I use RME ADI-2 Pro, it adds one more digital input (AES/EBU) and analog inputs compared to DAC. It works on Linux because I implemented special Linux driver support for it.
Another alternative is RME HDSPe AIO which partially works on Linux (I haven’t got time to do difficult driver fixing work for it). And it also works on Windows with the latest RME’s ASIO driver.
Issue with USB input devices is that USB Audio Class standard doesn’t support rate slaving. On the standard, USB host always sets the input rate, instead of the source. So it needs a special workaround to work (HQPlayer supports couple of workaround approaches).
I have two RME ADI-2 Pro’s and two RME HDSPe AIO cards, so I’m well covered for digital and analog inputs.
When I want to play Apple Music, I mostly use HQPlayer Desktop running on Windows 11. That PC has the HDSPe AIO card. Then for connecting iPad to it, I have Apple’s Lightning-to-USB3 adapter (which allows simultaneous charging) connected to my old Musical Fidelity V-Link192 that is connected through AES cable to the HDSPe AIO. This has been working perfectly for me.
I’ve also tested with bunch of other DDCs, such as Singxer F-1 and Matrix X-S/PDIF3.
There are likely some other interfaces that would work, but yet to be found. It is expensive search, because nobody documents this in the specs!
If you use macOS, you need to have a suitable NAA running either Linux or Windows.
Something like Spotify is much easier because it is always fixed 44.1k rate.
You can thank Apple for implementing Apple Music on macOS such way that it plays through regular CoreAudio, meaning that sample rate conversion to fixed output rate happens inside CoreAudio. This is typical audio stacks on operating systems (Windows, macOS and Linux) work.
On iOS/iPadOS they optimize things by changing the output rate to avoid burning battery power on rate conversion, and because there you cannot normally have two applications doing audio output simultaneously, like you can on macOS.
I tried this one and it is not reliable. For some reason it would switch to 48khz on a 44.1 and then 44.1 on a subsequent 48khz song. It is a bit annoying as Apple Music bitrate changes quite a bit. The newer ones tend to be 48khz while the legacy ones are predominantly 44.1.
The funny thing is when the rate mismatch (e.g. 48khz after playing 96khz tracks) it would go extremely fast.
Maybe because of the messing around of the OS mixer, the result of Apple Music app → blackhole → HQplayer → USB wasn’t really much better than iPhone Airplay → Node 2i → Coaxial. Roon → HQPlayer → USB remained the better quality output.
Adding an RME seems requiring to bring a whole lot more connections and items into play. I will have to wait and see if this is a path I want to jump into. The equipment count seems high (1 Linux PC, 1 RME ADC/DAC 1 Camera Kit, 1 iPad) and seems there will not be remote control functionality (still need to use the iPad). This is a lot of equipment and clutter to handle. Hopefully there will be better solution coming out later… Meanwhile I am still considering the pros and cons.
Thanks once again for your kind help! I am experimenting with different filter combination and see if blackhole solution can be improved at the moment.
I only use Apple Music hires into HQPlayer, at my desk because there’s already so many cables, what’s an extra 3 or 4 cables . And at desk don’t need remote obviously.
For the living room, we wait for some kind of ‘Apple Music Connect’ style of streaming. That way my RME can be in a different room and I just have an iPad with no wires in living room, playback to NAA. Been waiting for years.
This is exactly what it is, a way to get Apple to play into HQplayer under the control of HQplayer. In contrast with Roon which wants to re-catalogue and replace the whole interface with its own database, the goal is just to look up and play items on Apple Music here.
I think a solution from working with Apple is not that remote. Tesla for example, has their own Apple Music integration done on their cars. As long as it helps retain subscribers and doesn’t require extensive rework of Apple database, it could be possible to get it to work I hope.
Linux or Windows, but Linux is usually more preferable and more tested.
On Windows though, you just need the RME card and HQPlayer Desktop to get covered for digital and analog inputs. So that is simplest and most straightforward to setup. Since I have all kinds of hardware combinations, for Apple Music, I just go the easiest route and use HQPlayer Desktop on Windows 11.
But if not needing to feed viynl playback into HQPlayer, this card is the same price as a used ADI-2 DAC which often comes up for sale - and you at least get a DAC and headamp to use (just not at the same time).
And you can use a simple RPi4 running NAA OS, avoiding the beast that is Windows (Sam is using Mac)
Or for example FM radio which is what I also use quite a bit. So the approach has been to just connect “tape out” from the amplifier to the analog input. Then it works for any device connected to the amplifier.
Same goes for the AIO too, it also has DAC and headphone amp. And can be extended with more analog input and/or output channels so it can do max 6 channel analog in and 6 channel analog out (5.1).
Only difference is that AIO is max 192k PCM only. While ADI-2 Pro can do analog inputs and outputs up to 768k PCM and DSD256. But ADI-2’s headphone amp isn’t available in DSD Direct mode, so I have never used it for anything personally.
I don’t think it has EQ. Never used any DSP features on my ADI-2 Pro’s either. And it would be too much trouble to reconfigure ADI-2 every time anyway. Nowadays, those serve primarily as input devices.
Since the ADI-2 headphone amp is useless in DSD Direct mode, I never used it and always used external headphone amplifier anyway.
For watching videos and routing browser/OS sounds I have for example the DAC card in my Jotunheim and I just switch inputs there for such cases. On my loudspeaker rigs I can still play Amazon Music audio through HQPlayer as well through the analog path (from Amazon Echo Dot connected through Aux).
I could not make that work using the Mini. Using the Amazon app on ios or Android, the Wiim Mini doesn’t show up. I think the amazon app uses chromecast, the mini doesn’t support that. How did you do it?
I have a WiiM Pro already. And I have set it up just enough to check that Spotify Connect works. I’ve been just way too busy to look more into it.
Echo Dot has been around for years, and it is useful so that guests can ask Alexa to play something from Amazon Music or Spotify. Not sure how to make Alexa work with WiiM Pro, I guess I should be able to ask Alexa to just play to WiiM based on how it’s named?
(AFAIK, Roon doesn’t have Siri/Alexa/Google Home integration? I wish Roon would make an Alexa skill.)
. And at desk don’t need remote obviously.