairport-sync.service systemctl status shairport-sync.service ● shairport-sync.service - Shairport Sync - AirPlay Audio Receiver Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/shairport-sync.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled) Active: active (running) since Sun 2020-02-23 12:22:24 PST; 7s ago ... aplay -L ... usbstream:CARD=Device USB Advanced Audio Device USB Stream Output

Note that is aplay -[uppercase] L, not [lowercase] l !

So I set:

Code:

/etc/shairport-sync.conf --> relevant fragment, after editing: ===== alsa = { output_device = "usbstream"; // 200223LA the name of the alsa output device. Use "alsamixer" or "aplay" to find out the names of devices, mixers, etc. // mixer_control_name = "PCM"; // the name of the mixer to use to adjust output volume. If not specified, volume in adjusted in software. =====

And my iPhone connects happily to it. Haven't seen any output yet... Probably because of:

Code:

Feb 23 13:43:30 Gazp9 shairport-sync[5272]: ALSA lib pcm_usb_stream.c:486:(_snd_pcm_usb_stream_open) Invalid type for card Feb 23 13:43:30 Gazp9 shairport-sync[5272]: alsa: error -22 ("Invalid argument") opening alsa device "usbstream".

When it hits an error like that it throws thousands of them into your journalctl stream! Seems one set would suffice...

So I have something to explore tomorrow... Unless someone happens to know what a card type error -22 is...

You’re welcome. If you haven’t worked through it yet by tomorrow afternoon I can show this to my son when he gets home from school tomorrow. It’s over my head.

Are you using a HAT? If not, as you probably know, you can go USB out from the Pi to a DAC, or apparently much less optimally, go audio out from the analog out of the Pi.

You might want to turn the digital volume one smidge down on the Pi or keep it one smidge from max on the Iphone to prevent digital clipping upon any subsequent oversampling, but I’ve not seen or heard any evidence it is audible, There is a thread going on now here about digital clipping on oversampling in a separate thread. The solution for us is to turn the digital volume down by the smallest possible smidge somewhere in the chain, and then everything is clean. Here’s the current thread:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/.../help-explain-intersample-overs-please.11651/

LorenAmelang · Feb 24, 2020

StevenEleven said:
You’re welcome. If you haven’t worked through it yet by tomorrow afternoon I can show this to my son when he gets home from school tomorrow. It’s over my head.

Guess it is still over mine, too:

When I first ran shairplay, I saw thousands of these:

Code:

Feb 23 12:36:33 Gazp9 shairport-sync[4517]: the alsa output_device "default" can not be found.

After some digging, I changed this:

Code:

[loren@Gazp9 ~]$ less /etc/shairport-sync.conf
--> relevant fragment, after editing:
=====
alsa =
{
        output_device = "usbstream"; // 200223LA the name of the alsa output device. Use "alsamixer" or "aplay" to find out the names of devices, mixers, etc.
//      mixer_control_name = "PCM"; // the name of the mixer to use to adjust output volume. If not specified, volume in adjusted in software.
/
=====

That error went away, and this one appeared:

Code:

Feb 23 13:43:30 Gazp9 shairport-sync[5272]: alsa: error -22 - Invalid type for card

My only search hit mentioning "type" in this context:

Code:

less /etc/asound.conf
=====
#LA181116 version
# Use PulseAudio plugin hw
pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave.pcm hw
}

/etc/asound.conf (END)
=====

That came from here and has been working with speakers, Bluetooth, and the S/PDIF USB device - until shairplay...
https://medium.com/@gamunu/enable-high-quality-audio-on-linux-6f16f3fe7e1f

I'm trying to follow this and bypass Pulse:

<https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync/issues/948>

-----
Regarding ALSA and bit perfection, if you direct your output to an ALSA hardware device (one whose name begins with hw then no transcoding or other manipulations will be applied – the bit stream supplied from your app is provided to the hardware driver. OTOH, if your app outputs to a non-hardware device, (e.g. thedefault ALSA device), then the bit stream your app provides may be transcoded or mixed before it reaches the real ALSA hardware driver.
-----

But I don't see any "hw:" devices listed anywhere. Or any "type" choices for them. At least that I recognize...

There are lots of options:

Code:

...
usbstream:CARD=HDMI
    HDA Intel HDMI
    USB Stream Output
sysdefault:CARD=PCH
    HDA Intel PCH, VT1802 Analog
    Default Audio Device
...
sysdefault:CARD=Device
    USB Advanced Audio Device, USB Audio
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Advanced Audio Device, USB Audio
    Front speakers
surround21:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Advanced Audio Device, USB Audio
    2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
surround40:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Advanced Audio Device, USB Audio
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Advanced Audio Device, USB Audio
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Advanced Audio Device, USB Audio
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Advanced Audio Device, USB Audio
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Advanced Audio Device, USB Audio
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=Device,DEV=0
    USB Advanced Audio Device, USB Audio
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
usbstream:CARD=Device
    USB Advanced Audio Device
    USB Stream Output

Two different entries with "usbstream"! So I tried the "iec958" option instead of "usbstream":

Code:

Feb 24 14:09:18 Gazp9 shairport-sync[8968]: the alsa output_device "iec958" can not be found.

