Music Streaming Services

Discussion in 'Computer Audiophile: Software, Configs, Tools' started by rott, Feb 22, 2017.

  1. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    You can pay less for the 16/44 lossless membership on Qobuz, right?
     
  2. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Correct. The only time you pay less with Qobuz than Tidal with regards to 16/44 is by paying an one-time annual subscription of $199.99 (not by paying $19.99/month). This method would save you $39.98 since you don't have to pay two extra months of service.

    Once Qobuz figures out how to fix their PC app and have a library that matches/surpass Tidal, I then might jump ship. Until that happens, Tidal is keeping me happy with a matured interface and easy access with my current apps. Also I can still use Tidal on the ZX2 when I get the itch for steaming.
     
  3. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    I just picked up an Nvidia Shield Pro to use as a Plex server, and will be trying their Tidal integration + my personal library of losless music to see if this is as good as I hope it can be. More to come.
     
  4. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    So is this more for a TV Media Setup than a standalone audio station, with the added benefit of video games?
     
  5. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    It's my understanding that once you have a Plex server running, you can stream video or music from anywhere. The Shield will connect to the Plex server and host the file, and Plex takes care of routing the data to clients. As it will do lossless audio as well as video, and integrates Tidal on top of it, I should have full access to both libraries from anywhere.

    Storage is the only concern, and I have a 6 terabyte external storage array The Shield will be using as the content location.

    I'll also be ripping my blu ray movies to it, to see how that works, but I have experience with that side of things already and it works extremely well.

    And of course you can use the shield for normal Android TV activities, like watching Netflix, playing games, etc.

    Edit: The goal is to get my entire media library + Tidal remotely from work, or on my phone from anywhere.
     
  6. psuKinger

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    I've got a fair amount of runtime with Networking/Home Theater as a hobby; considerably more than I do Headphones/personal audio. I've been doing "Home Theater PC" (both as front-end-client and as server side delivery) for about 7 years now. I started with Emby back when it was still called "MediaBrowser," and switched over to Plex Media Server for my lossless Blu Ray rips 4 or 5 years ago. I got my first NVidia Shield (pro) in late 2015, and it quickly became obvious to me that this was the swiss-army-knife all-in-one (video) box I'd been waiting for. It's the front-end access point for my Cablecard DIY DVR (HDHomeRun), my Plex Media Player, my Steam client, and handles all my streaming subscriptions too (Netflix/HBO Go/Youtube Red/etc)... I liked the first Shield I bought so much I started buying more of them. I've got 5 of them in the house now. I think they're *GREAT* devices.

    That said: unless you figure out something I haven't, general use-case often involves having them output at 48 kHz, which means my (extensive) collection of 16/44.1 FLAC rips and my (comparatively much smaller) collection of 24/44.1 Hi-Rez digital purchases all get upconverted from 44.1 to 48.... and for as much as I like these Shields (super-fan, as described above), I think they do a pretty poor job with that audio upconversion. So poor/noticable that even my wife (who thinks I'm a total spaz/loon with all my constant Sound Quality obsessing) can identify the difference in sound quality between it and either my Chromecast Audio or OPPO UDP-203.

    One interesting quirk (that I can't explain): Casting 24/96 files from the plex app on my phone to the nvidia shield results in my downstream devices reporting they have received a 24/96 input signal. If I use the TV remote and access the exact same 24/96 files directly by way of the plex app on the Shield, output gets reported as 24/48. Both options result in noticeably better sound quality (to my ears) than when the Shield is asked to upconvert a 44.1 file for 48 kHz output.


    Long story short: As a cable-box-replacement for my cable tv subscription, as a plex movie server client device (that supports lossless audio), as a gaming/steam client, and as a "streaming subscriptions player," I'm a really big fan.... for music, I'm not particularly fond of it.
     
  7. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    Most of my CD rips are in uncompressed WAV format, so it's going to be fun seeing how it streams. :)
     
  8. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Don't tell me you can hear a difference between WAV and FLAC?
     
  9. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    f**k no. Anybody who says they can are lying fucktards.

