JPLAY for iOS

[Marcin_gps]

23 hours ago, Easterman said:

Hi Marcin,

any albums you can recommend for trying out Max?, all I see is the M logo, and Masters which seem to be mqa 

All the best

They are all marked M - both MQA and Hi-Rez. I know this is confusing, but Tidal does not have a method of knowing before playback actually starts. 

 

Best regards,
Marcin
 

[Marcin_gps]

I'm super excited to share a fantastic review of the JPLAY iOS app by HiFi Statement!  This is a very comprehensive review.

 

STATEMENT

"JPLAY iOS is the best app I've used so far for audio solutions based on the UPnP standard. With the successful integration of Qobuz and TIDAL as well as local content under a uniform user interface, the app sets the standard in this environment against which other apps must be measured. A unique selling point is the possibility to limit the network traffic of the app to the inevitable minimum for the best possible sound."

 

Check out the full review (note: it's in German): https://www.hifistatement.net/tests/item/3764-jplay-ios-app

[J2ordan]

A great review indeed!

It also explained some settings and functionality details that are very helpful.

Thanks for posting Marcin.

 

BTW, each paragraph can be copied and pasted into a translator for folks like me who do not speak or read German.

 

John 

[Marcin_gps]

Another great review and an award from Hifi-Advice: https://www.hifi-advice.com/blog/review/digital-reviews/audio-software-reviews/jplay-for-ios/ 

 

:)

 

 

[111MilesToGo]

ASKING FOR HELP WITH CONCEPTUALIZING A POTENTIAL SOFTWARE SETUP WITH JPLAY ON IOS

+ (1) HARDWARE STREAMER + (2) LINUX PC WITH MPD AND SEVERAL USB-DACs

+ (3) AUDIO FILE SERVER

 

I got triggered by the recent very positive reviews of the JPlay for iOS app here on Audiophile Style, by Christiaan Punter on hifi-advice.com, and on HiFiStatement.net. Each review mentions bits and pieces on concepts and components, but I feel in need of some community help here.

 

I am considering whether and how to put a JPlay-centered software setup alongside my current Roon-centered software setup, same hardware for both. Who knows where that will end up ... sticking with Roon, having both interchangeably, or discarding the more expensive Roon one day? I consider the 14-day trial period of JPlay to be too short for my learning curve to develop the required setup. As a first step, I would try to set up things with some placeholder software, e.g. MConnect instead of JPlay on iOS.

 

Short description of my current Roon-centered setup:

• Roon Core on the home network:
  • Running on a Windows 10 laptop (sitting in one room), which also holds my local audio files (PCM as FLAC and DSD) on its SSD
• Currently two endpoint branches on the home network (both sitting in another room):
  1. A Wiim Pro Plus streamer/DAC (Roon Ready) which is used as a digital transport only, outputting S/PDIF via optical or coaxial to a choice of separate DACs
  2. A second laptop running Linux, running the official Roon Bridge and outputting
     • via its USB ports (directly thru alsa) to a choice of USB DACs and USB-to-optical converters

This Roon setup works nicely. I am on Qobuz and Tidal integrating into Roon, plus those local files. And I use Roon Remote as well as Roon Arc on my iPhone. PLEASE NOTE that some of the a.m. devices should be considered PLACEHOLDERS only before any upgrades, in particular the Wiim Pro Plus!

Additionally, I use the Linux laptop as a stand-alone music player without Roon, using mpd (Music Player Daemon with graphical front-end Cantata) for playing local files from its own SSD to the same USB devices with direct access thru alsa. (Note: The audio files collections on the Windows and Linux machines are straight copies of each other, providing a simple backup system.)

 

May I ask you please whether and which way to go for JPlay on iOS makes sense? Yes, using JPlay as a UPnP control point on my iPhone seems obvious, except for screen size as compared to an iPad.

 

But how to create a software setup that should do the same things my two-pronged Roon setup does? My initial conceptual considerations are:

