Article: JPLAY for iOS and iPadOS Review

[stefano_mbp]

@The Computer Audiophile nice Chris, and, if you allow me, I would mention some more features you omitted :

• the ability to show the local library pdf booklets (if they exist)
• it is possible to browse, and filter, by (among others) Conductor, Ensembles and Soloists
• it is possible to filter albums by Works
• Works are shown in the album details and they group the related movements 

I find these features quite important as they are quite unique among UPNP control point apps (at least for iOS/iPadOS).

 

It would be fine to make available ( @Marcin_gps , @mnuno10 ) a detailed guide to allow users to configure Minimserver in the right way (Full license needed) to be able to enjoy these features.

[stefano_mbp]

10 hours ago, Mike Rubin said:

JRiver, Minimserver, MConnect, and my Audirvana setup

 

10 hours ago, Mike Rubin said:

In what ways have other users found JPlay to sound better than bit-perfect renderers such as Audirvana or JRiver?

… a bit of clarity is needed …

• JRiver and Audirvana are primarily standalone players but they can be used as servers when a UPNP endpoint/renderer is available on the network
• MConnect Player and JPlay for iOS are UPNP control point apps
• Minimserver is a UPNP mediaserver

that said, in a “pure” UPNP environment the followings components are needed:

• a UPNP mediaserver
• a UPNP endpoint/renderer (like SOtM sms200 or Sonore uRendu and other) that runs, in most of the cases, MPD/UPMPDCLI that is the actual player (UPMPDCLI is the MPD network interface)
• a UPNP control point app

then in this environment MPD is the player that receives from the UPNP mediaserver the stream, most of the cases this is BitPerfect.

 

In a “ibrid” (let me say) environment where JRiver or Audirvana are used with a UPNP renderer/endpoint you have those player that can do a lot of things (DSP/transcoding/upsampling) and they send a UPNP stream to the renderer/endpoint, they aren’t controlled by a control point app but you must use a remote control app (Audirvana Remote os JRemote).

 

Remote control app is very different from UPNP control point app as the former issues commands to the server while the latter just receives from the UPNP mediaserver the addresses of the files and send them (the address) to the renderer that will then ask the server for those addresses and finally play them.

 
From the description of these to scenarios (“pure” and “ibrid”) is easy to understand that the “pure” one is much lighter on the cpu of the server and we know that the more a cpu is stressed the more the quality of the sound can be affected by this stress.

.

I could verify myself that a “pure” UPNP environment plays better than an “ibrid” one where Audirvana/JRiver were used with the same SOtM sms200 UPNP used as a renderer/endpoint.

.

Enter now JPlay for iOS (that is not a player but a UPNP control point):

it works as any other UPNP control point (MConnect Player, Lumïn, Linn, Linn Kazoo, ecc..) but it has a particular setting for each renderer (Update time) that is aimed to reduce the network traffic (as @The Computer Audiophile very well described in his article).

How much the network traffic can affect the sound of the setup is described by @Marcin_gps and for sure the effect depends on how your system can reveal details. It’s anyway impressive that moving Update time from value 1 to value 10 the network traffic lowers by 90%.

 

Last but not least, JPlay for iOS has one of the best ergonomic interface and it is very well integrated with Minimserver which for its part is one of the best UPNP mediaserver (if not the best)

[stefano_mbp]

33 minutes ago, Jud said:

note that Audirvana has always been designed such that any DSP and sending the DSP-converted track over the network are separate steps.

They are separate steps but they are anyway subsequent … first is DSP/upsampling and then there is the sending to the renderer after wav conversion, of course you can decide not to use DSP/upsampling.

But I’ve found that Audirvana library management is too heavy and this has a bad impact on performance, my MacBook Pro i7/16GB ram (late 2011) was always running full throttle just to keep the library synchronized for at least 40’ since Audirvana was started, and this is an automatic task … no way to jump it.