But the "Test Sound" in my Audio control app plays fine. And it shows:
Digital Stereo (IEC958) Output
as the only Output Profile choice when the S/PDIF adapter is selected.

So I tried "IEC958" instead of "iec958":

Code:

Feb 24 14:19:36 Gazp9 shairport-sync[9114]: ALSA lib pcm.c:2642:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM IEC958
Feb 24 14:19:36 Gazp9 shairport-sync[9114]: the alsa output_device "IEC958" can not be found.

An extra message... But I guess the same error, really.

Time for more research... I'd greatly appreciate any clues your son sees, Steven!

StevenEleven · Feb 25, 2020

This is my son Kev—as I said, over my head, but hope it helps:

One thing to try would be specifying “usbstream:CARD=Device” instead of just “usbstream“ because, as you said, there are two usbstreams. I don’t know how ALSA handles device specifiers that are too general (e.g. the duplicated usbstream), but it seems possible that could be causing the invalid argument error.

Another possible thing is if pulseaudio and shairport-sync are trying to use the same ALSA audio card there could be issues, but I don’t really know exactly how that works. Arch Linux on the Raspberry Pi doesn’t even have pulseaudio installed by default, so I haven’t had to deal with that

(and I don’t care about pulseaudio messing with sound processing in my desktop). I imagine going through PulseAudio instead of ALSA would sound fine and probably just work, but maybe it’s not up to ~~audiophile~~ audio scientist standards. This would involve modifying /etc/shairport-sync.conf to use the pa backend instead of the alsa backend. It looks to be the “output_backend” option.

When he says “hw:” devices, that’s an alternate way of specifying cards (”hw:<card id>,<device id>”) from the card and device IDs given by ”aplay -l” (lowercase, not uppercase). The uppercase L returns aliases for those that won’t change on unplugging and replugging the device. You can also specify plughw:, which apparently can resample if necessary, as opposed to going directly to the audio card. I don‘t know which the alias does by default. Maybe it depends on the type you set in asound.conf?

LorenAmelang · Feb 26, 2020

Thank You Kev!!!

I wasted some time playing with various forms of the shairport command line, like:

Code:

shairport-sync -- -d "hw:0,0"
shairport-sync -- -d default

But no matter what I tried it just locked up and I had to Ctrl_C.

So I tried the "hw:" entry in the /etc/shairport-sync.conf file. From looking at "aplay -l", I'd think the USB adapter would be "hw:2,0" or "hw:2,1", but what works is "hw:0,0"... There is no card in my list showing "hw:0,0"!

So in /etc/shairport-sync.conf:

Code:

// Back End Settings

// These are parameters for the "alsa" audio back end.
// For this section to be operative, Shairport Sync must be built with the following configuration flag:
// --with-alsa
alsa =
{
        output_device = "hw:0,0"; // 200225LA the name of the alsa output device. Use "alsamixer" or "aplay" to find out the names of devices, mixers, etc.
...

It's delicious, hard to believe it is streaming from my phone! A couple of my favorite soundspace test tracks:

Finale
Martha Argerich
Saint-Saëns: The Carnival of the Animals
https://open.qobuz.com/track/519037
So unusual and exciting to hear a recorded piano allowed to fill the auditorium space instead of being closely mic'ed.

Yo Quisiera Amarla
Aventura - The Last
https://open.qobuz.com/track/40813277
The band is richly spread across the front stage, but the amazing part is the accent drum hits that pop out in depth all around the room.

Yes, I've spent my life in an unusual world of sound and vision. My dorsal stream (spatial) vision was destroyed by weird glasses as a child, so I hung onto what I believe is dorsal stream sound like a blind person would. Or like a hunting or hunted animal... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-streams_hypothesis

Normal audio systems are optimized for the ventral stream, the recognition of speech and musical content. My unique system is optimized for the dorsal stream, the way we "feel" space and judge how our speaking voices are filling the room. (I'd love to have both, but can't justify the cost...)
http://www.psychoros.com/stereoFrame.html

Thanks again to all in this thread who helped make Qobuz convenient as well as delicious!
-----

StevenEleven · Feb 26, 2020

LorenAmelang said:
Thank You Kev!!!