    It's an almost universal media type, and with as cheap as storage is, I DGAF how big the files are. Unlimited data on mobile means I no longer care there either, so I stream Tidal HiFi in those cases, because phone makers are still being dicks and are cashing in on tiered storage upgrades and cloud services on smartphones, when they could be putting 500GB / 1TB of space on our phones in the first place. (/Rant off)

    I've honestly just gotten to the point where I would rather have uncompressed, unmolested 'original' data because storage and data transfers are no longer real limitations.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2019
  10. Brad Tombaugh

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    Since I was thinking of switching from Tidal to Qobuz when it became available, I had already searched my Roon library for all Tidal tracks, and I added them to a playlist. When I got signed up for Qobuz last night, I just went through that playlist, clicked “Versions” and added the album from Qobuz. Out of nearly 5K tracks, there were only about a half dozen albums that weren’t in Qobuz, and they weren’t deal breakers (or I would have already bought them).

    In addition, many of the albums, especially the Jazz, were available in higher resolution on Qobuz than Tidal, without the MQA fuckery. I have a Gungnir Multibit, so no native MQA support, only the “first unfold” done in software by Roon or Tidal app. I’m happier to have actual high-res FLAC than MQA.

    Part of the reason to switch to Qobuz is that I don’t want to be passively supporting MQA by using Tidal, which might influence a greater shift to MQA...
     
  11. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    This so much. Still waiting on my qobuz beta invite. I'd hate to have to buy Roon just to transfer my playlists though.
     
  12. Brad Tombaugh

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    There are certainly other ways to migrate your playlists. Qobuz has an FAQ entry talking about “Soundiiz” to sync playlists. Turns out that it’s a subscription service, that allows you to move ONE playlist at a time for free. See http://blogsv2.qobuz.com/qobuz-blog-en/2017/09/05/import-your-playlists-into-qobuz-with-soundiiz/ for the details. It’s like $3.95/month or something, so not outrageous, but using Roon I was able to select all of the same albums through Qobuz that I had “favorited” in Tidal in about 90 minutes.
     
  13. dark_energy

    dark_energy Friend

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    There might be a differences between normal and high bitrate Flac.. I mean the ones with around 3000kbps 24 Bit
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2019
  14. winders

    winders boomer

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    FLAC offers two things that WAV does not. First is FLAC files have a checksum and can have their integrity checked with the appropriate tool. The only way to check the integrity of a WAV file is to compare it to known good WAV file. Second is WAV does not support attached metadata tagging.
     
  15. dark_energy

    dark_energy Friend

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    Trying to stream Tidal Bitperfect on Linux Mint, not that easy. Webinterface works perfectly, but i would need to make whole Linux run ALSA which is Bitperfect...


    Should work with Kodi, but Tidal plugin is out dated.

    Have to try Daphile with Tidal, would be nice combo.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2019
  16. supertransformingdhruv

    supertransformingdhruv Almost "Made"

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    Mopidy with the tidal plugin might be a good option. It might require some troubleshooting (and fetching the latest version of the python api for tidal off of github instead of pypi, since the maintainer merged my PR but still hasn't updated the package) but MPD is quite easy to set up with ALSA, and then you can simply leave the rest of your system audio through pulse.
     
  17. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    I love the Qobuz no MQA BS. But to me, what's the point if not everything I want to stream is available on the service. I'll wait for final judgment on Qobuz once it is out of Beta. In the meanwhile, I'm blowing tons of money on their online store.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2019
  18. allegro

    allegro Friend

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    I'm sure Qobuz will get the problems with the app sorted. Others have mentioned that Tidal had similar problems when they first launched, before Jay-Z bought Tidal back in 2015. I think me and Uri are in the minority, if everyone with Win 10 had problems streaming Qobuz it would be all over the forums. I checked my HP laptop out with LatencyMon and it failed the latency tests, despite all drivers up to date, also bios and all Windows updates. Yet Qobuz works fine with Audirvana+ go figure.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2019
  19. wormcycle

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    Qobuz has been in Beta since 2014. They are active in I think 11 countries, and they have been very successful pretending for five years that they are providing streaming services in the US, but they do not. I would love to be on Qobuz, but talking about Qobuz is not a good substitute for streaming music.
     
  20. psuKinger

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    A couple questions about Roon, if you don't mind:

    1. Does Roon+Qobuz integration allow you to mix-and-match sources (between Qobuz Streaming Library and your own files) while building playlists?

    2. Have you ever had to reinstall your Roon Core, and if so, how seamlessly/easy was it back up your playlists and "reinstall" them onto your rebuilt Roon Core? I'm currently relying on Plex Media Server for flac file streaming... and I've uninstalled a reinstalled PMS a couple of times at this point, and there are directions/how-to's for how to retain all Plex database information (including Music playlists), but the couple of times I've done it/tried it, it's never worked well/right for me.... it's a lot of work/effort recreating new playlists all over again after a crash.
     

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