iPad Pro or Mac Airbook for server?

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, One and a half said:

Just compared the iPad into a Grace Design m920 via the CCK direct to pre-amp and the regular chain. Uisng Jremote to the "this Device' zone, the Media Server is on another, more powerful PC.

What's missing is 'air' around the instruments, and a loss of directional detail and a squashed depth of the sound stage. However, the tone and quality of reproduction is there, with the right weight of bass, so it's looking quite promising.

 

Now these 'defects' can be cured with USB fixer (have a Wyred4sound RUR spare), some decent cabling and remove the iPad SMPS, which is most likely responsible for a majority of the defects causing imaging problems. An old Kingrex linear supply I have is only 1.5A @ 5V, not enough, to supply the iPad and the DAC needs 2.5A+, so sourcing a 25W linear supply is on the horizon.

 

Note, the maximum fs is redbook, that's all the CCK seems to be capable of. There maybe 3rd party devices that exist that could go higher fs.

 

 

I think there is more at play there. If I recall correctly JRiver had been cryptic about JRemote when using "This Device" as a playback zone, when pressed they admitted thats just a convenience feature and not actually bit perfect.

 

JRemote is intended to be a remote control and not an actual endpoint player, even though it will function as one in the way you describe.

 

So likely what you have going on there isn't actually a CCK limitation to Redbook resolution, the culprit there is actually JRemote itself.

 

If you use a different player app such as Onkyo HF Player, that limitation will go away, I can output 24/192 or even DSD64 using an iPad 2, CCK, and compatible DAC when using HF Player.

 

There are probably other iOS apps that can do the same.

 

 

[MikeyFresh]

6 hours ago, davide256 said:

iPad Pro with 512gb ram

 

Thats storage capacity, not RAM.

 

6 hours ago, davide256 said:

Cons

     no way to attach external storage while playing music via thunderbolt port

 

 The iPad Pro has a Lightning port, not Thunderbolt.

 

6 hours ago, davide256 said:

Mac Airbook with 128gb SSD

    

     Cons

     more like a PC for SQ issues, MOBO noise and SATA  overhead

 

 

Bingo, the Macbook Air sounds significantly worse than an iPad, for the very reasons you describe as Cons.

[MikeyFresh]

5 hours ago, One and a half said:

Agreed the ipad across usb is very good, but storage is the problem.

 

I like and use Mac computers, and I also have an iPad. However the solution to the problem you describe above is an Android device running the USB Audio Player Pro app.

 

The storage is kept off the device, files reside on a separate UPnP server, and can be accessed by the UAPP app over WiFi, and output bit perfect via an OTG compatible USB cable to the DAC.

 

As an added bonus, the above is also a mobile solution with local playback from either the resident storage capacity on the Android device, or as much as 400GB more from a microSDXC card.

 

In another 6 months or so, Samsung or SanDisk will likely up that to 512GB via microSDXC, but that card doesn't yet exist right now.

[MikeyFresh]

5 minutes ago, One and a half said:

The thought of an in house lossless streaming service, like a uPNP server capable of PCM and DSD that has music files off the iPad was on my mind, then I read your post on Android. I thought the file service on iOS 11 was like Finder, but all I get is the iCloud nonsense.

 

I have the Onkyo HF player on the iphone, and it works quite well, plays DSD everything, great in the car, just studyong if it accepts a network stream, but not looking like it does.

 

It doesn't on the version I have, which admittedly is old being it runs on an iPad 2 with iOS9, but I don't recall Onkyo ever having hinted they would add a network streaming feature either.

 

If you can work up the UPnP server, there are other iOS apps that can serve the purpose on iPad, definitely 8Player for one, and probably also mConnect too.

 

Do you already run JRiver on the Mac? If so just use it's DLNA server as the source for the streaming.

[MikeyFresh]

11 minutes ago, One and a half said:

OK, there's Neutron Music player, which can obtain files from SMB, uPnP, FTP network shares. Can accept DSD64 native or DoP or output directly from the iDevice to 768kHz...and gapless. Wow. And on iOS. AUD9.99.

 

I check out mConnect and 8Player.

 

I have Neutron on the iPad 2 as well, never liked it much compared to 8Player and mConnect but your mileage may vary depending on the exact version of iOS and iPad you have, as well as personal preference.

 

Specifically I found the UPnP implementation on Neutron to be lacking, though they might have patched that by now.

[MikeyFresh]

That was one of the problems I had with Neutron, took forever to scan the library and ended up in some sort of endless loop, never actually completing.

 

I am not a Roon user, but a friend in San Diego is and he just recently mentioned how the most current Roon update makes any iOS device a Roon endpoint.

[MikeyFresh]

8 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

I used all these apps before (Neutron, 8Player, mConnect, BubbleUPnP, JRiver).

 

There was no looking in the rear view mirror after playing with a free 2 week Roon trial.... And now both iOS and Android devices are Roon endpoints which opens up heaps of possibilities.

 

The price is high but you really do get what you pay for, especially if you have more than one "endpoint" around the house.

 

 

That's interesting, a different friend seemed convinced his Android device was not capable of being a Roon endpoint after the recent update, unlike iOS.

 

I have no doubt Roon is superior to DLNA/UPnP, however the price is just too steep for me at this time, and unlike some others, I don't have any ongoing troubles with UPnP using JRiver as the server and a Sonore microRendu as the endpoint. It's been pretty rock solid for me with JRemote as the Control Point.

 

I have one other "zone" or endpoint, an RPi3 running the superb Moode distro. JRemote has no trouble with this, but I will likely bite the bullet at some point and move to Roon, especially if they ever lower the price.

[MikeyFresh]

I'm curious now why my other friend, in Canada, said he couldn't seem to make an Android device a Roon endpoint after the 1.4 update.

 

Any successful testing there, or just iOS at this point?