ND555 and Qobuz

Yes but at present the NDS is not “seeing” the files on the NAS. The HDX is about to be part-exchanged again the ND555 so once it arrives it will be gone. I use a WD my cloud as the NAS. Is 5hat suitable?

The my cloud is really pretty awful. I would get a Qnap for about £500. Load Asset on the Qnap, which will enable you to play the music. But - and this is really, really, important - make sure that you convert all your HDX rips to flac (you do this using the HDX desktop client) and then back them up to your new Nas, before selling the HDX. If you don’t do this, you will find your 700 albums have no metadata and won’t play as whole albums. Then load bubble on the Qnap, which will enable you to use Qobuz very effectively, as well as streaming your existing music. 

Mike-B posted:

Buying a ND555 for just internet streaming is to me like buying an Aston Martin for the school run.     The ND555 has so so may capabilities far & above what streaming has to offer.  Downloading to give you local streaming from your NAS (or similar) has so much more to offer.     As good as Qobuz might be,  it still has some catalogue limitations,  while they are one of my prefered vendors for downloads (together with HighResAudio)  they only account for about 1/3rd of my download purchases,  I'm not tied to them & restricted to only the old 16-bit version they may have, or unable to buy a new release because of whatever licence they have not got.   Its a big world out there,  wider horizons are available outside Qobuz.  

I am fully agreeing to what you say. There is still a quality difference between playing local stored files and listening to Qobuz. Certainty of the catalogue is also a topic, sometimes things just leave the collection. Most recent example with Qobuz being the loss of Yelena Eckemoff ...

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

ChrisSU posted:

m.paul taylor posted:

... although I do have an iPad. Would that work?

No, Audirvana runs on Apple computers, not iPads. Given that the new streamers can play Qobuz via built in Chromecast, it would seem a bit OTT to run it on a separate computer instead. 

There were some teething problems with the Qobuz Chromecast implementation, but I believe these are now sorted, so hopefully you will not need a workaround solution with more boxes just to get Qobuz on your 555!

Chris, if you use BubbleUPnP Server, you don’t need more boxes, you load the proxy server on your NAS/media-server/computer server that you are already using and you are away. This is a software solution, and a pretty straightforward one.... and to my ears Tidal sounds better this way compared to direct streaming ( I have written why I believe why before on this forum) , and Qobuz overall sounds better... it would appear the distribution masters as sent are not the same between the two or something else is at play.

Thanks Simon, I hadn't paid too much attention to this talk of using Bubble - perhaps I'll see if I can get my Synology to run it. Getting a bit off-topic here, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Thank you Hungry Halibut . That is really practical advice

m.paul taylor posted:

Yes but at present the NDS is not “seeing” the files on the NAS. The HDX is about to be part-exchanged again the ND555 so once it arrives it will be gone. I use a WD my cloud as the NAS. Is 5hat suitable?

As HH mentions above, you must convert WAV files to FLAC on the HDX before you transfer them, in order to have the metadata accessible on other devices such as a non-Naim server.

The WD Mycloud might work, but I would get a 'proper' Synology or QNAP NAS. You will also want a backup, and the Mycloud would be ideal for that.

I have just looked up Qnap. There are many models/variants. Any recommendations?

Bert Schurink posted:

Mike-B posted:

Buying a ND555 for just internet streaming is to me like buying an Aston Martin for the school run.     The ND555 has so so may capabilities far & above what streaming has to offer.  Downloading to give you local streaming from your NAS (or similar) has so much more to offer.     As good as Qobuz might be,  it still has some catalogue limitations,  while they are one of my prefered vendors for downloads (together with HighResAudio)  they only account for about 1/3rd of my download purchases,  I'm not tied to them & restricted to only the old 16-bit version they may have, or unable to buy a new release because of whatever licence they have not got.   Its a big world out there,  wider horizons are available outside Qobuz.  

I am fully agreeing to what you say. There is still a quality difference between playing local stored files and listening to Qobuz. Certainty of the catalogue is also a topic, sometimes things just leave the collection. Most recent example with Qobuz being the loss of Yelena Eckemoff ...

Well, she called her most recent album “Leaving everything behind”... 

m.paul taylor posted:

I have just looked up Qnap. There are many models/variants. Any recommendations?

You don't need anything powerful of fancy if it is only to serve your music files. The cheapest one they make, with a suitably sized WD Red drive, will be fine.

The TS 253A with 4GB of RAM, and two WD Red drives is what I’d recommend. It has a bit of welly, which can be very useful. 

ChrisSU posted:

m.paul taylor posted:

I have just looked up Qnap. There are many models/variants. Any recommendations?

You don't need anything powerful of fancy if it is only to serve your music files. The cheapest one they make, with a suitably sized WD Red drive, will be fine.

Indeed, the key thing is the underlying RAID controller hardware.. not the frills....  also the less power they consume the cheaper it is to run.. remember this is likely to be on 24/7 and audio streaming is a trivial load, even audio transcoding is relatively insignificant for most other than the very smallest of NAS.... video transcoding is a different story however

Hungryhalibut posted:

The TS 253A with 4GB of RAM, and two WD Red drives is what I’d recommend. It has a bit of welly, which can be very useful. 