I wasted some time playing with various forms of the shairport command line, like:

Code:

shairport-sync -- -d "hw:0,0" shairport-sync -- -d default

But no matter what I tried it just locked up and I had to Ctrl_C.

So I tried the "hw:" entry in the /etc/shairport-sync.conf file. From looking at "aplay -l", I'd think the USB adapter would be "hw:2,0" or "hw:2,1", but what works is "hw:0,0"... There is no card in my list showing "hw:0,0"!

So in /etc/shairport-sync.conf:

Code:

// Back End Settings // These are parameters for the "alsa" audio back end. // For this section to be operative, Shairport Sync must be built with the following configuration flag: // --with-alsa alsa = { output_device = "hw:0,0"; // 200225LA the name of the alsa output device. Use "alsamixer" or "aplay" to find out the names of devices, mixers, etc. ...

It's delicious, hard to believe it is streaming from my phone! A couple of my favorite soundspace test tracks:

Finale
Martha Argerich
Saint-Saëns: The Carnival of the Animals
https://open.qobuz.com/track/519037
So unusual and exciting to hear a recorded piano allowed to fill the auditorium space instead of being closely mic'ed.

Yo Quisiera Amarla
Aventura - The Last
https://open.qobuz.com/track/40813277
The band is richly spread across the front stage, but the amazing part is the accent drum hits that pop out in depth all around the room.

Yes, I've spent my life in an unusual world of sound and vision. My dorsal stream (spatial) vision was destroyed by weird glasses as a child, so I hung onto what I believe is dorsal stream sound like a blind person would. Or like a hunting or hunted animal... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-streams_hypothesis

Normal audio systems are optimized for the ventral stream, the recognition of speech and musical content. My unique system is optimized for the dorsal stream, the way we "feel" space and judge how our speaking voices are filling the room. (I'd love to have both, but can't justify the cost...)
http://www.psychoros.com/stereoFrame.html

Thanks again to all in this thread who helped make Qobuz convenient as well as delicious!
-----

I am extremely pleased Kev was able to help. He looked happy about it, he smiled as he read your account.

Looks like I have a couple of new recordings to check out on Qobuz!!

lucillegiovanny · Nov 13, 2020

I prefer Spotify a lot and always listen to music on this useful platform. When I am sad or feel stressed, Spotify music makes me feel relaxed. To get the songs in mp3 format and keep the songs offline forever, I also convert the songs to mp3 by a Spotify Converter from DumpMedia. It provides me a smooth and fast conversion.

BDWoody · Nov 13, 2020

lucillegiovanny said:
I prefer Spotify a lot and always listen to music on this useful platform. When I am sad or feel stressed, Spotify music makes me feel relaxed. To get the songs in mp3 format and keep the songs offline forever, I also convert the songs to mp3 by a Spotify Converter from DumpMedia. It provides me a smooth and fast conversion.

Welcome to the forum!

Spotify does do a lot right, and I'm definitely one who uses music to de-stress also.
How lucky we are to live when so much great music is literally right at our fingertips!

Moderate Dionysianism · Nov 13, 2020

BDWoody said:
Spotify does do a lot right

Indeed. I just wish they'd stop bleeding the artists which cannot count on a major label's support.
All the emotions, joy and adventure you get from listening, and ateotd, the people who made it possible get $.0038 per stream... It just isn't as easy to de-stress anymore when you're aware of this. At least that's my experience.

IMO lossless streaming of the stuff you bought from Bandcamp would be the solution, but I recall them explicitly stating it's not the direction in which they want to develop the platform.

GShepard · Jun 14, 2022

I use the MPD/upmpdcli solution posted by GIOF71 above. There is an app available on Android in the play store called mconnect lite. The app is able to stream music from Qobuz to your computer which plays it back on any device attached to it. My RME ADI 2 FS DAC show the correct sample rate when playing back music.

For another example of how this combination works see this post about mconnect at this URL:

https://www.qobuz.com/be-nl/info/hi-fi/bancs-d-essai/the-mconnect-control-hd179558

Note: mconnect lite appears to support high-res streaming on Qobuz and I don't mind they way that ads are displayed.

QOBUZ IN AMERICA

Sal1950

Grand Contributor

LorenAmelang

Member

StevenEleven

Addicted to Fun and Learning

Sal1950

Grand Contributor

GioF71

Member

LorenAmelang

Member

StevenEleven

Addicted to Fun and Learning

LorenAmelang

Member

StevenEleven

Addicted to Fun and Learning

LorenAmelang

Member

StevenEleven

Addicted to Fun and Learning

lucillegiovanny

New Member

BDWoody

Chief Cat Herder

Moderate Dionysianism

Active Member

GShepard

Member