Have Qobuz broken chromecasting?

To rule out your network, can you try it on a different network? 

Do all of these issues effect offline playback only? Are these CD quality, HiRes, or both?

Not easily I'm afraid.

ChrisSU posted:

Do all of these issues effect offline playback only? Are these CD quality, HiRes, or both?

No, it seems to happen with offline purchases and streamed selections found using searches/discover etc.

I have had some problems with streaming HD in the past which I've put down to Qobuz servers as they play fine on the LAN from a NAS when downloaded (plus I've noticed downloading purchases could often be quite slow compared to connectivity speeds shown using Speedtest). I'm getting over 50 Mbps down/20 Mbps upload on the iPhone measured via Speedtest.  Elsewhere I have gigabit ethernet connecting devices via a Ubiquiti Router and a few switches, and my FTTC connection is syncing at around 80/20 which equates to around 74/20 measured by Speedtest on wired devices.   Uniti Nova is wired to a Time capsule which hooks to a wall ethernet socket, the Time Capsule providing local wifi in the room I'm using the iPhone to control the Nova.

This all raises the question of how Qobuz implements Chromecast, and I'm probably wrong in my assumptions - I've assumed that for non offline tracks the Uniti just gets the URLs of tracks from servers and hands them to the Uniti to access and play.  For offline tracks I assumed it send the audio file from the local cache to the Nova to play which would potentially be more resilient than playing internet streams provided internal LAN connectivity was good.

Ultimately unless casting works well it renders devices like the Uniti series pretty useless for streaming services which are not directly supported by the Nova/Unitis themselves (specifically Qobuz).

I am having a similar experience with Qobuz streaming. After each track ends there is then a click, the new track starts for a couple of seconds, stops and then restarts normally and proceeds to the end of the track. That's the only anomaly. It never happened when I used Tidal but I have bought an ND555 and I have not tried Tidal on it as I cancelled the subscription when I moved to Qobuz. Playing music from a USB or NAS does not have this problem. Any ideas?

On a different topic, I am thinking of upgrading the cabling to SL for interconnects and speakers. System is ND555 (with the cabling which came with it) powered by 500DR , NAC 552 DR, NAP 300DR feeding Kudos 606. Currently use Naim NAC4 (I think - I have had it for over 10 years!). Can anyone tell me their experience of the difference the upgraded cabling is likely to make?

Finally, how would ATC SMC 50 passives go with this system? The room is not massive so they have to be placed near the wall

m.paul taylor posted:

I am having a similar experience with Qobuz streaming. After each track ends there is then a click, the new track starts for a couple of seconds, stops and then restarts normally and proceeds to the end of the track. That's the only anomaly. It never happened when I used Tidal but I have bought an ND555 and I have not tried Tidal on it as I cancelled the subscription when I moved to Qobuz. Playing music from a USB or NAS does not have this problem. Any ideas?

 

I have no idea if this is an issue with the Qobuz app or the Naim devices not implementing Chromecast features correctly,  I do know however that for me it worked without the restarts for many months and I can link it to a specific Qobuz upgrade on my iPhone X, an older app on iPhone 6 working without the restarts.

Guys, am I right to assume you are not using the various proxy server solutions for Qobuz with Naim streamers etc because of the outstanding issues of pushed UPnP gapless on the new Naim streaming architectures.. or is it you don’t really want the added hassle / inconvieience of using a proxy server like a NAS or RPi?

Certainly Qobuz works wonderfully well using BubbleUPnP Server on the original Naim streaming platforms... and it transcodes to PCM for that extra UPnP SQ boost.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Guys, am I right to assume you are not using the various proxy server solutions for Qobuz with Naim streamers etc because of the outstanding issues of pushed UPnP gapless on the new Naim streaming architectures.. or is it you don’t really want the added hassle / inconvieience of using a proxy server like a NAS or RPi?

Certainly Qobuz works wonderfully well using BubbleUPnP Server on the original Naim streaming platforms... and it transcodes to PCM for that extra UPnP SQ boost.

Although I have some RaspberryPis and have had a dabble it's not been 100% successful - especially with respect to gapless on the newer streamers.  I do intend to revisit as I may well use Asset on the RPi which worked well a few weeks ago.

