Spotify by Airplay vs. built-in Moode Spotify

[Civilian]

Thank you, I understand now.    As long as one avoids BT,  is it the case that technically speaking  there should be  no difference in sound quality between Airplay and Spotify Connect , and that any perceived difference is subjective?

Sorry, I said something misleading a bit ago.

There is a technical difference between the two protocols which comes into play here. The audio signal paths are quite different. 

When using Airplay or Bluetooth, the audio stream for the track being played is fetched by the app on your iPhone or whatever, then forwarded from that device via the appropriate protocol to the Airplay or Bluetooth renderer in your moOde player. 

When using Spotify Connect, the URI for the track being played is received by the Spotify app on whatever computer and forwarded to the Spotify renderer in your moOde player. The audio stream itself is fetched directly to the renderer from the remote Spotify server.

You can demonstrate this difference by shutting down the Spotify app after you've started a track playing in moOde. In Spotify Connect mode, the track will keep playing in moOde.

Technical people will argue the audio quality will be better with Spotify Connect.

Whether you can perceive a difference in audio quality between the two modes is a function of the material being played, of your ears, and of your audio system. Try it both ways and see.

Regards,
Kent

Thank you. The fog is clearing.  As you say, the final test here will be one's ears.  Why doesn't the Moode Spotify renderer work for Free Spotify?   Is it legal or technical issues, or maybe both?

[Tim Curtis]

A decision by the maintainers of librespot, prolly to keep Spotify happy since they already forced their project to close once before.

[Civilian]

A decision by the maintainers of librespot, prolly to keep Spotify happy since they already forced their project to close once before.

Thanks to Kent and yourself for your patience with me .  I did try to find some "easy guide"  in the forum which would have told me all this.    The problem is, I realise now that I don't really think I should have bought the DigiOne , but I thought it was more of a  "consumer" item than it is.    I will make a separate post explaining how I came to be here☺️

[the_bertrum]

prolly to keep Spotify happy

Defo, since it is part of the terms of Spotify that the free version cannot be used with Spotify Connect.

[Facel]

By the way ... does anybody knows what are the differences between spotifyd and librespot ?

[ksone]

By the way ... does anybody knows what are the differences between spotifyd and librespot ?

Spotifyd is another fork... And afaik not working on rpi. It’s currently looking for maintainers.

https://github.com/librespot-org/libresp...d-projects

[Mark Dirac]

Thank you, I understand now.    As long as one avoids BT,  is it the case that technically speaking  there should be  no difference in sound quality between Airplay and Spotify Connect , and that any perceived difference is subjective?

Sorry, I said something misleading a bit ago.

There is a technical difference between the two protocols which comes into play here. The audio signal paths are quite different. 

When using Airplay or Bluetooth, the audio stream for the track being played is fetched by the app on your iPhone or whatever, then forwarded from that device via the appropriate protocol to the Airplay or Bluetooth renderer in your moOde player. 

When using Spotify Connect, the URI for the track being played is received by the Spotify app on whatever computer and forwarded to the Spotify renderer in your moOde player. The audio stream itself is fetched directly to the renderer from the remote Spotify server.

You can demonstrate this difference by shutting down the Spotify app after you've started a track playing in moOde. In Spotify Connect mode, the track will keep playing in moOde.

Technical people will argue the audio quality will be better with Spotify Connect.

Whether you can perceive a difference in audio quality between the two modes is a function of the material being played, of your ears, and of your audio system. Try it both ways and see.

Regards,
Kent

I note, Civilian, that you were asking Kent about the difference in sound quality between the two audio signal paths which Kent describes. However, there is another difference which may influence your choice:

• When using Airplay or Bluetooth, your iPhone or whatever will have to do a non-trivial amount of work in the background, constantly. This may well be of no consequence, unless you are wanting to use your iPhone or whatever for something else at the same time. And it will consume battery somewhat. Whereas:
  
• When using the Spotify Connect audio signal path which Kent describes, your iPhone or whatever has to do negligible work - its resources are 99.9% available for whatever you want to use it for, and its battery capacity will not be consumed at all.