I was thinking about installing a secondary program on my Dell XPS 15 laptop to use as an alternative to Roon. This would be something I could fall back on if there is a problem with Roon or perhaps, when away from home at relatives, etc.
I have no music files of my own, so I would need a program that works with Tidal and/or Qobuz. It would need to allow me to stream Tidal and/or Qobuz from my WIFI connected laptop to my ethernet connected Oppo 203 and ethernet connected RPi4 through my network.
Currently, I can do this to some extent using my Apple TV 4K or stream from my iPhone using AirPlay. I’m interested in a way to do this while maintaining 24/96, 24/192, and MQA. So, is there an app that would work in this situation and not require me to be a computer programming expert to make it work?
And for this application, I’m not really interested in metadata. Just interested in sending Tidal and/or Qubuz music from my laptop to Oppo and Meridian Prime (via RPi4).
I found Audivarnas UPnP a bit flakey, it would only find my endpoints every now and again. You could run LMS it’s free and will allow Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify. With Ropieee XL you have Squeezelite as well as Roon and its more robust than UPnP and it’s multiroom works.
You need iPeng to control it on iOS which is a few quid or you can use it’s web interface which is supposed to be much better than it used to be with Material Design skin and that’s free.
Maybe it’s worth considering, whether the fundamental difference between Roon and for example Audirvana, is’nt that Roon focuses on sophisticated packaging (graphical interface, metadata) and technology “music in all rooms” (the networked audio home) - this stuff easely makes money… while Damien Plisson (Audirvana) concentrates on audio signal transmission and processing - and by the way makes money.
Every app and products implementation is different that’s why it’s so fractured. It didn’t work well across my systems. My experience my voice. Op asked for advice I gave mine.
I use three distinct music programs. MPD playback from my Bryston players, Roon Labs, and Audirvana. I think they all are pretty good. Audirvana is a backup system. It’s operated out of an iMac, and outputs USB to a DAC. Roon is what I use mostly on network, but the Audirvana and A+ work pretty well on my Sonore microRendus both at the computer desk and in the media room. I have a six pod Eero mesh wifi system, and most audio components are hard wired via ethernet. A poor network will give poor performance across the board. This is a hobby for me, so I try different programs too tinker more than anything else. JRiver is great too if you have the time to tweak things and tune your files. I stopped using it at Master Version 25, although I still bought 26 on the early bird just in case…
It’s great there are so many options, since as @CrystalGipsy stated, some programs work better than others in people’s systems.
I’m pretty sure I am going to buy a lifetime subscription to Audirvana for use when away from home streaming Tidal and Qobuz to my laptop, Dragonfly Cobalt, and Sony WH-1000Xm3 headphones. I’ll make my final decision after a couple weeks at the mother-in-law’s for Christmas.
Does anyone know of a legitimate deal for Audirvana for less than $96? If not, I’ll just pony up $96 and not worry about it. Thanks.
While Audirvana is not as slick as Roon, it does sound very good. It works well with my Tidal albums, but for Qobuz, I had to like all the artist in Qobuz and use favorite artist to search for albums using Audirvana. I’m not sure how Audirvana sorts Qobuz albums otherwise.
I guess I’m really on the fence with Audirvana now. I’m at the mother-in-law’s house for two weeks and enjoying using Audirvana while away from my Roon system. However, I’m thinking I might be burning through a lot more Verizon cellular data than by simply using the Tidal and/or Qobuz laptop applications.
I thought having both Tidal and Qobuz available in one application might be a huge benefit, but I don’t know that it really is. Since I have all my 1000+ albums linked in both Tidal and Qobuz, I can simply use one or the other and don’t really need both at the same time.
As far as SQ, while Audirvana does sound good with my Dragonfly Cobalt and Sony WH-1000 XM3 headphones, I’m not sure it sounds any better than the Tidal and Qobuz applications.
I was originally considering Audirvana as a “fall-back” for Roon just in case there was a problem with Roon. However, after more than a year with Roon and Roon Nucleus, I’ve had zero issues.
I’m thinking I may take a pass on Audirvana, at least for now. Any opinions??
EDIT: Maybe my concern about the amount of data usage is bogas. Does Audirvana use more data downloading metadata if I don’t click on any?
I see the problem in using a DLNA-Server with the Oppo (which hasn’t openhome integrated), that you can’t play gapless.
I’ll preferr a LMS system and using your Pi as LMS client.
There are a lot of plugins for getting more metadata in the LMS (also for Tidal and Qobuz), so it’s looking nearly like Roon.
And the best: You don’t have to pay (only perhaps for the remote control app).
I’m using Roon and LMS together on my NAS, because I’ll not lose some things from my Squeezeboxes…
So, if Roon 1.8 does not include a mobile version, don’t fret. Just purchase Audirvana for your laptop and use a portable DAC of your choice. I have to say, Audirvana on my Dell XPS with Dragonfly Cobalt and Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones sounds marvelous. I’m streaming Tidal MQA and Qobuz, but keep getting drawn into Tidal MQA (no flames needed). I highly recommend Audirvana for your away-from-home needs if you have $96 to spare.
I have burned through a bunch of Verizon data. I’ve probably used about 60gb of hotspot data in less than 2 weeks.