I think this post is largely due to the fact that Qobuz say they've fixed Chromecast bugs in the release info for iOS, so I was hopeful that updating the app on my iPhone X might alleviate the issue with tracks restarting after playing for 2-3 secs which I never experienced with the Atom I had briefly or the Nova until a Qobuz update earlier this year (I have at least one separate thread on that).

The problem persists and is very odd as I do feel my network should be up to the job of streaming HD either from the phone over wifi to a wired streamer, or from the internet - naturally I cannot entirely discount network issues but I think my network is well above average for domestic installations though undeniably not 'cutting edge'.

Not only has the track repeating not been fixed (is it the Nova's software?), but this was stuttering so badly last night I was surprised - I could only do limited testing late without annoying the rest of the family who were tucked up in bed.

I have updated the Google Home app too in case there's a more stable Chromecast implementation for iOS.

So, while I'm more than happy to try the RPi again, it would be nice with a streamer costing £4,000-£20,000 in the examples above, if we could actually use Qobuz as intended by Naim, or I have to conclude that Chromecast is not just up to the job with Naim kit.

As I tend to use my iPhone X when in the car or at work with the Qobuz app, again it would be nice if this just worked seamlessly when I return home in the evening with the same device.

I have found  Chromecast with other services is fine. Qobuz just sucks balls all round. I have nothing but authentication issues using Bubble but at least it plays albeit not gapless. Will Naim ever fix this, probably not.

Thanks for the replies... I understand Naim are aware of the issues with the new streamers with some implementations of pushed gapless UPnP media and are working on a resolution.

Alley Cat posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Do all of these issues effect offline playback only? Are these CD quality, HiRes, or both?

No, it seems to happen with offline purchases and streamed selections found using searches/discover etc.

I have had some problems with streaming HD in the past which I've put down to Qobuz servers as they play fine on the LAN from a NAS when downloaded (plus I've noticed downloading purchases could often be quite slow compared to connectivity speeds shown using Speedtest). I'm getting over 50 Mbps down/20 Mbps upload on the iPhone measured via Speedtest.  Elsewhere I have gigabit ethernet connecting devices via a Ubiquiti Router and a few switches, and my FTTC connection is syncing at around 80/20 which equates to around 74/20 measured by Speedtest on wired devices.   Uniti Nova is wired to a Time capsule which hooks to a wall ethernet socket, the Time Capsule providing local wifi in the room I'm using the iPhone to control the Nova.

This all raises the question of how Qobuz implements Chromecast, and I'm probably wrong in my assumptions - I've assumed that for non offline tracks the Uniti just gets the URLs of tracks from servers and hands them to the Uniti to access and play.  For offline tracks I assumed it send the audio file from the local cache to the Nova to play which would potentially be more resilient than playing internet streams provided internal LAN connectivity was good.

Ultimately unless casting works well it renders devices like the Uniti series pretty useless for streaming services which are not directly supported by the Nova/Unitis themselves (specifically Qobuz).

If you are streaming content that you have either bought as a download, or stored for offline listening via a streaming subscription, you will be streaming the content from the iPhone. Have you checked that the iPhone has not defaulted to Apple's Airplay instead of Chromecast? iOS might also be transcoding to 16/44 ALAC, possibly with implications for compatibility and sound quality - especially given Qobuz flaky reputation for implementing their app.

If you stream from the web, Chromecast does not send the signal via your phone, but directly over your network to the streamer, with the app just acting as a controller. This reduces the chance that iOS is messing things up, and as a test, you can quit the app, or even turn off the phone, and the stream will continue.

Your download speeds are more than enough for streaming music - my crappy rural 4Mb connection is quite capable of streaming 16/44. If anything, latency might be more of a problem.

Can you try connecting your streamer directly to your network and removing the Time Capsule? This suggestion is a bit of a long shot, but a number of people have reported problems caused by Time Capsules in the past, so it might be worth a try.

Regarding Simon's suggestion of using BubbleUPnP server, I've been using this for a while now, running on a Synology NAS, and it seems to work very well for both web and local streaming. 

Good luck!!

Thanks all.

