edit: actually for this use airfoil or the equivalents would make more sense, I forgot about them . . . been dealing with audio and zoom meetings too much lately Airfoil - Any Audio, Everywhere
I probably should have said that I'm using the Windows 10 desktop app. Just to provide a some more information, my receiver has built-in AirPlay (which lets it work with WiFi and AppleMusic) and also built-in Spotify. When I looked a bit closer at my Spotify desktop app, I realized that it's simply seeing any other instance of Spotify in my apartment as accessible - my receiver's on-board Spotify makes it a suitable playback location. The Tidal desktop for Windows has no AirPlay capability and because my receiver doesn't include on-board Tidal (Tidal didn't exist yet when my receiver was built) I can't connect that way, either.
Ah - got it. And I assume there's no built-in capability for Windows to send all audio output to your receiver using Airplay? It looks like the "Airfoil" program Elvisizer linked to a few posts up has a Windows version, though; that might do what you're wanting.
I'm not entirely sure. That's why this old timer digital noob is trying to learn what is best. Or if it's worth the extra effort(apps, equipment etc.) to aspire for the "best" digital sound.
bah, looks like they scrapped it late last year: Rogue Amoeba | Airfoil for Windows has been retired.
I think it's definitely worth it to run at least a decent signal chain -- not through the headphone jack of your phone but over USB to a DAC.
So would you say that connecting your phone or other device via a USB cable is superior to Bluetooth 5 APTX-HD? By a significant margin?
As someone who likes both Tidal and vinyl I find I go back and forth in cycles. I stream and explore quite a bit ( for like a week) and then I will play some vinyl...and it seems so refreshing to not have to make song choice decisions for a bit; just sit back and listen...no remote. But then after several nights of vinyl... it’s again time to do some exploring...
My phone will do aptX out, but I don't have any aptX receiving devices-- my car is too old, and I don't have and Bluetooth playback gear in my home that will do anything other than SBC, so I have no idea about that.
For me, how I listen is no different, I use streaming exactly the same way I use physical media -- if there's an album I want to hear, I launch the streaming service, type the name of the album in the search bar, call up the album, and play it. Just the same as if there's something I want to hear and I have it on CD or vinyl, I go down to the music room, pull the disk off the shelf and play it. How folks use streaming to listen to music is very personal and different from person to person, in my experience. Like, my 28 year old daughter, she pretty much only listens to playlists she makes herself. My wife, she just "likes" every song or album she ever liked or thought of and just plays them all int a rolling scroll. Me, like I said, I treat it like a library and I take one book off the self at a time, read it, then put it back.
Cool. I will probably just have to try Bluetooth and see how I like it. Guess I will have USB to fall back on if Bluetooth isn't very good.
No trouble getting the tidal plugin working through mysqueezebox.com? I was looking at Qobuz as it also works well with LMS.
I use Bluetooth in non critical listening situations -- like in the car, when the environment is already noisy and the system and space doesn't do fine imaging and hifi depth of field and where the music is background music because my attention is mostly on driving. In that circumstance, I don't really thing the differences between high bit rate lossy Ogg Vorbis or AAC vs. redbook vs. high res, matter very much, at least not to me. I do play CD in my car and they do have a sparklier more lively top end and airiness than the Bluetooth stream. But the difference is slight, and there's not much more I can hear with the noise, and for the 20 minutes at a time that I'm in the car, convenience wins out for me. At home with I listen on my hifi, I don't use Bluetooth. When it comes to Bluetooth, if I could do aptX HD or LDAC, I would try it.
I tried Bt APTX in the past and clearly heard a difference as usb is much better. I suppose the HD thing is the latest version of APTX ? No experience with that but imho it's just slapping on another sticker to what is essentially a bad way to listen to music. Good enough for the BBQ,not for your home stereo.
The trick is (a) Install the Tidal plugin in mysqueezebox.com (b) in LMS control panel select Advanced Settings, then and in the window that opens, second tab Player, select the Audio submenu and make sure Proxied Streaming is selected. Took quite a while to find that last trick.
I ditched MQA a while ago in favor of Qobuz and the LMS plugin is working perfectly with LMS 8.0 and my Squeezebox Touch. Seamlessly ties together my local files along with Qobuz playlists/favorites. All controlled with iPeng.
I have Tidal, Quboz and Amazon HD because I kept running into artists that were on some services and not others as well as their multiple label releases were on some and not others.
The only downside is the cost of running three streaming services. I see you're from Tucson, scotpagel. I've been to Tucson several times visiting NOAO. I once flew into Phoenix just to drive the Apache trail - definitely not the most obvious was to Tucson, but it was a totally unforgettable drive.
Yes the drive is nice, I live in Mesa, AZ now and having three streaming is kinda expensive but when I'm listening I have all three up ready to play
Re Tidal v Qobuz I agree with what a couple of reviewers have stated: redbook sounds slightly better on Qobuz, MQA on Tidal sounds slightly better than hi rez on Qobuz (but they are both superior to redbook most of the time) Qobuz’s catalog is still limited, but it’s slowly getting better.
I’ve had a similar experience with streaming, to be certain though you really need to listen to cd’s through that same dac