Qobuz on iPad into ND5XS

Posted by: AdyBlueLights on 12 April 2015

Dear all,

 

I have recently started subscribing to Qobuz, and am currently running it in an iPad into the USB input on the front of my ND5XS. I have compared the sound from this to CDs I own running through the ND5XS and find the quality very close indeed.

 

I have one issue, which is my broadband speed. Living in the wild north of England, I have about 1.5Mbps, which streams Qobuz at FLAC quality provided no-one else in the house wants the use the internet! I have downloaded albums to my iPad for offline listening, but the capacity is limited to around 10 albums before it runs out of space.

 

My options for using Qobuz in the future seem to be either:

 

1) Buy a high-capacity iPod to use with Qobuz, allowing me to build an offline collection of around 100 albums at a time. I would connect the iPod to the ND5XS using the USB connection.

 

2) Run Qobuz on a PC with or without an attached NAS drive. Can anyone answer, if I run Qobuz on a PC, could I store its offline albums on a NAS drive, thus allowing the ND5XS to find offline content? Whichever option is possible, how do I connect this system to the ND5XS? I currently have the PC and ND5XS connected by ethernet cable to my modem.

 

Kind regards,

 

Adrian.

Posted on: 13 April 2015 by Pev

Hi - rather than pay a fortune for a high capacity second iPad why not get an Android tablet (for less than £100) which will accept micro SD cards - you can load up a vast amount of music on each one and swap them over very easily? Now the Naim app is available for Android this will meet your needs much better. I do this to take a large selection of music and video with me on my tablet when I am away from home; something that wasn't possible with the iPad I borrowed for a trip abroad.

Posted on: 13 April 2015 by tom539
Originally Posted by AdyBlueLights:

Dear all,

 

I have recently started subscribing to Qobuz, and am currently running it in an iPad into the USB input on the front of my ND5XS. I have compared the sound from this to CDs I own running through the ND5XS and find the quality very close indeed.

 

I have one issue, which is my broadband speed. Living in the wild north of England, I have about 1.5Mbps, which streams Qobuz at FLAC quality provided no-one else in the house wants the use the internet! I have downloaded albums to my iPad for offline listening, but the capacity is limited to around 10 albums before it runs out of space.

 

My options for using Qobuz in the future seem to be either:

 

1) Buy a high-capacity iPod to use with Qobuz, allowing me to build an offline collection of around 100 albums at a time. I would connect the iPod to the ND5XS using the USB connection.

 

2) Run Qobuz on a PC with or without an attached NAS drive. Can anyone answer, if I run Qobuz on a PC, could I store its offline albums on a NAS drive, thus allowing the ND5XS to find offline content? Whichever option is possible, how do I connect this system to the ND5XS? I currently have the PC and ND5XS connected by ethernet cable to my modem.

 

Kind regards,

 

Adrian.

Hello Adrian,

 

option 2 will not work with the ND5 over UPNP.

 

First of all: Qobuz is saving offline-files within it´s own app (on tablets) or in PC-application - crypted.

So I´m not sure, an SD-card on Android-tablet is a good idea for saving diverent albums in Qobuz-app...

 

The only way on a PC-based solution is to install JRiver MediaCenter 20 with the wdm-driver an choose this driver in Qobuz-PC-application for output.

In JRiver you have to chosse output via USB maybe to the DAC-V1 - UPNP as a different "zone" will not work with my 172.

 

To resume: only option 1 is a option you can try - or wait until Naim implement streaming-services like Qobuz, Tidal, ...

Posted on: 13 April 2015 by Huge

1   A simpler answer to sending Qobuz output from a PC to an ND5 XS is to use a soundcard (or motherboard) with a Toslink output and connect that to the ND5's optical input.

 

2   There are also some external USB soundcard devices that have coax S/Pdif output, and that can be connected to a BNC input on the ND5.

 

3   There are also some HDMI switches that will extract S/Pdif audio data from an HDMI connection and route this through Toslink, or less commonly digital coax.

Posted on: 13 April 2015 by Simon-in-Suffolk

I agree with Huge, I would look at option 1) above. Toslink connections decouple many of the RFI noise issues with regular PC/Macs

Simon

 

PS ot of interest how far are you from the phone exchange? In my Suffolk village we have fairly lowly speeds, and long lines but they range from 700k to 4Mbps .. and a lot of this I suspect is down to local domestic phone wiring quality.

Posted on: 14 April 2015 by tom539
Originally Posted by Huge:

1   A simpler answer to sending Qobuz output from a PC to an ND5 XS is to use a soundcard (or motherboard) with a Toslink output and connect that to the ND5's optical input.

 

2   There are also some external USB soundcard devices that have coax S/Pdif output, and that can be connected to a BNC input on the ND5.

 

3   There are also some HDMI switches that will extract S/Pdif audio data from an HDMI connection and route this through Toslink, or less commonly digital coax.

You are right - but at all options, you have to put the PC in the same room with the ND5.

 

If it´s in another room or level...

Posted on: 14 April 2015 by Huge
Originally Posted by tom539:
Originally Posted by Huge:

1   A simpler answer to sending Qobuz output from a PC to an ND5 XS is to use a soundcard (or motherboard) with a Toslink output and connect that to the ND5's optical input.

 

2   There are also some external USB soundcard devices that have coax S/Pdif output, and that can be connected to a BNC input on the ND5.

 

3   There are also some HDMI switches that will extract S/Pdif audio data from an HDMI connection and route this through Toslink, or less commonly digital coax.

You are right - but at all options, you have to put the PC in the same room with the ND5.

 

If it´s in another room or level...

1   Long optical 'cable'

2   Use HDMI over Ethernet using Homeplug adapters and then an HDMI audio extractor to send S/Pdif over Toslink to the ND5.