I’m confused. Will AirLens have Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect in addition to Roon or will Qobus and Tidal require Roon?
Hoping Qobuz eventually releases a true embedded connect feature vs the current Chromecast capability.
How many times a week will these same alarmed questions appear. Doesn’t anybody actually read this thread? My goodness. So many of these questions have been answered so many times.
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When I played with the Mconnect apps, I found that Mcontrol (the “bigger” of the two apps, but still not the one you have to pay for) could not find the JRiver on either my PC or my Pi (but could see the Bridge), but Mconnect LITE had no problem seeing JRiver on both on the network.
Be aware, though that you have to “activate” Media Network in the options settings>network.
Mconnect does suck though as far as user interface. Bubble is better - at least to me.
My guess is 3. 
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Not sure if this comment was aimed at me, but I went back and read all the posts by Paul and James and here is what I found:
Posts from Paul:
Definitely will support AirPlay but not Dirac
The AirLens certainly supports UPnP/DLNA. No worries about that. It’s also a Roon End Point and it unfold MQA.
So, now add them up. Incoming data is fully buffered and output separately via our own low jitter fixed clock Digital Lens. That data is sent over “the air” (hence the name Air Lens) to the DAC. [I included this one since it infers wi-fi connection only, didn’t realize that]
There is no app at all. You can feed it with Roon, using it as an end point. You can feed it anything using UPnP/DLNA. You can feed it with AirPlay.
JRiver is UPnP/DLNA compatible so it should play very nicely with the AirLens.
Posts from James:
I just got word today that we are not expecting for it to be controlled by a remote. Seems like it’s strictly going to be phone/tablet/computer control. [But controlled by what? Yes they have said Roon and UPnP/DLNA, but this is still pretty open to interpretation]
My summary: I don’t see anything from Paul or James that directly addresses my question on Qobuz. Yes there are some hints, but it would be nice if there was a direct response.
As the Air Lens will have no “native app” to me it indicates that the streaming services supported will be determined by the software the end user chooses to use. So what services you need will determine what software you choose.
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As long as AL is UPnP/DLNA compliant, you will be able to use control apps like Bubble to stream from Qobuz directly to the AL - JRiver as an intermediary will not be necessary.
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Ok, I get it now. Just seems that PS Audio would have something to suggest for customers who don’t know what to use, how to use it, or are totally clueless about third-party apps (I have a clue, but not much more). It’s common knowledge for a lot of you folks, but not for everyone.
Perhaps another thing to repeat here is that this is not yet a product.
Assuming PS Audio will or wont do something is just that: assuming.
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Threads over 100 posts continuously have this challenge. I do like when one of us digs through and we ask ELK to put a sticky post at the top of all known facts about a subject. Especially for new products.
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For the moment, I think the best way to think about the AirLens is to consider it function similarly to the xxRendu products. No app per se other then “recievers” that other apps on your phone, tablet, computer interface with:
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It was not.
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Nah, that bit about Wi-Fi connection only isn’t right. What “Air” means in “AirLens” is that the digital audio data that comes from the network, whichever kind of network source is used, is first decoded into a common/base format and then handed across to the device’s output circuits via a non-electrical connection. I think they’re using optocouplers. The output circuits have their own linear power supply independent of all the network/computer bits, and accepting the audio data via the “air” this way means the electrical noise of those computer components gets left behind. That kind of noise can be transferred all the way to the DAC’s analog output stage if you’re not using TOSLINK, and it can contribute to jitter in both the streamer’s output stage and in the DAC itself.
This noise isolation technique was apparently highly successful in a recent PS Audio spinning disc transport (I don’t follow those closely so can’t recall which product name applies). The AirLens sort of replaces the disc reading part with a networking part. It’s getting audio data from a different source but it’s outputting it to the DAC using a circuit based on the output stage of that disc spinner. The internal junction of those two halves is where the “air” is.
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That probably is the correct interpretation, but I read Paul’s words (I pasted them verbatim, the part in brackets is my comment) and thought “huh, did I miss something?” …
There is not doubt about this. The AirLens moniker is in reference (at least in part) to the “galvanic isolation” of the signal within the box that makes up the “streamer”. As @dvorak noted, it is my understanding the data will be converted in some manner and handed off to the output innards.
My suspicion is the concept is an extension of the approach used in the new PST disc spinner:
“Inside PST there are two completely separated power supplies: one for the noisy electronics, a second for the quiet output stage. Signals are transferred by a form of focused beam short-wavelength radio signals between the two boards.”
[Source :PerfectWave SACD Transport – PS Audio]
FYI/FWIW.
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I personally think that the AirLens is going to lean towards the functionality of the Signature Rendu.
Read Part 1 and 2 of this article and take into account what we know.
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Hi, I believe you’re right; I’m not aware of anything being said by PS Audio on whether the AirLens will be able to receive Qobuz direct from the Qobuz app (nor the same for Tidal from the Tidal app, Amazon through the Amazon app etc).
But having a look at Qobuz it looks like you can use Airplay to stream it - so that should connect you up to the AirLens. I can’t seem to find the same functionality for Tidal though.
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Thanks for those links. I know it is not optical, but you had me shopping for a runout microRendu v1.5 the other month. I use LMS and have used BubbleUPnP before. So figured that could do. Would be practice for if when I get an AirLens too.
I have to correct a post of mine from the other week. Paul did actually write in August 2021 about fixing classical music metadata with Octave. It probably was at that time that I started worrying about whether PS Audio would deliver an app with their eventual streamer product.
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All I’m hoping for is that the thing will sound better than a Denafrips Gaia, otherwise I will have spent a lot of time waiting for a solution I could have bought last year! 