• Regarding the a.m. Wiim Pro Plus branch 1: As a first step, I put Mconnect onto my iPhone, just as a placeholder for JPlay, so to speak. Mconnect finds the Wiim Pro Plus (which also talks UPnP/DLNA) right away and plays to it, including gapless. Up to now only from Qobuz and Tidal, not checked the local files yet.
• But how could I recreate the a.m. branch 2 - the Roon Bridge type of function of the second Linux laptop - in a UPnP/JPlay world, outputting to the various USB-DAC devices attached to it?
  • Would a correct setup involve running upmpdcli on the Linux machine, as a UPnP bridge between JPlay on the iPhone and mpd (Music Player Daemon) on this very same Linux machine, which in turn outputs to the USB devices via alsa?
  • Would upmdcli transparently expose each USB-DAC on the Linux machine to JPlay and let me select one for replay (as Roon with Roon Bridge does perfectly well), in this case with mpd? Or would it just expose the Linux machine as one blop (say an mpd blop), not really helpful for selecting an actual USB-DAC output?
  • Remark: I have always found that mpd on Linux is doing a very nice job regarding audio quality. And I did recently discover that my Linux kernel (distro openSUSE Tumbleweed) now does incorporate the required patches for playing native DSD to a whole bunch of DACs out of the box (thanks to Jussi Laako of Signalyst/hqplayer), which mpd makes good use of - marvelous.
• I understand that I could run e.g. MinimServer on either my Windows laptop or my Linux laptop in order to provide the local files / library to JPlay via UPnP. Correct? It would cost some money as well, or I could think of other file servers.

After the conceptual matters, configuring and running the various software components would be next.

 

I would be very grateful for help from the community with all my questions, for recommendations, improvements, constructive criticism, whatever. And thanks for bearing with me and my "still a novice in networked audio" learning curve. Again, please also keep my placeholder approach in mind (Wiim Pro Plus ...).

[stefano_mbp]

1 hour ago, 111MilesToGo said:

Would a correct setup involve running upmpdcli on the Linux machine, as a UPnP bridge between JPlay on the iPhone and mpd (Music Player Daemon) on this very same Linux machine, which in turn outputs to the USB devices via alsa?

I try to answer in few words:

• upmpdcli is the interface to MPD therefore it is necessary to control MPD using JPlay for iOS/MConnect
• the upnp control point (JPlay for iOS/MConnect) can discover only upnp renderers on the network and not, like Roon, the connected dac too, therefore it is necessary to select first the dac in the renderer to be able to use it, if there is more than one connected.

1 hour ago, 111MilesToGo said:

understand that I could run e.g. MinimServer on either my Windows laptop or my Linux laptop in order to provide the local files / library to JPlay via UPnP. Correct? It would cost some money as well, or I could think of other file servers

MinimServer is the best upnp mediaserver to be used with JPlay for iOS.

It can be installed on Windows, macOS, Linux and nas (Qnap and Synology are the best choices)

It is available in two “flavors”:

• Starter Edition, free of charge but limited in the configuration (you cannot use all the features)
• Full license, lifetime (40 GBP) within the major version, it enables all configuration features, you can add maintenance addon  (10 GBP/year) that enable any update for any major version

[111MilesToGo]

26 minutes ago, stefano_mbp said:

I try to answer in few words:

• upmpdcli is the interface to MPD therefore it is necessary to control MPD using JPlay for iOS/MConnect
• the upnp control point (JPlay for iOS/MConnect) can discover only upnp renderers on the network and not, like Roon, the connected dac too, therefore it is necessary to select first the dac in the renderer to be able to use it, if there is more than one connected.

MinimServer is the best upnp mediaserver to be used with JPlay for iOS.

It can be installed on Windows, macOS, Linux and nas (Qnap and Synology are the best choices)

It is available in two “flavors”:

• Starter Edition, free of charge but limited in the configuration (you cannot use all the features)
• Full license, lifetime (40 GBP) within the major version, it enables all configuration features, you can add maintenance addon  (10 GBP/year) that enable any update for any major version

Thank you for your speedy reply!

In short, I understand that

(1) my concept in general is a valid one,

but that

(2) there is a shortcoming as compared to Roon in that USB-DACs hooked up to the computer running the renderer (MPD) cannot be discovered by the control point. They would need to be selected manually e.g. via an MPD command line utility on that computer - maybe such a nuisance would be a road block for me, don‘t know yet.

 

One more remark / question, please: From reading on the web, I understand that UPnP can constitute a substantial security risk; that "feature“ never really changed. At least, one should have the router hardened. Correct?

[stefano_mbp]

4 minutes ago, 111MilesToGo said:

One more remark / question, please: From reading on the web, I understand that UPnP can constitute a substantial security risk; that "feature“ never really changed. At least, one should have the router hardened. Correct?

AFAIK the “issue” is a real one if you open your network to the web … maybe I was lucky but I’m using upnp since at least 10 years and nothing bad occurred and I use a quite old router like Apple AirPort Extreme.

[dericchan1]

@111MilesToGo Not sure if this addresses at least part of your concern, I use hqplayer and a NAA setup. So a streamline schematic would be jplay ios to Hqplayer pc then to a network end point - that can be a raspberry pi or any mini pc, (i use a fitlet3), USB out to a passive 4 port USB Hub, I then connect DAC A, B, C, D onto the hub. The DACs get connected to the preamp. But all I need to do is just switch preamp input AND goto Hqplayer app and select DAC A, B, C, D to switch to the dac I want.

