SQ difference between Air Play Lossless and Local FLAC playback?

[Blue566]

Thanks mate,
I do have a UPNP server (Jriver running on a computer in another room) and taht does sound great streaming to Moode. However the convenience of streaming services and music discovery is too big...

For now I switched to using Tidal which sounds better (to my ears) than Apple Music on Airplay to the Moode. Frankly I'd be happy with proper lossless 44.1/16 and I really feel like it's just Apple music that downgrades the sound, I also tried Amazon Music and that too sounds better on Air play.

[TheOldPresbyope]

For what it's worth, there are Tidal and Qobuz streaming services plugins available* for the LogitechMediaServer. The server itself can be installed on Window or linux hosts or on least some NAS appliances. Full disclosure: Some time ago I experimented with the Tidal plugin but have since cancelled my Tidal subscription so I have no idea how well it's working these days.


Some like the LMS user interface, some don't, but that's true too for accessing the same services via a BubbleUPnP client, say.

Regards,
Kent

*ETA - and Deezer

[stefil]

Thanks mate,
I do have a UPNP server (Jriver running on a computer in another room) and taht does sound great streaming to Moode. However the convenience of streaming services and music discovery is too big...

For now I switched to using Tidal which sounds better (to my ears) than Apple Music on Airplay to the Moode. Frankly I'd be happy with proper lossless 44.1/16 and I really feel like it's just Apple music that downgrades the sound, I also tried Amazon Music and that too sounds better on Air play.

The Oldpresbyope is right, you can use streaming services like tidal qobuz or others with uPnp (LMS handle this).

Discovery is not mandatory in that context, upnp renderer can receive the stream.
Works also with web radio streams.
upnp has 5 main layouts, not all are necessary at a time

With LMS you can integrate Tidal but also your itunes library
Moode can also be set as squeezelite renderer for a full integration with LMS if you are not satisfied with upnp

My LMS is hosted on a docker container on a Synology NAS

[Blue566]

Hello,
I'm still stuck with this, anyway to force Moode to use AP1? I understand that does stream Lossless from AM. That option (to chose which version of AP) was removed in the recent updates. Anyway for me to downgrade or install the last version which supported it? (Which Moode version would that be, BTW?).

Lastly, is there any way to see the actual stream format/bitrate in Moode when using Airplay?

Thank you for all the great work!

[Tim Curtis]

An Audio info button was added to the renderer overlay in release 8.3.7 but the there is no way that I know of to get the actual stream format (lossy vs lossless) being sent by the client to shairport-sync and so Audio info just reports 'PCM' as the source  format.

   

You could try a brute force downgrade to AirPlay 1 using the old build of shairport-sync that is still in our repo but I have no idea whether it will work or whether it causes other breakage in moOde. Definitely only try this on a test system!

Code:

sudo apt -y -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confdef" -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confold" --allow-downgrades install shairport-sync=3.3.8-1moode1

You will prolly also want to remove the AirPlay 2 timing module because it won't be used by AirPlay 1.

Code:

sudo apt purge nqptp

[Blue566]

An Audio info button was added to the renderer overlay in release 8.3.7 but the there is no way that I know of to get the actual stream format (lossy vs lossless) being sent by the client to shairport-sync and so Audio info just reports 'PCM' as the source  format.



You could try a brute force downgrade to AirPlay 1 using the old build of shairport-sync that is still in our repo but I have no idea whether it will work or whether it causes other breakage in moOde. Definitely only try this on a test system!

Code:

sudo apt -y -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confdef" -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confold" --allow-downgrades install shairport-sync=3.3.8-1moode1

You will prolly also want to remove the AirPlay 2 timing module because it won't be used by AirPlay 1.

Code:

sudo apt purge nqptp

Thanks Tim, I'm happy to try this, stupid question, how do I get to command prompt on Moode? SSH to it?

[Tim Curtis]

Menu, Configure, System
Scroll down and turn on Web SSH, then OPEN
Enter your userid and password and you will get a command prompt

[Blue566]

An Audio info button was added to the renderer overlay in release 8.3.7 but the there is no way that I know of to get the actual stream format (lossy vs lossless) being sent by the client to shairport-sync and so Audio info just reports 'PCM' as the source  format.



You could try a brute force downgrade to AirPlay 1 using the old build of shairport-sync that is still in our repo but I have no idea whether it will work or whether it causes other breakage in moOde. Definitely only try this on a test system!

Code:

sudo apt -y -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confdef" -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confold" --allow-downgrades install shairport-sync=3.3.8-1moode1

You will prolly also want to remove the AirPlay 2 timing module because it won't be used by AirPlay 1.

Code:

sudo apt purge nqptp

Thank you this seemed to work. 

I think it sounds better, not sure. Ideally it would be good to see the bitstream info when playing AirPlay music. \

Thanks for all the wonderful work on Moode! 

[swizzle]

(...)
what lossless streaming services I can use on my iPhone to stream proper lossless music to my Moode audio RPI?
(...)

I asked myself this question since a decade

Unfortunatly iPhone and Lossless are not "reconcialiable"

A time, best hope was bluetooth Apt-X but Apple won't implement it.
Apple wants you to buy captive products (airpods, apple tv etc.) on none of them handle real lossless (alac on airplay is downscale to CD quality as far as i know)

Bluetooth doesn’t really have the bandwidth for streaming lossless audio, the newer Sony codec is the best approximation but afaik it’s still not true lossless. 

The best solution is to have the Pi stream from the source like with Spotify connect. Unfortunately Spotify doesn’t have lossless still. Tidal connect would work but isn’t relevant for various reasons out of Tim’s control. There used to be a sorta dodgy way to get it working but afaik that doesn’t work anymore.

Upnp iirc requires a constant connection from device to pi so isn’t quite as useful and you can’t use the native interface like with Spotify/Tidal connect but at least it works.

AirPlay as it currently works is converted to aac before streaming to moode from an iOS device so definitely isn’t lossless but will now stream from Apple Music and let you play back at least some sources on your device without interrupting the music stream on moode sort of like the connect type situation. That seems more useful from a music discovery standpoint to me but ymmv.

[Tim Curtis]

For lossless end-to-end AFAIK

Roon server + Roon IOS app + RoonBridge renderer on moOde
LMS server + Some LMS app on IOS + Squeezelite renderer on moOde
DLNA server + UPnP control point app on IOS + UPnP renderer on moOde

For ease of listening

From various player apps on IOS
- Bluetooth + Bluetooth renderer on noOde
- Airplay + Airplay renderer on moOde
From Spotify IOS app
- Spotify Connect renderer on moOde
From moOde WebUI
- Local files including lossless and DSD
- Radio stations including lossless FLAC
- Multiroom at 16/48K Opus format

I'm not that familiar with Roon, LMS or UPnP and so can't comment on ease of use, setup or cost.