playing Qobuz through network

[urbanhandy]

The streaming music industry is a hot mess. Each commercial service seems bent on creating a private garden with proprietary streaming protocols.

However, one can play Qobuz streams on a music app on another device and direct the output to moOde via Bluetooth, or Airplay, or even UPnP if the app in question supports it.

Your selection of app will depend on the device(s) you want to use. Not every app is available on every OS (e.g., Android, iOS, macOS, Linux, Windows).

Example: I'm using the mConnectLite app on my Apple iPad. I can log into my Qobuz account, explore the Qobuz catalog, and stream my choice to my moOde player via either AirPlay or UPnP, assuming I've enabled the appropriate renderers on my moOde player.

Right now I'm listening to Steve Reich's string quartets. mConnect tells me they are FLAC | 24 bit | 48.0kHz. I've connected ("Play to")  my moOde player. Examining the ALSA params on moOde for the open connection to my DAC I see

Code:

i@m825p4b:/proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0 $ more hw_params
access: MMAP_INTERLEAVED
format: S24_LE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 48000 (48000/1)
period_size: 6000
buffer_size: 24000

so 24 bit | 408kHz out, same as the Qobuz source.

In general, the question of streaming quality depends on the Qobuz source material. On the Qobuz.com site somewhere there's a Qobuz&You tutorial (#25?) which addresses Qobuz with M-connect player and UPnP/AirPlay network player.

(ETA)

The Qobuz tutorial contains a table showing the availability of various levels of streaming quality vs player.

As an aside, I get similar results using the BubbleUPnP app on my Android phone.


It would be nice if Qobuz supported FOSS implementations of the Qobuz Connect protocol so Qobuz apps could connect directly to moOde, but no. Same for Tidal. (Spotify doesn't either but they haven't moved to shutdown the reverse-engineering effort which makes librespot possible...yet).

Regards,
Kent

thanks Kent, Chris