UPNP controller apps - can it make a difference to SQ?

[dlovesmusic]

hi everyone, recently signed up for an annual subscription of jplay ios upnp after the initial 14 day free trial. It is a upnp control app + library management for tidal, qobuz, local library, similar to bubbleupnp or mconnect, which I use to upnp connect to my PC running jriver and Hqplayer.

Its more $$$$ but I absolutely love it. I find the UI is pretty rock solid, snappy and super easy to set up. Absolutely no compatibility issues amongst different upnp/dlna devices within the network. The moment i set up the program on my iphone, all my upnp/dlna in the network were found and properly connected to my dlna media server, even my qobuz credentials were identified automatically... I have four music systems in different room so having this one central UPNP controller app really adds to the convenience factor.

Local library and qobuz management was great as well, very organized, snappy and easy to use and search for music I like to listen to... the music suggestion from the "radio" function was pretty spot on as well.

I guess what I don't understand is, I have come across in different forums as well as talking to a couple of my buddies who are currently Lumin streamer users, that they have now subscribed to Jplay ios to upnp connect to their Lumin or other streamers instead of using the native streamer app, claiming that not only the UI was better, but even the SQ has improved. I have also read comments from others that jplay IOS sound quality being better than other similar upnp controller apps like bubbleupnp, mconnect...

I don’t get it as I thought the sole reason for people opting for dedicated streamers like Lumin are the dedicated streamer app that comes with it. If people are now using something else then why bother buying a dedicated streamer in the first place

I have been going back and forth between using jplay ios to stream a qobuz track vs playing the same track locally, added them to the same play queue to A/B them and thought they absolutely sounded identical. Hence the question, can a UPNP controller app (not even a renderer) impact sound quality??

Cheers

 

[GXAlan]

Hence the question, can a UPNP controller app (not even a renderer) impact sound quality??

It cannot. It’s the same way an amplifier or CD player won’t change depending who is controlling the physical remote control.

The only way a UPnP Controller can affect sound is if I tried to flood the network like a denial of service attack by querying the server and renderer in such a way to overwhelm the CPU or router switching capacity.

Edit: so maybe in a very early generation DLNA server from 2004 could be overwhelmed if a modern DLNA controller is querying frequently, expecting a modern CPU. I guess you could flood the WiFi as well. But it would then be another leap toward affecting sound in a “subtle” way.