Streaming Qobuz iPhone 5 To Superuniti b

Posted by: StokieDave on 05 March 2015

Hi Everyone,

 

A question fo the technical boffins amongst the community.

 

Following the Bristol Show offer I have recently taken a one month trial subscription to the French owned FLAC streaming and downloading service Qobuz. I wanted to try it out and compare against Spotify and although the search & management tools and catalogue are definately inferior the sound quality is obviously in a different league and I believe Tidal is another player worth further investigation.. I also intend to purchase a Chord Hugo for listening to headphones whilst away from home so will also be comparing Hugu vs SU DAC and Hugo vs Headline-2 headphone amp.

 

My first technical question (and I suspect there may be more on the way) is that when streaming the FLAC to my iPhone or Macbook Pro and wishing to pass across to my Superuniti b is using the new Bluetooth functionality in the SU b going to be inferior to using a hard wired connection into one of the SU digital inputs? I must admit it sounds pretty good to my hearing but am I getting the very best out of the audio by using bluetooth across to the SU? I don't know much about Bluetooth protocols and would really appreciate any advice on the matter. Thanks

 

 

Posted on: 05 March 2015 by alan33
Originally Posted by StokieDave:.

 

My first technical question (and I suspect there may be more on the way) is that when streaming the FLAC to my iPhone or Macbook Pro and wishing to pass across to my Superuniti b is using the new Bluetooth functionality in the SU b going to be inferior to using a hard wired connection into one of the SU digital inputs? I must admit it sounds pretty good to my hearing but am I getting the very best out of the audio by using bluetooth across to the SU? I don't know much about Bluetooth protocols and would really appreciate any advice on the matter. Thanks

 

 

Even the new A2DP spec for audio transmission over Bluetooth - while way better than the original used for hands-free telephone calls - is a lossy compressed scheme that uses essentially MP3 or AAC. So it won't send lossless CD-quality streams to your SuperUniti from your iPhone in the way, for example, you can send lossless CD streams over wired Ethernet or wifi. It will likely be as good as Spotify, Radio Paradise or other high quality lossy source but you may still prefer a lossless transport scheme (many here have strong preferences for the latter, especi for non-background listening). 

 

Regards, alan 

Posted on: 05 March 2015 by tom539

Have you tried the USB-Input in front of your SU?

 

It works with a little workaround:

- Choose USD-Inbut in SU

- Select any song in your music-libary, based on iTunes and play it

- switch to Qobuz-APP and start playing a song, the SU will play it and it must be a digital-source witch use the D/A from the SU

 

Works fine with my 172 and the U2 of a friend of mine.

Posted on: 05 March 2015 by StokieDave

Tom539,

 

Thank you so much for your recommendation which appears to work just fine.

I tried the USB front connector on my SU this evening and it looks like I now have a workable solution with my iPhone 5 passing the lossless FLAC stream from Qobuz into my SU b and the Naim SU DAC. 

 

I pickup my new Chord Hugo on Saturday and also now wonder about the possible connectivity options whilst at home with my SU. Away from home I am hoping to simply connect my iPhone or Macbook Pro digital output into the Hugo and out to my Audeze LCD-3s for FLAC lossless listening.

 

At home I can compare the digital out from my SU into my headline-2 amp vs the input into the Chord Hugo which will allow a direct comparison of the Naim and Chord DACs as well as the headphone amplification differences. The current issue with the SU b and Headline-2 is that I have to use the sub out on the SU which means that I have to switch off the internal amp on the SU in order to use the headline-2 and set the volume output on the SU to around 50-60  to get a reasonable input to the Headline. I should add that the SU headphone front socket is simply not as good as the Headline-2 which is no great surprise.