Flac is a wonderful thing 
ā¦but wasnāt even thought of when I was slinging huge audio files around in the 1990s, AIFF was.
Then came Zap (lossless compression) in '97 for archival purposes, followed by Flac in the early 2000s.
Edit - amazingly, Zap lossless compression does not seem to be mentioned anywhere in Wiki, or almost anywhere on the internet.
Did find this though, so I didnāt imagine it
Another very favorable G2.2 review (by one of my favorite hobbyists/reviewers):
Looks like this belongs on my aspirational short listā¦ I have grown weary of having my files split between an aging NAS device and my iMac hard drive (both of which are at or near capacity) and would like to eventually move toward a high quality streamer optimized for attaching files via USB storage device and/or built in SSD drives.
There is a lot to be said for having an 8TB SSD onboard a machine and not needing to bring files in over a network to play them back. Only load them once via the network. Donāt know what retail streamers handle 8TB SSDs. But it cannot be long before they do.
I still have my music on the NAS too. But that is for streaming to my car. Looks like I did 12GB that way last month!
I prefer NAS myself.
I understand that AirLens works well with MinimServer on Synology?
I am currently using JPLAY iOS as a control point and wonder if that will work together with
AirLens and MinimServer. Do you have experience with that setup?
Thanks!
I cannot comment specifically on JPLAY and MinimServer. But a buddy uses BubbleUPnP with the AirLens as a renderer no problem. Does your JPLAY app play well with other UPnP renderers? Heck, just try sending to a smart-TV to test. If so, then bodes well.
Ok thanks for the tip I"ll give it a try!
A few weeks ago I experimented with JPLAY as a control point for my Synology/MinimServer set up. When I first installed JPLAY, it didnāt recognize MinimServer; but after two or three hours I checked back and it was there. It worked fine after that. I found JPLAY so different from what I was used to that I didnāt keep it, but not because of any functional issues.
Thanks itās working fine!
Ok thanks. So what is your favourite control point and what was it that you didnāt like about JPLAY?
My favorite control point is Linn Kazoo, although Iāve been recently using mConnect HD (long story). Itās been a few weeks, but the following is what I remember.
With other control points, I can navigate very efficiently to the music I want on my NAS. (I have done a lot of custom tagging for classical music, which is what I mainly listen to.) JPLAY presented things very differently and I didnāt feel I could get around easily. It also took up a lot of screen real estate with rectangles where pictures of the artist (I guess) were supposed to appear, but they were mostly blank; very inefficient use of space. I did eventually figure out how to get a presentation more like what I prefer, but it wasnāt intuitive and I couldnāt figure out how to save this to start the same way next time.
JPLAY seems to collect everything I listened to into a database, which I didnāt care for at all. Apparently you canāt disable this feature.
There was something about the player controls at the bottom of the screen that I didnāt like ā maybe something about accessing the playback queue, or items not being put into the queue; sorry I canāt remember at this point. I think there were a couple other lesser issues also.
Ok I see, so more usability than sound quality. Iāve been using mConnect and a couple of other apps but prefer JPLAY sound-wise. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I just ordered the AirLens so looking forward to hear its alleged qualities.
Control points (mConnect, Linn Kazoo, JPLAY, BubbleUpnp and so on) have absolutely no impact on the final sound quality. Just look at them like command centers to select the music files to play. The actual signal does not run through control points, it is sent ādirectlyā from the source (regardless local or from Qobuz, Tidal etc.) to the streamer in use. Therefore, it is impossible to hear differences between the various control points, just choose based on functionality and useability.
Although I agree with you, I wouldnātāve put it so bluntly. 
What I was thinking of writing was that if you hear a difference then thereās most likely something else going on in the signal path between āserverā and ārendererā to account for the perceived difference. These days, Iām very reluctant to use the word āimpossibleā when it comes to what people may or not hear. 
Itās really not my intention to insult anyone. If thatās how it is understood, Iām very sorry 
I like to communicate honestly and clearly and donāt want to ignore the facts. Arguing that the use of various possible control points could cause differences in the signal path between server and renderer is not correct and leaves too much room for misinterpretation.
However, the use of a stable clear and intuitive control point versus an unstable cluttered and messy one could affect the sound quality we subjectively perceiveā¦
