I’m having a hard time understanding the difference between how Maestro and Qobuz connect processes the signal. Seems like both hand the signal directly to the streamer bypassing intermediary processing.
No need for Maestro over here: dCS Mosaic, Qobuz Connect & Tidal Connect offer direct, pure & bitperfect.
Worth a listen to Maestro. I have Qobuz connect to my Bluesound Node 2i and Maestro sounds better to me playing Qobuz through the Node 2i than using Qobuz Connect.
From a previous post ( Anyone using Paul's Maestro Music management system? - #1747 by flenser55 ):
“Maestro’s shtick is that doesn’t act as a man-in-the-middle, receiving and retransmitting digitized music to your renderer. In that sense, it’s no different from JPlay or mconnect on your smartphone pointing your DAC to music on your UPnP/DLNA server or having Qobuz tell your DAC where to directly retrieve music with Qobuz Connect. Maestro can’t sound any better than using either of those because it works the same way.”
If this is not correct then would you please comment on the generally perceived shortcomings in the operation of JPlay, QuoBuz Connect, MConnect/MControl in comparison to Maestro. (I assume you’ve studied their methodology in developing Maestro.)
I am not asking how Maestro works that makes it better. I understand the need to protect any “secret sauce” (as you put it in your recent YT video.)
TIA
Any timescale on the remote for iOS Paul, keep up the good work
but it does on resolving systems…by reducing/eliminating the ‘filters’/‘distortions’/‘processing’ of the others
otherwise, we would not stay through this ‘beta’ period
IMHO, a stereo system on the user’s end should receive the audio stream faithfully: bit-perfect, clean, and free of artefacts. Qobuz Connect, TIDAL Connect, and many control points are perfectly capable of delivering this. It is ultimately up to the end user’s system to convert that stream into the most realistic analogue reproduction possible.
The more a platform between the sender (e.g. Qobuz) and the receiver alters the original bitstream, the further it moves away from transparency. Although the sonic results may sound excellent on a particular system, there is no basis for claiming that they are objectively better or more transparent.
In terms of signal integrity, nothing can be more transparent or objectively accurate than a bit-perfect reproduction of the original source.
one ingredient may be what Paul called deep buffering
when I change tracks, several seconds of existing track must play before track is updated to new selection
Secret sauce? Every well-designed digital system buffers incoming data sufficiently to ensure it is fed to the DAC in exactly the right order for further processing…
Easy test is try the free trial. Decide for yourself if you hear an improvement in your streaming chain. Shouldn’t be contentious at all.
Don’t feel any need for that—my system already sounds fantastic. I have no confidence that so-called “secret sauces” can improve sound reproduction at all.
That said, I wish Paul the best of luck with his project. If people enjoy it or find it beneficial, that’s great. I’d simply like to see solid evidence rather than marketing claims.
For those who enjoy it, have fun!
Thanks and all valid questions. I am spending time with my family at a mountain lake and will jump back into the fray next week.
I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be a remote on IOS. It’s going to work on IOS and hopefully Android as well so you won’t have to install it on a Mac or Windows machine. BubbleUPnP and Foobar2000 for instance both work on Android - they are not remote controls.
I think we might see myriad apps released in the coming years now that the development paradigm is changing.
So many choices will make for interesting times as each app will make claims about its superiority.
I believe that Paul has quite firmly said that “bit perfect” is not the issue he’s addressing with Maestro…
Have been looking at Maestro and am eager to give it a try. Are there plans to support Tidal? The wife prefers it to Qobuz.
Hi Bob,
Sorry, but at the moment there are no plans for Tidal. I’d like to be able to include them but they are very hard to work with and uncooperative so far. What really interests me about them is they don’t sound quite as good out of the box as Qobuz and I think I know why and have a fix. Oh well. I think they may be struggling.
I hear you on everything. I may be able to convince my better 1/3rd to try Qobuz again… back in the beginning it was a little flaky and that turned her off 
Tidal has all sorts of Hip Hop that Qobuz doesn’t carry. Maybe more Country & Western too.
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Inquiring minds want to know, which has more Sun Ra?