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Is there any OS X upnp control-point software that doesn't suck?


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The only examples I have found that sort of work even slightly (with my Teac NT-503) are:

 

Kinsky (controls volume and other pre-amp type functions, plays mp3 only). Kazoo won't even find the thing on the network.

 

SongBook (works somewhat but crashes every time I start to play something).

 

Twonky (interface is wonky, barely works).

 

Kodi/Plex/Jriver (never figured out how to get it to see the network player).

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Not sure if it's uPnP, but I'm curious if the high-priced spread (Roon and HQP) is worth the cost in terms of Just Working & ease of setup.

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. - Einstein

Computer, Audirvana -> optical Ethernet to Fitlet3 -> Fibbr Alpha Optical USB -> iFi NEO iDSD DAC -> Apollon Audio 1ET400A Mini (Purifi based) -> Vandersteen 3A Signature.

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BubbleUPnP (almost) solved my gapless playback problem and enables Kazoo to identify the Teac, but it is still essentially useless.

 

The iPad software that Teac distributes works very well, but I would like to control the thing from my desktop.

 

I've wasted a (rainy) day on this now...

 

Stuff I will keep:

 

minimserver and bubbleUPnP

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Not sure if it's uPnP, but I'm curious if the high-priced spread (Roon and HQP) is worth the cost in terms of Just Working & ease of setup.

 

I think I'm gonna give the vote to the Roon Tidal combo. uPnP/DLNA using JRiver plus jremote works pretty good, but light years behind Roon (with Tidal) for convenience and organization.

 

You can also try mconnect (free) or mconnect HD. Both are available at the APP store.

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Have you tried Lumin ? I am using JRiver as a server, BubbleUPnP server to promote my Trinnov Amethyst to the function of OpenHome renderer, and Lumin to access my music, which is seen on a proxy media server on the LAN as well as Qobuz (could be Tidal as well).

Functionality and stability of Lumin are much better than other ones IMHO.

 

EDIT : my answer probably is not the right one as you are looking for an OS X app. The solution I am using is running on OS X (JRiver and BubbleUPnP server) but the control (Lumin) is on iOS.

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Not sure if it's uPnP, but I'm curious if the high-priced spread (Roon and HQP) is worth the cost in terms of Just Working & ease of setup.
In the Roon and HQPlayer combo, the HQP is being used as an endpoint, ie, much like the Teac being used as a UPnP streamer is. So I don't think it makes sense to add a UPnP streamer to that system, though you would think that Roon and the Teac streamer (ie without HQP) should be valid.

 

In any case Roon Labs have made it quite clear that they have not intention of providing support for UPnP/DLNA renderers, due to 'technical issues'. They have provided support for HQP, AirPlay and oddly the older (& now defunct) Squeezebox devices, but no other streaming technology. Even more curiously, others have certainly managed to bridge the Squeezebox & UPnP streaming technologies, so I'm not sure why Roon can't be made to support UPnP directly.

 

The only other way to use a streamer with Roon is to use a device that supports the proprietary Roon Advanced Audio Transport (RAAT).

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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BubbleUPnP (almost) solved my gapless playback problem and enables Kazoo to identify the Teac, but it is still essentially useless.
What do you mean by the BubbleUPnP Server (almost) solving the gapless problem? Surely a device plays gaplessly, or it doesn't - no in betweens.

 

The Teac needs itself to properly support gapless playback under standard UPnP/DLNA, otherwise gapless won't be propagated to its OpenHome emulator (created by the BubbleUPnP Server), allowing you to use the Linn Kazoo OpenHome controller app with the Teac for gapless playback.

 

Incidentally, have you tried JRiver on the Mac with the Teac? Its built-in gapless supporting standard UPnP/DLNA control point should be able to access the Teac.

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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Bill, why do you find Kazoo useless? And I assume by BubbleUPnP you mean the server app that virtualizes OpenHome capability (so OH CPs like Kazoo can see your server). I love using Kazoo when I'm in renderer mode (Rendu, Playpoint, etc).

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What do you mean by the BubbleUPnP Server (almost) solving the gapless problem? Surely a device plays gaplessly, or it doesn't - no in betweens.

 

There are no longer big spaces in time between tracks, but it makes a popping sound at the transition.

 

The Teac needs itself to properly support gapless playback under standard UPnP/DLNA, otherwise gapless won't be propagated to its OpenHome emulator (created by the BubbleUPnP Server), allowing you to use the Linn Kazoo OpenHome controller app with the Teac for gapless playback.

 

Even with the open-home emulation in BubbleUPnP, Kazoo can't play to or control the Teac, so I gave up on it.

 

Incidentally, have you tried JRiver on the Mac with the Teac? Its built-in gapless supporting standard UPnP/DLNA control point should be able to access the Teac.

 

I downloaded trials of it and HQ player. Might be user error, but I couldn't get either of them to identify the Teac. Since I only want a simple controller, it was more out of curiosity.

