Quality of sound between Deezer streaming and Flacs stored on NAS

I can clearly hear the difference between flac and WAV on my system: the WAV sounds more natural with the flac being a little artificial, so I transcode to WAV. But if others don’t hear the difference then that’s fine. I think ethernet cables sound difference yet many think it’s all in the mind. It really doesn’t matter. The nice thing about the flac/WAV comparison is that one can try it by checking a tick box, at no cost whatsoever. That’s got to be good. 

I don't use Naim digital sources; Melco into Chord Dave via USB, and I also hear a difference between WAV and FLAC, AIFF etc. WAV files sound better to me in my system.

Finished doing some tests. First of all I stopped using the equalizer in Deezer which appeared to be doing his work... Secondly I used the option to transcode from Flac to wav in the media server. That made a difference indeed. And I agree to your suggestions that it'll take some time to get used to playing hi-res flacs/wavs instead of streaming Deezer. Hope the Asset media server will be available soon.

Thank you all for your input!

On my Qb Spotify sounded "thin" compared to Tidal Hifi. 

Yes I have often noticed Spotify sounding thin on several platforms compared to mp3 - yet others its fine. I wonder if its the Ogg Vorbis codec decoders as used by Spotify as opposed to MP3..

Spotify is an odd one as to how different it can sound on different hardware. On the new Uniti systems and the Bluesound Node 2, I just got it sounds pretty good, not up to Tidal or Qobuz but far from unlistenable. But on others it has sounded very thin. I think l it's more susceptible to bad recordings though than the hires services perhaps as SiS says it's down to using oggvorbis.

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Spotify is an odd one as to how different it can sound on different hardware. On the new Uniti systems and the Bluesound Node 2, I just got it sounds pretty good, not up to Tidal or Qobuz but far from unlistenable. But on others it has sounded very thin. I think l it's more susceptible to bad recordings though than the hires services perhaps as SiS says it's down to using oggvorbis.

I can confirm.

In my experience, Spotify sounds pretty good in office on a desktop win pc with a Cambridge Dacmagic XS and a pair of AKG K92 but awful on my Cambridge CXN in my home system.

M.

Can somebody advise how to stream deezer to a Qb.

Chromecast.  Although I haven't tried it.

If you use Bubble App you can use Qobuz.

Thanks. But what is chromecast.

I have a Qb, an android tablet and a deezer account, is chromecast loaded onto the tablet?

You'll need a Chromecast Audio device, this then connects to your Qb via one of the digital inputs.  You can then "cast" the Deezer stream to Chromecast Audio device.

Sadly there's no way to do this natively using the kit you have.

Ok, thanks.

Curry's where selling the Qb, with 9 months free deezer subscription on black Friday. Most people would reasonably assume they where compatible.

fatcat posted:

Ok, thanks.

Curry's where selling the Qb, with 9 months free deezer subscription on black Friday. Most people would reasonably assume they where compatible.

Yes I agree they would. I'd have expected a free Tidal sub, definitely not anything else. I'm going to have a look at Currys' website.

Yes, they are still selling them with a Deezer subscription. I think they have cocked up here. ????

Last I looked Naim dealers are giving 6 months Tidal streaming for free. Maybe get your money back and buy from a Naim dealer.

You would use AirPlay to play Deezer into a Muso, as it doesn’t have Chromecast like the new Naim streamers. Easy from iOS devices, but on Android you’d need a third party app such as  AllCast or AirStream to make this work. Either that or stick a Chromecast Audio into the optical input. 

FATCAT has been mis-sold the Qb though and they need to take it up with Currys. 

Chris/Guinless. Thanks for the advice.

I think I’ll forget about Deezer on the Qb, it’s starting to sound far too complicated for somebody of my age. My daughters played spotify through the QB and it sounds Ok, I think I’ll give that a try.

The deezer subscription may not be a total waste, I believe it will work with my SBT. Pretty amazing if it does, considering Logitech haven’t been supporting it for 5 or 6 years.

Actually, if you can get Deezer working on SBT, you that will almost certainly provide another workaround (using LMS) to get it to play on the QB too. To be honest, though, if you can use Spotify, I would probably just stick with that.