[Markus8]

Got the Holo Red (connected via AES/EBU to a Devialet 440 Pro amp/dac) running HQPlayer Embedded which works nice via the HQPlayer iOS iPad app or also via Roon. 
 

Wanted to try using Jplay app but get everything the following error:

error sending action to renderer
How can this be fixed?

[111MilesToGo]

On 2/14/2024 at 10:17 AM, 111MilesToGo said:

ASKING FOR HELP WITH CONCEPTUALIZING A POTENTIAL SOFTWARE SETUP WITH JPLAY ON IOS

+ (1) HARDWARE STREAMER + (2) LINUX PC WITH MPD AND SEVERAL USB-DACs

+ (3) AUDIO FILE SERVER

 

I got triggered by the recent very positive reviews of the JPlay for iOS app here on Audiophile Style, by Christiaan Punter on hifi-advice.com, and on HiFiStatement.net. Each review mentions bits and pieces on concepts and components, but I feel in need of some community help here.

 

I am considering whether and how to put a JPlay-centered software setup alongside my current Roon-centered software setup, same hardware for both. Who knows where that will end up ... sticking with Roon, having both interchangeably, or discarding the more expensive Roon one day? I consider the 14-day trial period of JPlay to be too short for my learning curve to develop the required setup. As a first step, I would try to set up things with some placeholder software, e.g. MConnect instead of JPlay on iOS.

 

Short description of my current Roon-centered setup:

• Roon Core on the home network:
  • Running on a Windows 10 laptop (sitting in one room), which also holds my local audio files (PCM as FLAC and DSD) on its SSD
• Currently two endpoint branches on the home network (both sitting in another room):
  1. A Wiim Pro Plus streamer/DAC (Roon Ready) which is used as a digital transport only, outputting S/PDIF via optical or coaxial to a choice of separate DACs
  2. A second laptop running Linux, running the official Roon Bridge and outputting
     • via its USB ports (directly thru alsa) to a choice of USB DACs and USB-to-optical converters

This Roon setup works nicely. I am on Qobuz and Tidal integrating into Roon, plus those local files. And I use Roon Remote as well as Roon Arc on my iPhone. PLEASE NOTE that some of the a.m. devices should be considered PLACEHOLDERS only before any upgrades, in particular the Wiim Pro Plus!

Additionally, I use the Linux laptop as a stand-alone music player without Roon, using mpd (Music Player Daemon with graphical front-end Cantata) for playing local files from its own SSD to the same USB devices with direct access thru alsa. (Note: The audio files collections on the Windows and Linux machines are straight copies of each other, providing a simple backup system.)

 

May I ask you please whether and which way to go for JPlay on iOS makes sense? Yes, using JPlay as a UPnP control point on my iPhone seems obvious, except for screen size as compared to an iPad.

 

But how to create a software setup that should do the same things my two-pronged Roon setup does? My initial conceptual considerations are:

• Regarding the a.m. Wiim Pro Plus branch 1: As a first step, I put Mconnect onto my iPhone, just as a placeholder for JPlay, so to speak. Mconnect finds the Wiim Pro Plus (which also talks UPnP/DLNA) right away and plays to it, including gapless. Up to now only from Qobuz and Tidal, not checked the local files yet.
• But how could I recreate the a.m. branch 2 - the Roon Bridge type of function of the second Linux laptop - in a UPnP/JPlay world, outputting to the various USB-DAC devices attached to it?
  • Would a correct setup involve running upmpdcli on the Linux machine, as a UPnP bridge between JPlay on the iPhone and mpd (Music Player Daemon) on this very same Linux machine, which in turn outputs to the USB devices via alsa?
  • Would upmdcli transparently expose each USB-DAC on the Linux machine to JPlay and let me select one for replay (as Roon with Roon Bridge does perfectly well), in this case with mpd? Or would it just expose the Linux machine as one blop (say an mpd blop), not really helpful for selecting an actual USB-DAC output?
  • Remark: I have always found that mpd on Linux is doing a very nice job regarding audio quality. And I did recently discover that my Linux kernel (distro openSUSE Tumbleweed) now does incorporate the required patches for playing native DSD to a whole bunch of DACs out of the box (thanks to Jussi Laako of Signalyst/hqplayer), which mpd makes good use of - marvelous.
• I understand that I could run e.g. MinimServer on either my Windows laptop or my Linux laptop in order to provide the local files / library to JPlay via UPnP. Correct? It would cost some money as well, or I could think of other file servers.