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Bill, why do you find Kazoo useless? And I assume by BubbleUPnP you mean the server app that virtualizes OpenHome capability (so OH CPs like Kazoo can see your server). I love using Kazoo when I'm in renderer mode (Rendu, Playpoint, etc).

 

It was "useless" in terms of controlling the Teac. Nothing personal. I think it is Teac's fault. The functionality would be ideal. Kinsky almost works.

 

I have found a number of these interfaces, like Kinsky and some iOS options like Lumin, do almost everything right, but won't actually play selected track on the Teac. It just sits there. Lumin claims that the file is not found (but it loads the album art). (The Lumin interface is beautiful. I wish it worked.)

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I suspect you could be right in that there could be a problem with the Teac itself. It wouldn't be the first UPnP streamer to not work properly out of the box. Have you installed its latest firmware (if any)?

 

If you have an Android device, it would be worth trying the de facto third party UPnP controller, the BubbleUPnP app (no surprise it & BubbleUPnP Server helper software share the same developer). Might be best to intially use the BubbleUPnP Android controller app to control the Teac natively, ie, as a standard UPnP/DLNA device rather than its emulated OpenHome renderer (created by the BubbleUPnP Server).

 

The BubbleUPnP controller app supports both standard UPnP and OpenHome renderers. However. you should be able to tell the difference between the two because the BubbleUPnP Server adds an '(OpenHome)' suffix to the names of its OpenHome renderer creations. Or, you could just switch off its OpenHome renderer created by the BubbleUPnP Server.

 

Another thing to try with the BubbleUPnP controller is to switch off its gapless support in the settings. Gapless will no longer work of course, but if the Teac otherwise behaves itself you have at least isolated the problem to that one thing.

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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I assume you are running BubbleServer cuz your un-named renderer is UPnP, not OH. Just running BubbleServer is not enough for these OpenHome clients. They need to see an OpenHome renderer, so you need to go to BubbleServer's renderer setup tab (you'll find the Bubble website setup in the URL link in Bubble's Package Center screen on Synology) and "create" an OpenHome renderer out of yours (it copies it and gives it an OH suffix in most cases). Create a unique name for the "room".

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]20490[/ATTACH]

 

I missed out the final step in this, so I never was actually playing to the OpenHome renderer.

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Just to confuse matters more, it was only when I turned off bubbleUPnP server etc and manually powered off and on the DAC again, that I got it to work without issue with Kinsky.

 

Screen Shot 2016-04-11 at 11.56.03 AM.png

 

However, it doesn't seem to cope with DSD (unlike Teac's iOS app).

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I missed out the final step in this, so I never was actually playing to the OpenHome renderer.
Yes, seems to a bit of an oversite for the Linn Kinsky app to use just the room (and not the combined name & room) to uniquely identify the renderer.

 

Ok, so presumably the Linn Kazoo app was prevented from identifying & therefore actually controlling the Teac, beacuse you'd set the BubbleUPnP Server to create an OpenHome renderer for at least one another standard UPnP/DLNA streamer on the network, in addition to the Teac, plus you used the same Room name for them.

 

Did the Linn Kazoo app work properly with the Teac after you sorted this out?

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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I never got Kazoo to work. I have noticed the DAC gets confused if I am playing with too many control applications, and I have to clear everything with a full power-off. (This is my convoluted way of saying I haven't given Kazoo a fair chance to work yet, but my sense is there is some standards-noncompliant thing in the Teac that will make this difficult.)

 

This isn't crucial, by the way. I'm just fooling around with it since this DAC has a network interface.

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Fair enough. Ironically, one of the advantages of using OpenHome over standard UPnP/DLNA is to allow multiple control points with multiple renderers. Standard UPnP/DLNA is strictly one to one.

We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.

-- Jo Cox

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Fair enough. Ironically, one of the advantages of using OpenHome over standard UPnP/DLNA is to allow multiple control points with multiple renderers. Standard UPnP/DLNA is strictly one to one.

 

Teac's own control-point iOS app loses the ability to identify its own DAC if I "spoof" it with the OpenHome wrapper in BubbleUPnP. The Teac remote has some functionality that I think is by definition incompatible with OH (like the ability to select non-network inputs like USB, coax, optical). I have to stop the BubbleUPnP server, and then do a hard power-reset of the DAC to recover control.

 

Also, I haven't found any third-party control-point software that allows me to turn the power on or off on the DAC, so I assume that is non-standard too.

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The only examples I have found that sort of work even slightly (with my Teac NT-503) are:

 

Kinsky (controls volume and other pre-amp type functions, plays mp3 only). Kazoo won't even find the thing on the network.

 

SongBook (works somewhat but crashes every time I start to play something).

 

Twonky (interface is wonky, barely works).

 

Kodi/Plex/Jriver (never figured out how to get it to see the network player).

 

 

Heavens - have you tried driving it with JRMC?

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat DAC.

Robert A. Heinlein

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