I bought the same nas, on HH’s recommendation. Actually mine may have 8gb ram - there was a good deal on a reconditioned one. Works very well and QNAP nas drives can handle Asset, which my former Synology couldn’t (at least not without a degree of tech-savvy which I don’t possess).

I am pleased to say streaming Qobuz via BubbleUPnP Server has been a real hit. I stream to my NDX, and then SPDIF to my Hugo... this way one bypasses the FLAC/WAV issue.. and gets a fantastic audio experience. In blind listening tests many can’t tell the difference between Qobuz and local streamed content .. it is that good. However Tidal is a distant partner in this with the SQ notably off... i a, not sure why unless it is audio water marking etc... but the difference between Tidal and Qobuz/local content is often very noticeable .. to the point I have  cancelled my Tidal now... 

Using BubbleUPnP Server has been a great discovery, thanks to this forum.. and using my NDX / Hugo combo it really has transformed internet streaming via Qobuz.

Interesting.

I use to used the iOS Qobuz app, on the iPhone for portable playback on that device for material I had bought from them. Easier that converting the FLAC to 24/48 ALAC and getting it loaded through iTunes.

Was at a Cyrus session over Easter, when back in the UK, and they were promoting Qobuz and the Sublime subscriptions. Basically that meant they could avoid the whole MQA debate, plus they also avoided the DSD debate too.

Have you committed to the Sublime+ service with the upfront €349.99 annual payment, what is this amount in GBP?

Also what proportion of their overall library is actually available in the HiRes formats? Their website states “The Sublime+ catalogue contains more than 90% of the Hi-Res Qobuz catalogue”, but does not outline what is the extend of the Hi-Res Qobuz catalogue.

I can access both Tidal and Quboz on my Liv Zen (Innous) streamer and although not at the level of your electronics I can offer you a direct side by side comparison on mine and they are very, very similar but because of the slightly better Jazz catalogue and also the option to buy the download direct from them I would choose Quboz unfortunately my beloved wants to keep Tidal and she is boss.

Simes-pep, I only stream 44.1/16/2 flac as my rural broadband can’t do any more... but quite honestly on Qobuz on my set that sounds absolutely wonderful through the 552 using the streaming proxy.

hi Bob, there are some Tidal tracks better than others, but quite honestly on my setup the sound is usually inferior. Things like ambience, reverb, voices, feel of orchestras and compressed rock just sounds more natural and enjoyable on Qobuz whilst Tidal can sound a bit processed and artificial.. but yes it does vary.. also the loudness on effected tracks sometimes appears louder on Tidal compared to the more natural equivalent on Qobuz. I would love to know what’s going on....

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Simes-pep, I only stream 44.1/16/2 flac as my rural broadband can’t do any more... but quite honestly on Qobuz on my set that sounds absolutely wonderful through the 552 using the streaming proxy.

hi Bob, there are some Tidal tracks better than others, but quite honestly on my setup the sound is usually inferior. Things like ambience, reverb, voices, feel of orchestras and compressed rock just sounds more natural and enjoyable on Qobuz whilst Tidal can sound a bit processed and artificial.. but yes it does vary.. also the loudness on effected tracks sometimes appears louder on Tidal compared to the more natural equivalent on Qobuz. I would love to know what’s going on....

Then I would of thought you are in that target market for streamed HiRes content within the same sized container as 16/44.1, as offered by MQA.

Is anyone streaming Qobuz’s Sublime+ subscription service and can comment on the quality compared to Tidal’s Masters, through a software decode. And also provide any insight on the extend of the Qobuz HiRes library that €350/year gives you access to?

Thanks, Simon.

simes_pep posted:

Then I would of thought you are in that target market for streamed HiRes content within the same sized container as 16/44.1, as offered by MQA.

 

Hi Simon, might be however two observations.. firstly I had continued to listen to MQA (via the Tidal  OSX first ‘unfold’ decoder into external DAC) whilst my Tidal subscription was current, and although some tracks sounded enhanced I can’t say I really felt it was getting me closer to the music . Yes it could have been the software decoder to some extent but I think such influences would have been subtle. Secondly I noticed the FLAC files of MQA content were not compressing the same way and so the transfers were quite a bit larger than regular PCM (obviously so if you think about it) however clearly this would be less an issue on higher data rate services...

In short I guess I will keep resvisiting MQA from time to time to see how things may have improved, but to date it hasn’t been compelling enough to make me bother with.

Cheers

Simon

OSX /Audirvana would make a huge difference to Tidal MQA, not the Tidal app.

Interesting, for what I discovered talking to an app developer, not sure how true it is as I have no first hand experience, the MQA software libraries are rather constrained and there is not much if any latitude to optimise them. I understand that has been one reason why Naim have been dis interested.

Having said that I found Audirvana on OSX somewhat over hyped compared to the end result achieved in my opinion... but that was with  PCM rather than MQA. (And using a MacBook with USB connection to DACs)

Simon, I am quite sure that you know the spiky ground-plane noise that USB generates over the audio data stream? That's why some folks using the USB isolators, even with the Chord DAVE.

Once MDQ is unfolded, it would be the same as PCM, what matters is the SQ produced by the renderer, and the Tidal app cannot be compared against Audirvana with respect to the music rendering, especially with the INT mode enabled.