After the conceptual matters, configuring and running the various software components would be next.

 

I would be very grateful for help from the community with all my questions, for recommendations, improvements, constructive criticism, whatever. And thanks for bearing with me and my "still a novice in networked audio" learning curve. Again, please also keep my placeholder approach in mind (Wiim Pro Plus ...).

Just a short note to follow up on my a.m. questions, the helpful answers by @stefano_mbp and @dericchan1 as well as the articles and other contributions by @The Computer Audiophile - thanks to you all.

 

Well, I put the software setup in place exactly as conceived:

- Audio file server: Windows 10 laptop running MinimServer

- UPnP renderer 1: WiiM Pro Plus streamer used as digital transport only, feeding a Chord Hugo 2 via TOSLINK

- UPnP renderer 2: Linux laptop running upmpdcli and mpd, feeding a choice of USB-DACs (incl. the Hugo 2) out of the laptop‘s USB ports, directly via USB or two-step via USB-to-TOSLINK converter

- JPlay for iOS on my iPhone as control point, plus integration of my local library as well as Qobuz and Tidal.

(Remark again: I consider e.g. the WiiM or the iPhone just placeholders for potential upgrades.)

 

My findings after a couple of hours:

- The setup works really well, amazing and awesome.

- JPlay for iOS is an awesome piece of software, nice to look at, snappy and well-designed GUI, great audio quality. Even with my modest gear I can hear a difference to the better as compared to MConnect.

- MinimServer deserves every praise as well.

- In summary, I did put together a second software setup which does almost the same as my Roon setup described above. The two main differences for me as of now are:

- - Pro - MinimServer makes my >1TB library available much better than Roon (think of album recognition and play also from folder, in light of having a ton of Grateful Dead legal and high-quality bootlegs.)

- - Contra - JPlay (unlike Roon) cannot discover the USB-DACs on the Linux machine, so I have to activate them outside of JPlay.

 

In fact, the truely positive JPlay for iOS reviews by @The Computer Audiophile, by Christiaan Punter on hifi-advice.com, and by Roland Dietl on hifistatement.net did not at all exaggerate. I got turned on …

 

I do hope for JPlay to develop in a very positive way, whatever that might mean to so many discerning and different people like us. Let me say just this: Listen to your customers on the one hand, and don‘t overdo its features on the other hand.

[111MilesToGo]

I don‘t know yet where to put bug reports and feature requests for JPlay for iOS. Thus I‘ll post two minor niggles I observed during my first hours with JPlay here:

 

On the Now Playing Screen, track title, album title, and artist name (below the cover image) should be scrolling in the customary fashion.

On the queue display from the Now Playin screen (2nd tab), would it be possible to show the original [disc_number-]track_number? These are important helpers in oder to see where and within an album we are right now.

 

Thanks a lot for your considerations.

[dericchan1]

@Marcin_gps hello Marvin, question re: jplay iOS, I thought jplay iOS was supposed to be just transferring qobuz tracks to the upnp renderer - in my case, hqplayer embedded. Is it normal that I can actually control volume from jplay iOS ?? I just found out the volume bar is not at max and can be adjust up or down.

 

Thanks

 

Deric

[stefano_mbp]

11 minutes ago, dericchan1 said:

Is it normal that I can actually control volume from jplay iOS ?? I just found out the volume bar is not at max and can be adjust up or down

That depends on how did you set the volume in HQPlayer, if fixed with -3db the volume bar is at (more or less) to 95%, you can move it but it doesn’t have any actual effect

 

 

[dericchan1]

1 minute ago, stefano_mbp said:

That depends on how did you set the volume in HQPlayer, if fixed with -3db the volume bar is at (more or less) to 95%, you can move it but it doesn’t have any actual effect

 

 

Actually i didn’t set it fixed, and scrolling up or down the volume in jplay iOS actually impact the volume…

[stefano_mbp]

Just now, dericchan1 said:

Actually i didn’t set it fixed, and scrolling up or down the volume in jplay iOS actually impact the volume…

That is right as JPlay can control HQPlayer volume, just like a remote control 

[dericchan1]

Just now, stefano_mbp said:

That is right as JPlay can control HQPlayer volume, just like a remote control 

Thanks, didn’t know that.

 

That’s really cool actually!!!

