Best way to integrate spotify into the Nds?

Posted by: MangoMonkey on 02 August 2014

Sonos unit with digital out?
AirPort express - stream via airplay?

Hook up iPad/iPhone directly?

The third option seems to be the best in terms of not introducing an extra power supply unit, but is not as convenient.

Thoughts?
Posted on: 06 August 2014 by Zeny

I read from an earlier thread that the sound from musicflow is mono, is that true?

Posted on: 06 August 2014 by Magnus Hultstrand
I doubt it.. Or I have to check my ears.. For approx 3 Euros, try it out for yourself ;-)
Posted on: 07 August 2014 by Zeny

I bought the app a long time ago on the advice of this forum, but the sound sucked as it seems to be mono. Yesterday I checked and it was still version 1.0, means its still the same version I tried.

Posted on: 07 August 2014 by YM2149
To my ears airplay through apple tv sounded better into the nd5 than with musicflow.
Posted on: 07 August 2014 by Scotty
Thought I'd give Plutinosoft Musicflow a go. Unfortunately it is not picking up music played from the Qobuz app on my pad. Anyone else had this problem? I was hoping to get Qobuz up and running with this method on my NDS
 
Scott.
 
Originally Posted by MangoMonkey:
Originally Posted by DavidDever:

The Plutinosoft AirMusic app, used to stream audio from your iOS device to any UPnP / DLNA renderer, should work perfectly fine. No hardware required.

Perfect!

The AirMusic works to play locally stored music. For Spotify, I needed to get the Plutinosoft MusicFlow app.

 

Not much of a reason for Naim to put spotify - and the other dozen apps on the NDS after this, IMHO.

 

It's 320Kbps anyway - and it's probably better to offload the internet facing piece of software on this other device. If you had this software running on the NDS - I would expect it sound worse, not better.

 

Posted on: 07 August 2014 by DavidDever
Originally Posted by Scotty:
Thought I'd give Plutinosoft Musicflow a go. Unfortunately it is not picking up music played from the Qobuz app on my pad. Anyone else had this problem? I was hoping to get Qobuz up and running with this method on my NDS
 
Scott.
 
Originally Posted by MangoMonkey:
Originally Posted by DavidDever:

The Plutinosoft AirMusic app, used to stream audio from your iOS device to any UPnP / DLNA renderer, should work perfectly fine. No hardware required.

Perfect!

The AirMusic works to play locally stored music. For Spotify, I needed to get the Plutinosoft MusicFlow app.

 

Not much of a reason for Naim to put spotify - and the other dozen apps on the NDS after this, IMHO.

 

It's 320Kbps anyway - and it's probably better to offload the internet facing piece of software on this other device. If you had this software running on the NDS - I would expect it sound worse, not better.

 

Assuming that you are not using a beta version of iOS, you will need to select the NDS as your AirPlay destination from the bottom home-button menu on your iPad.

 

Be careful with the volume.

Posted on: 07 August 2014 by Klout10

Hi,


Forgive me if this has been covered before, but I'm not aware of the current status. I wonder if there is any possibility to link up with a Spotify account via the HDX?

 

If not, will there be any plans in the near future?

Thankx in advance!

Regards,

 

Michel 

 

Posted on: 08 August 2014 by Scotty
David,
many thanks.
I finally got Qobuz playing through my NDS.......for about 5 seconds.
The Musicflow software seems a bit flaky. After 5 seconds or so, my iPad reboots and the music most definitely doesn't flow  I tried several times with the same result.
Scott.
 
 
 
 
Originally Posted by DavidDever:
Originally Posted by Scotty:
Thought I'd give Plutinosoft Musicflow a go. Unfortunately it is not picking up music played from the Qobuz app on my pad. Anyone else had this problem? I was hoping to get Qobuz up and running with this method on my NDS
 
Scott.
 
Originally Posted by MangoMonkey:
Originally Posted by DavidDever:

The Plutinosoft AirMusic app, used to stream audio from your iOS device to any UPnP / DLNA renderer, should work perfectly fine. No hardware required.

Perfect!

The AirMusic works to play locally stored music. For Spotify, I needed to get the Plutinosoft MusicFlow app.

 

Not much of a reason for Naim to put spotify - and the other dozen apps on the NDS after this, IMHO.

 

It's 320Kbps anyway - and it's probably better to offload the internet facing piece of software on this other device. If you had this software running on the NDS - I would expect it sound worse, not better.

 

Assuming that you are not using a beta version of iOS, you will need to select the NDS as your AirPlay destination from the bottom home-button menu on your iPad.

