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Solved: Best way to listen to Tidal/Qobuz?
#1
I’ve read through a few related threads already, but am seeking advice on my situation. I have the following:

Music player: pi 4B running moOde - latest version as of today (I’m not sure how to check the version number right now) connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro HAT 
S/PDIF output to amp

Available remote Tidal/Qobuz streaming sources:

1. Mac running Audirvana / Tidal desktop / Qobuz desktop

2. iPhone / iPad with iOS Tidal and Qobuz apps

3. LG V30 Android phone running Tidal and Qobuz apps, and also running UAPP

What I’m after is to be able to play lossless and Hi-Res music from Tidal and Qobuz at the highest possible quality through moOde using one of the sources mentioned above. I have read a little about UPnP already. The LG V30 phone is MQA capable and UAPP running on it is able to bypass Android’s resampling. On the other hand, Audirvana on my Mac also produces very high quality audio.
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#2
@Taz777

I'm curious. Are you in some way unhappy with the sound you get from any of the sources you name?

You haven't said how the audio stream gets from each of these sources to your moOde player. I'm assuming you are using Airplay in the case of your Mac and your iPhone/iPad. What is being used with the LG phone?

Whatever you are using in the case of each source, it imposes its own limitations in bitrate and resolution. So does that final S/PDIF connection.

You should know that if you are running Tidal and Qobuz apps on the upstream devices, then you are not using the Mac/iPhone/iPad/LGphone as a UPnP Control Point and so UPnP doesn't really enter the equation for those providers.

As an aside, MQA is a nonstarter in moOde. The upstream device has to deal with it.

Candidly, I'd lean toward using the Mac for two non-technical reasons: 1) I'm old and I like the visual real estate on a Mac/PC desktop vs a handheld device, and 2) from what I've read, Audirvana is a great audio app.

Regards,
Kent
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#3
@TheOldPresbyope Currently my moOde device is only playing local music files from a USB device attached to my Pi.

In essence, I’m looking for the best way to add Tidal/Qobuz streaming to it, but I don’t really know how to do that. I have the three sources that can stream Tidal/Qobuz available to me. I don’t know how to to redirect the music from Tidal/Qobuz from any of those devices into moOde wirelessly. I appreciate that moOde does not integrate with Tidal/Qobuz itself.

I hope that makes sense!
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#4
I can report back to say that I'm delighted to have got my desktop Audirvana app on my Mac playing through moOde, and it was far easier than I thought it would be! For anyone else who's new to moOde and wants to do this, here are the steps:

1. On the moOde UI, go into Menu --> Configure --> Audio

2. Scroll down to the end of the page and look for the UPnP/DLNA section

3. Set the slider for UPnPClient for MPD to On and click the SET button

[Image: MOuwls5.png]

Note that a reboot is not required for this

4. Next, launch Audirvana on your desktop and locate the speaker icon at the bottom right of the screen. Click on it and you should see moOde UPnP and select it:

[Image: KJctu1x.png]

Here is how Audirvana sees moOde as a UPnP renderer:

[Image: M8gRabV.png]

5. Finally, play your music (local songs, TIDAL or Qobuz) from your Audirvana app. Once a song is playing you can control the previous and next tracks either from Audirvana or from the moOde UI:

[Image: 2cYesnj.png]

[Image: yuB10gY.png]

Note that there is a slight bug in Audirvana: you cannot change output device once moOde is selected. You have to close Audirvana, then reopen the app. Not a real issue for me at all.

I'm absolutely blown away by moOde!!! Next stop is to get my LG V30+ Android phone streaming to moOde.
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#5
@Taz777

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear it went smoothly for you. I learned something from you too. I didn't know that Audirvana has build-in Tidal and Qobuz support so I was assuming that you were running the native Tidal and/or Qobuz apps on your Mac. You know what they say about "assume"!

Regards,
Kent
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#6
(10-30-2020, 12:07 PM)TheOldPresbyope Wrote: @Taz777

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear it went smoothly for you. I learned something from you too. I didn't know that Audirvana has build-in Tidal and Qobuz support so I was assuming that you were running the native Tidal and/or Qobuz apps on your Mac. You know what they say about "assume"!

Regards,
Kent

Audirvana is a very good audiophile music player. I also have Amarra Luxe which has comparable sound quality, but the UI is terrible and it's quite buggy. Audirvana has a reasonable UI. It also has a feature called SysOpt (System Optimiser) that optimises macOS for high-quality audio playback whilst Audirvana is running. 

Here's a picture of part of the UI and you can see on the left hand side the integrations that I've configured - TIDAL and Qobuz. The Library link at the top left provides access to my local music files.

[Image: CP5tRpC.jpg]

In terms of integrations out of the box, Audirvana supports:

- Qobuz
- HRA-Streaming (Hi-Res Audio Streaming - I have not heard of this streaming service!)
- TIDAL

All at the maximum sample rate and bit-depth that the services provide. The real icing on the cake is how Audirvana can stream directly to moOde Audio with almost no effort!
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#7
Also, if you only have the Android device handy, use a UPnP app such as Bubble UPnP to stream Qubuz or Tidal to MoOde
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#8
(10-31-2020, 10:47 AM)grasshopper Wrote: Also, if you only have the Android device handy, use a UPnP app such as Bubble UPnP to stream Qubuz or Tidal to MoOde

Thanks @grasshopper, this is my next step, as Audirvana requires me to have my Mac switched on and Audirvana running to be able to stream to moOde. My LG V30 Android phone is usually sitting around doing nothing as it's a spare phone, so if I can make use of it to send music from TIDAL and Qobuz to moOde then that would be an excellent result.

I shall look into Bubble UPnP.
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#9
An update to this thread: I got my LG V30 Android phone streaming to moOde using the BubbleUPnP app. It's a low-cost app and can send all of the music on my V30 to moOde including:

- Local music on the CD-Card in my V30 (including M3U playlists in the same folder as my music with relative paths for each song)
- TIDAL (including all TIDAL playlists)
- Qobuz (including all Qobuz playlists)

Setup for all of the above to play through moOde took around 15 minutes.
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