[JazzDoc2]

I have just stopped using JPLAY iOS in my dual PC JPLAY Femto setup, six months into my subscription. I found that there were issues with the display of cover art which, while annoying, were not a deal breaker. I stopped using it due to the fact that selecting an album would, on a daily basis, result in the playback of a completely different album, although the JPLAY iOS screen displayed the selected album. All customer support provided by PLAY failed to fix the problem. It's not for me. I've gone back to BubbleUPnP. It doesn't sound quite as good as JPLAY iOS but it works 100% reliably.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, JazzDoc2 said:

I have just stopped using JPLAY iOS in my dual PC JPLAY Femto setup, six months into my subscription. I found that there were issues with the display of cover art which, while annoying, were not a deal breaker. I stopped using it due to the fact that selecting an album would, on a daily basis, result in the playback of a completely different album, although the JPLAY iOS screen displayed the selected album. All customer support provided by PLAY failed to fix the problem. It's not for me. I've gone back to BubbleUPnP. It doesn't sound quite as good as JPLAY iOS but it works 100% reliably.

Very strange. I use it all the time and have never seen that. I wonder why that happens. 

[Mike Rubin]

36 minutes ago, JazzDoc2 said:

I have just stopped using JPLAY iOS in my dual PC JPLAY Femto setup, six months into my subscription. I found that there were issues with the display of cover art which, while annoying, were not a deal breaker. I stopped using it due to the fact that selecting an album would, on a daily basis, result in the playback of a completely different album, although the JPLAY iOS screen displayed the selected album. All customer support provided by PLAY failed to fix the problem. It's not for me. I've gone back to BubbleUPnP. It doesn't sound quite as good as JPLAY iOS but it works 100% reliably.

When using JRiver as my preferred library, I had similar issues with cover art being incorrect or missing. JPlay tech support worked hard to resolve the issue, which I appreciated, but the workaround was clumsy, unfortunately, so I let my subscription lapse.  Even with the art imprecision, though, I don't recall incorrect tracks playing. Which player do you use for your library? 

[dericchan1]

11 minutes ago, Mike Rubin said:

When using JRiver as my preferred library, I had similar issues with cover art being incorrect or missing. JPlay tech support worked hard to resolve the issue, which I appreciated, but the workaround was clumsy, unfortunately, so I let my subscription lapse.  Even with the art imprecision, though, I don't recall incorrect tracks playing. Which player do you use for your library? 

I have experienced that as well that some of the album cover arts being incorrect or missing when I am using jriver as the media library but only limited to local digital library. Like my favorite folk rock singer Amy MacDonald albums shown up as a dude in the cover…
 

jplay iOS has not put a foot wrong when it comes to qobuz 

[JazzDoc2]

2 hours ago, Mike Rubin said:

When using JRiver as my preferred library, I had similar issues with cover art being incorrect or missing. JPlay tech support worked hard to resolve the issue, which I appreciated, but the workaround was clumsy, unfortunately, so I let my subscription lapse.  Even with the art imprecision, though, I don't recall incorrect tracks playing. Which player do you use for your library? 

 

I use JPLAY Femto in dual PC configuration with Audiophile Optimizer 3 and oryaaaaa's ExtremeStabilizer112

[111MilesToGo]

Although I started with JPLAY only yesterday, I should report on one similar observation. JPLAY with MinimServer for local audio files here. When just displaying my local albums, covers were correct. When doing a search on this list in JPLAY, some covers showed up wrong.

 

I should mention what my scope of interest was. My search was for Tori Amos, correctly yielding like 5 albums from my local library. In the search results, 3 out of the 5 were wrong. Going back to the display of the full library, these 5 were correct. That‘s what "correct" in the last paragraph means.

[stefano_mbp]

6 hours ago, 111MilesToGo said:

My search was for Tori Amos, correctly yielding like 5 albums from my local library. In the search results, 3 out of the 5 were wrong. Going back to the display of the full library, these 5 were correct.

Check that all the album tracks have the same artwork embedded, when Minimserver show an album the folder.jpg (if any in the folder) is shown while if a track is shown the track embedded artwork is shown.

This is a useful feature when you have a multidisc box where the box has an artwork and the single discs have a different artwork

[111MilesToGo]

5 hours ago, stefano_mbp said:

Check that all the album tracks have the same artwork embedded, when Minimserver show an album the folder.jpg (if any in the folder) is shown while if a track is shown the track embedded artwork is shown.

This is a useful feature when you have a multidisc box where the box has an artwork and the single discs have a different artwork

Thank you for your impressive expertise and your willingness to share. Although I know my local libraries are not perfect, I think they are not as bad as what I saw, Tori Amos albums when searched for exhibiting Grateful Dead covers… ;-)

 

Anyway, that issue is not reproducible. A few rescans in MinimServer and a few disconnects/connects to the server in JPLAY, and that particular funny problem doesn‘t show up.