SIMON-IN-SUFFOLK

It's good to hear Naim are working on the gapless issue - it affects so many albums.

CHRISSU - thanks for confirming how I thought the app would work with offline vs other content.  Definitely not an Airplay problem, in fact Airplay sounds pretty good though limited as you note to CD quality which is a shame as they could have added hi-res with Airplay 2.  Airplay from the Qobuz app happily plays gapless audio to the Nova.  Internet latency is around 12-15 ms.

Now oddly tonight apart from gapless which has never worked from the app and the occasional audio glitch, it's been pretty solid playing offline content including Hi-Res though mostly 24/44.1.

The way I have the Time Capsule connected it largely acts a a wireless access point and a switch with  3 devices connected to the other ethernet ports, but yes it may be worth sticking it and other devices on a(nother) proper switch.

I do wonder if some of tonight's improvements could be due to updating Google Home app which I believe supplies the Chromecast code for iOS.

Alley,

I have the same issue with a track restarting after 2 secs with a Chromecast audio which is connected to my nDAC. On the whole I use the Bubble UPnP server for Qobuz which works without fault on the whole. But tried the Chromecast audio in view of adding others around house for a budget multi room system. So waiting on a fix.

As I have said before, and it might be me, Chromecast with Qobuz is, in my experience, very poor. As Simon says the BubbleUPNP solution is much, much better if you can live with the current gapless issue. Indeed the only minor thing that needs fixing is the album display if you are really picky about that but otherwise it’s as good as Naim app integration in my experience.

Camlan, interesting, what is the issue with the album display? I find with the legacy streamers, the Naim app displays the correct Qobuz album art...

Hi Simon

Yes, the Naim app displays the full album art and other information just as if it was running from my Unitiserve. What I am talking about is the art display on the screen of my ND555, it will display the initial track listing as normal but not default to the full album art as if it were playing a rip or Tidal. Naim are aware and I think it is part of their work to resolve issues.

Sorry for the confusion.

Robd67 posted:

Alley,

I have the same issue with a track restarting after 2 secs with a Chromecast audio which is connected to my nDAC. On the whole I use the Bubble UPnP server for Qobuz which works without fault on the whole. But tried the Chromecast audio in view of adding others around house for a budget multi room system. So waiting on a fix.

Robd67 - that's a great help as it implies this is a Qobuz app issue, and also makes sense as I once had 2 app versions one which worked fine, the other which has had the issue ever since.

I have Qobuz via BubbkeUPnP as Simon mentioned, it is a good uplift in SQ, BUT for me it just repeats the same damn track, repeat is not on, I can advance tracks via my phone quickly from the lockscreen, but still a pain.

Is this all due to no gapless support, I read up on the bubble site, it described the cause as lazy development.

Anyway I've not used the Naim app since, everything works perfect via Bubble app, just shame the aforementioned issue

Alley Cat posted:

Robd67 posted:

Alley,

I have the same issue with a track restarting after 2 secs with a Chromecast audio which is connected to my nDAC. On the whole I use the Bubble UPnP server for Qobuz which works without fault on the whole. But tried the Chromecast audio in view of adding others around house for a budget multi room system. So waiting on a fix.

Robd67 - that's a great help as it implies this is a Qobuz app issue, and also makes sense as I once had 2 app versions one which worked fine, the other which has had the issue ever since.

That’s my conclusion, even though occasionally it plays the next track without issue then back to restarting on the next. Frustrating, tried reducing the sample size to 96khz or less but don’t think that made too much difference. 192 kHz was an issue at first as I think the Chromecast only works up to 96khz.

Alley Cat - We have exchanged posts on the track restart problem with CCA/Qobuz before, and yes, I'm still having the problem. I've resolved it by using a USB lead from IPad into nDac. No track restart issues. I know this is not perfect but it is a workaround.

Another problem which surfaced a number of weeks ago is that I found on streaming locally from my PC with CCA (using Plex media server) is that downloaded hi-res files 24/96 and above stuttered every so often (typically 1-2 minutes).  Never previously happened. This I have resolved by down-sampling them using DbPoweramp to 24/48. They now play fine.

The ongoing vagaries of streaming...No wonder I continue to use and enjoy my CDX2!