Roon really is the best, and it’s the best by leaps and bounds. I’m a LUMIN owner and my opinion is that it’s awful. It doesn’t offer the functionality native to Qobuz or Tidal. Bluos is waaaay better than LUMIN. But in the end, Roon truly is vastly superior, especially if you want any info on what you are playing and/or want to discover new music. The downside to roon is that it requires a server/core. The app debate comes down to: you get what you pay for and the free options are simply bad. Using Tidal and Qobuz are decent experiences for their own content... but if you want access and metadata to your own media Roon is the way to go.
Streamers with best apps?
I tried this question on an Australian forum with no luck, so I'm hoping a more audio savvy community might do better. I currently have a Cambridge Audio CXN which as I discovered has 2 hopeless apps when you want to find classical albums saved on Tidal My Collection. So thinking of ditching the CXN and getting another streamer/server , preferably without a DAC as I will be running it through a Pure Audio Lotus DAC 5. Most reviews of streamers seem to focus entirely on sound quality but as I have discovered the apps used are of almost equal importance. I have considered an Elac Discovery DS-S101-G which is controlled by a Roon Essentials app. So first question. Does anyone know how the Essentials app lists classical albums in Tidal My Collection and does it have a search function for the albums saved? Second question what streamers can you recommend that at least are equal and preferably better than the Tidal app which does have a search function but very little logic as to how it lists classical albums. I have thought about the Bryston BDP Pi, Innous Zen mini or an Auralic streamer but know nothing about the usability of their respective apps. So anyone out there who can help.
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Most streamers will work well with generic UPnP/DLNA apps or apps that support OpenHome. The Cambridge is an unfortunate exception -- it seems to work only with its own app. Two of the better control point apps I’ve found on Android (in 9 years of streaming) are BubbleUPnP and HiFiCast. I have licenses for both. B. is more flexible and supports OpenHome and Tidal, Qobuz. H. is more streamlined but does not support those things. I would recommend either, depending on what you and your device need. For example, Lumin and Auralic use OpenHome, so BubbleUPnP would be the recommendation. @mazian -- BubbleUPnP when used with MinimServer does a great job of serving and controlling classical music (assuming you have got the tags right) and is far less costly than Roon. But if you are using Tidal (and to a lesser degree, Qobuz), the tags often will NOT be right. P.S. Does ANYONE understand how to get paragraph spacing working right on Audiogon? |
I can't believe this thread is over a year old. I feel a lot has changed since then. In the spirit of OP's desire to balance sound quality with software convenience, I'll post about my new streaming plans. The change on the horizon I am most excited for is Spotify's upcoming CD tier.
I am hoping that the CD tier from Spotify is on par with the sound quality from Qobuz and Tidal because I plan to build my streaming system around Spotify. I used Spotify for 5 years before trialing the high res tiers of Qobuz, Amazon HD, and Tidal. I ended up going with Qobuz, but not having the software superiority of Spotify has been a constant pain point. I believe Spotify has superior marks in the following areas: curated and rotating playlists, music indexing, music discovery, content layout, user interface, various AI implementations, and the ability to share music. The only thing Spotify has been lacking was sound quality. In my mind, streamer manufacturer apps are unlikely to ever rival the streaming services' apps. And Spotify provides the best app from all of the streaming services. (In my mind, Roon is neither a streamer manufacturer nor a streaming service. Rather, Roon is just a software company that tries to help the boutique HiFi manufacturers level up their software experience to match Spotify.) So, to build my rig around Spotify, I plan to use a Raspberry Pi 4 as my reference streamer. The aftermarket support of Pi HATs allow for many configurations to find the best digital output to match up with most DACs. Darko released a super relevant video on using a Pi as a Spotify endpoint. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CfnXOlYiz8 See also his blog post for more info: https://darko.audio/2021/03/12-more-thoughts-on-the-raspberry-pi-as-spotify-connect-endpoint/ Lastly, I also want to give Roon a fair shake before leaving the world of boutique HiFi services for Spotify: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/what-features-of-roon-are-worth-the-price-compensate-for-roon... |
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