 

Be careful with the volume.

 

Posted on: 08 August 2014 by MangoMonkey

Yes, it's flaky even at 256 Kbps. I'm not surprised it died trying to run cd quality.

Posted on: 08 August 2014 by steven2907
Just downloaded musiflow.  Great app now dropouts or delays sounds very good to my ears. Playing all music from my iPhone 5s
Qubiz
Spotify
iTunes
And amazon music I've bought and downloaded. 

Can't fault it at the moment.  And for £1:99.
Posted on: 09 August 2014 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Read this thread and just got the Musicflow app.. And it works superbly well with Qobuz and the NDX via UPnP into Hugo... Thanks guys.... Qobuz streaming 44.1/16 FLAC now sounds a lot bette on my Naim.. No lossy, substandard Aitplay, Bluetooth audio or leads... Great stuff.

 

However still quite a performance gap with locally streamed media.. So still room for improvement with the new Naim software I suspect.

 

Simon

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by Scotty
I suspect it's flaky here because my wifi is not great in the music room but that doesn't explain why after playing for 5 seconds or so it crashes my iPad. Strange. I may have to wait until September when the new Naim App is launched.
 
Glad you got it up and running Simon.
 
Scott.
 
Originally Posted by MangoMonkey:

Yes, it's flaky even at 256 Kbps. I'm not surprised it died trying to run cd quality.

 

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by KRM

Well I'm blowed! It works. Thanks!

 

Qobuz is showing PCM 705kb/s so not really CD quality. Is this what Qobuz normally does with FLAC, does anyone know?

 

Keith

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Keith.. That's what you would expect to see with a mono 44.1/16 stream.

Qobuz is normally 44.1/16/2

Simon

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by KRM

Oh dear, so Music Flow is mono, as mentioned earlier in the post. Back to Apple TV.

 

Keith

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by Peter Fransen

I've the same problem. The Musicflow app lets me only hear mono. Is there anyone that can say for sure that (s)he runs musicflow with UQ2 in stereo? I myself have checked this with the track "Now I'm here" from Queen where in the beginning of the song Freddy's voice switches channels. With airplay it is ok but with Musicflow not. Anyone?

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by steven2907
Scottty. You may have to just restart your ipad.    I have no problems with mine but find if any apps crash then a simple restart usually sorts it out.
Posted on: 09 August 2014 by KRM

...but sorts it out in mono.

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by DavidDever

...hmm, it streams to stereo on Boulder 1021 Disc Player - perhaps a Uniti limitation? Apologies for the recommendation....

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by KRM

Conspiracy theory:

 

Naim have already configured their streaming products for Airplay and Spotify, didn't tell anyone and limited it to mono in case we stumbled on it.

 

But this is madness! Ah, but they enabled the USB on the NDS for Apple portables and didn't tell anyone. I still remember Adam's(?) Dr Strangelove post.

 

Keith 

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by Scotty
Thanks steven2907,
 
just tried a restart of the iPad and music flow still crashes and restarts the iPad when it starts playing to the NDS. I thought it might be Qobuz and so have just tries with spotify.....same result. Nevermind only a month to wait to see what Naim have come up with.
 
Scott.
 
Originally Posted by steven2907:
Scottty. You may have to just restart your ipad.    I have no problems with mine but find if any apps crash then a simple restart usually sorts it out.

 

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by PhilP

Plenty of negative reviews of Music Flow on the App Store. It seems to be one of those apps that works without problems in some systems but is a nightmare in others. But it is cheap... I think I'll stick with Apple TV for now

Posted on: 09 August 2014 by DavidDever

For those so inclined (and with a fair bit of alpha-software caveats offered), I have been playing with the Rune Audio take on MPD, running a custom build of Arch Linux ARM on a Raspberry Pi + Wolfson Audio Card (s/w version 0.3) via SPDIF out -- seems pretty solid with AirPlay, though definitely a bit revealing of crap stream quality and power supply, though.  It uses a browser-based interface, and seems to be a decent stopgap -- and it does play in stereo.

Posted on: 10 August 2014 by KRM

Simon seemed to prefer Music Flow to Apple TV. Preumably, you are hearing stereo Simon? If so, how? Is it because you are using the Hugo?

 

Keith

Posted on: 10 August 2014 by Dustysox

I use my trusty ol Logitech Transporter. None too shabby. In fact sounds rather good. 

 

Come to think of it, the Transporter was my primary source for quite a while when I moved to 552/amp/etc until Naim made a move into the streaming market!NDX then NDS