Setup my Rock Core Nuc and only logged on to allow music to be streamed from my NAS and that has been seemless. Very good experience.
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It gets better when you tie either Tidal or Qobuz (my choice) to Roon. Suddenly you feel like you have endless music available.
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I have both subscription services at the moment…more music than one could explore in two lifetimes…
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Scott - Have you tried turning Tidal off from Roon for a month or so to see if you can live without it? I was surprised how quickly I realized that Qobuz had just about everything I wanted to hear.
Yes, I have Qobuz. I can also remotely stream music to my phone from my Flac files located on my Synology NAS This is a Synology app…but uses the same local files that Roon streams.
Gary
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No, but I think it is a matter of time before I drop one or the other.
Every once in a while an MQA file really strikes my fancy via Tidal (not to say MQA is a necessary and sufficient reason to choose Tidal over Roon) and, likewise, a particular recording at a particular resolution jumps out at me via either of the services from time to time.
The question is: Does the occasional MQA gem justify keeping both services or dropping Qobuz in favor of Tidal?
Given my penchant to play my discs or music files much more often than I listen to either Qobuz or Tidal, I really don’t NEED either service. But, I want to have at least one for music exploration purposes.
So…I think I’ll procrastinate a bit longer before canceling one of the services.
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@vkennedy61 do you have both Qobuz and TIDAL enabled in Roon?
I’ve not tried the two at a given time but wondered if that was the top of the mountain.
I had both for a while and then turned off Tidal in Roon for about two months. I realized I didn’t miss it during this test and ended my Tidal subscription.
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My DACs don’t unfold MQA, so that made my choice of provider easy…Qobuz. Also, I maxed out a Synology ds1522+ NAS, including fast SSD cache and placed it on a remote electrical circuit…So far it and Roon are playing nice, plus it backs up all family phones, allows us to delete all video and images from our phones…and app displays images on NAS in real time. Also, we can stream NAS stored music and video to phones and computers.
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Qobuz Sublime has a discount on buying content, which can pay for the price uplift from Qobuz Studio pretty easily if you are a file buyer. I do most of my buying on Bandcamp though.
For friends who are only into streaming, I usually recommend Tidal on account of Tidal Connect connectivity. BTW is there a conclusion yet on AirLens Tidal connectivity???
For a while there Tidal was more useful at recommending music to try. As someone who only buys, I get a weekly mail from Qobuz at least. Have they gotten better at recommending music when you are a streaming subscriber???
I know Paul thinks USB is not useable, many other manufacturers disagree. My opinion is it can be used with any drawbacks handled so the end result is clean. Our Ted is saying any input on the MKII is fine, he handled the USB issues the MKI seemed to have. Hence all this Matrix foolishness. So it seems to me the need for the AirLens has evaporated prior to launch. I can see the possibility it may not launch. Hmmmm.
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Still viable as an Ethernet bridge, IMO.
Lots of competition now, though.
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AirLens makes sense if you’re in the PSA I2S ecosystem, but for others, I reckon the biggest competition is gonna come from Lumin U2 Mini. ($2400)
- Transport-only for combination with an external DAC
- Upsampling to DSD256/PCM384, supports DSD512
- Future updates possible
- Ethernet in
- Digital outputs: AES/EBU, BNC Coax, RCA Coax, Optical, USB. (No I2S tho.)
- MQA Decoding
- Roon Ready
- native support for TIDAL, Qobuz, Spotify
- AirPlay-compatible
- LUMIN App
- Internet radio natively supported through app (finite number of stations)
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And a long track record of being a streaming leader
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tru dat
My desire for AirLens has cooled off a bit ever since I acquired the Euphony Summus 2. Its Stylus OS has great SQ, so I do not need Roon, and It has I2S output directly connected to DS. The most important function of AirLens in my case will be further reducing noise. But with a SOtM Cat. 7 Isolator and good Wi-Fi connectivity the SQ is already far exceeding Bridge2.
I found power cord to the PS, and good I2S (AQ Firdbird48) and Ethernet cables (Inakustik Ref. Cat. 7 just arrived) also contributed to better SQ.
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There is an additional reason… Roon uses SMB for mounting remote drives. There isn’t a clean way to detect on-disk changes using SMB. This forces Roon to endlessly scan the mount to detect changes. This has been discussed many times and the answer from Roon is always: if you don’t want your network / NAS hammered all the time don’t use a NAS. Of course, a large library exacerbates the “issue”.
If you have plenty of network, and don’t care that Roon is scanning your NAS all the time, then a NAS works perfectly fine. A “cheap” workaround is just use a USB connected drive and back it up to the NAS. The local USB drive is plenty fast enough to serve the music and Roon no longer needs to endlessly scan the NAS.
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Hi Donald, I’m curious to know your thoughts (as usual) about the Inakustik cable. I found it pretty pleasant even if it didn’t bring a nigh and day difference compared to my previous SR Foundation.
So, you know my passion for AQ cables, I ordered 2 Diamonds RJ. 20 days for shipment, sobh! To be used from wall to PhoenixNET switch and a second from PhoenixNET to the streamer.
Within the end of this week I also want to swap the PC Dragon HC to Source feeding the Innuos ZENith to hear what happens.
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It took 22 days to receive my Inakustik Ref. Cat. 7, and it was in the system for only two days. I have no idea if the ethernet needs to break in and how long it will take if there is a break-in time.
My previous link was a Supra Cat. 8 which was not exactly a high-end one. But I felt the Inak. is better in warmness and in soundstage, and it is quite easy to listen to (musical) in long session. However, it does not provide as clean a background as I like, but like I said, it was only put in two days and my brain is still adjusting to it because they sound different.
It is connecting to the SOtM Isolator, and there is a short SOtM Cat 7 cable connecting into the streamer. This one is a great cable and an expensive one. I believe you should put the best link right before the streamer to achieve the best SQ.
AQ Diamond should provide a much quieter background. If it sounds like other top AQ cables, then it should be a great match for your system. I am interested to know your thoughts between the two also.
The AQ Dragon HC is more expensive than the Source, but it is interesting to know if it works better on sources (AQ makes it for sources, so I wonder why they bother if HC turns out to be better).
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Are you running two ethernet cables? I found the Inakustik Referenz 7 is completely transparent. If i ran it with other cables it takes on the whatever warmth being added by the other cables
I get no noise or warmth running two of the Referenz. If I use Their Excellenz the Cat 6 then I get warmth from it, the 6. Thus zi feel it is letting you hear the other cable and not acting as s filter.