If I had to classify the performance I should say (from the worst to the best)

1. Audirvana stand alone
2. Audirvana with UPNP renderer
3. UPNP “pure” setup

 

[stefano_mbp]

20 minutes ago, Jud said:

I'm not sure I understand what process you refer to if you say it can't be avoided. The processes I'm thinking of can be turned off by unchecking boxes.

I stopped using Audirvana when Studio was launched, so I refer to 3.5.x version and for local storage (thunderbolt attached) there is no way to avoid synchronization, it’s only possible for network shared storage.

Anyway, this isn’t the right place to discuss about Audirvana that is … old story for me …

[stefano_mbp]

2 minutes ago, Raimund Heubel said:

Navigating through the JPLAY-website I was informed about a two PC set-up that in theory should sound best, but I could not check this out (yet).

That’s JPlay Femto, a totally different beast.

While JPlay for iOS is a UPNP control point app JPlay Femto is instead a player like Euphony or Audirvana or JRiver

[stefano_mbp]

1 hour ago, WAM said:

The only thing I am missing, is he possibility to filter on ' grouping' for my local files.

This is available using Minimserver.

In order to have the possibility to filter by grouping (Works) you need to define in Minimserver Properties/Advanced/upnpCustom the property 

roleTags={Grouping}

once defined the property you need to restart/rescan Minimserver

this should work for now, Minimserver Full license is needed, in the (near) future there will be some changes that will be announced …

 

… of course this will work if your files grouping tag is populated 

[stefano_mbp]

1 hour ago, WAM said:

But after playing a track, the next track would not start: 'Renderer in transition', was the message.

Does this happens playing on your iPhone/iPad or on the Aries?

[stefano_mbp]

1 hour ago, WAM said:

and my SOtM

Have you tried to use the SOtM as renderer and does it work fine? If it works fine your issue could be caused by some “misunderstanding” between JPlay and Aries

[stefano_mbp]

7 hours ago, yy said:

Do you think it’s possible to connect directly Jplay iOS to an HQPLAYER embedded computer standalone, I mean, without any other computer with Jplay Femto or MinimServer

… as already said yes using only external streaming services like Qobuz or Tidal but without a UPnP mediaserver you won’t able to access local music as JPlay for iOS cannot read the library loaded in HQPe

[stefano_mbp]

9 minutes ago, fredg_31 said:

it takes 5 seconds or more between two tracks with Jplay on my meitner ma3 unit.

Can you share your settings on JPlay for that renderer?

in the manual it is recommended to use MConnect Control, do not use MConnect Player (lite or hd).
This may be why JPlay is not working well....

 

[stefano_mbp]

@fredg_31 @Marcin_gps supposely ConversDigital network module is used in your Meitner MA3 then the same issue could rise with Mytek and Gold Note as they use the same module (and maybe others)

[stefano_mbp]

1 minute ago, jriver said:

For clarity, JRiver isn't just a UPnP / DLNA Server.  It can act in all three roles. 

 

It's best explained here on our wiki:

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DLNA 

That’s exactly what I wrote … 

[stefano_mbp]

12 minutes ago, steveoat said:

Does jplay support cover art for multichannel dsf images when using minimserver as a library.  I am using jplay to send information from minimserver to my magnetar udp800 universal player..  Jplay is able to transfer the files fine and I am able to play multichannel audio from dsf files.  However, I don't see any cover art when looking at the monitor through which I view my home theater system (it shows the magnetar player screen).  

In an UPNP setup the control point send to the renderer just the address (as http://server/file-path) of the file/s, then the renderer asks the server the file to be played using that address.

That said if no cover art is shown likely the cover art is not retrieved by the renderer.

[stefano_mbp]

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Most of the issues are because UPnP is a nonstandard standard.

There should be a sort of UPNP certification, if well implemented UPNP works without issues.

I use three different UPNP setup, with Minimserver as UPNP mediaserver,

• SOtM sMS200/MPD&DLNA
• Ropieee/UPNP
• HQPlayer embedded

and they all work as they should, with control points like JPlay for iOS, Lumïn app and Linn … no issues at all