I recently purchased a Mu-so 2nd Gen and love it. I play most of my music from my phone using Chromecast, but I wanted to see how much the fidelity would improve with a hard connection, so I bought a high end 3.5mm male to male cord. I have connected it to both my phone and the aux input on the Mu-so and tried to play music from Tidal, but it does not work. I have unplugged directly from the Mu-so and inserted the cord into a Minirig 3 portable speaker, and it works fine, so I know the issue is not my phone nor the cord.
Would it be possible my aux input is broken, or am I missing something?
Richard - isn’t the 3.5mm jack an analogue input, with iOS phones needing to connect to the digital USB port?
…assuming my reading of the Mu-So manual (for Mu-So 1) is correct?
Lifted from the M1 manual (as I cannot locate similar for M2):
A 3.5mm jack analogue audio socket for the
connection of external analogue audio sources.
Note: Mu-so will automatically select its analogue input
when a plug is inserted in the socket.
• A USB socket for the connection of USB memory
hardware and iOS audio playback devices.
That USB reference is for a digital input from a phone, but the OP is talking about a 3.5 mm analogue headphone socket, so that should work into an analogue input on the muso 2 just fine I think.
I read it this way as well, but in this case the phone would be doing a DA conversion and send the signal in analog to the Mu-so (where it will be digitized again), so I would expect this to degrade the quality, no?
Certainly. Maybe I should not have replied specifically to your post.
I was trying to point out to the OP that everyone’s help to make the 3.5 mm plug work, although it is valuable in itself, will most likely not achieve what the OP seems to have intended to begin with, improving fidelity.
I.e., to the OP, if you want the best quality, Chromecast is a fine choice already. If you want to try a cable, it is probably best to connect digitally from the phone to the Mu-so and leave the conversion to analog to the Mu-so
And it’s not that I don’t think Chromecast doesn’t work well, I am simply trying to maximize the fidelity of my music and use the best transfer process possible.
Hey everyone, thank you for all of the quick support. A few things.
First, the hard reset seemed to have fixed the problem. The 3.5mm jack on the Mu-so is working now from my phone.
Second, the quality is indeed compromised by using the jack. Sounds much better wireless using Chromecast.
Third, any ideas on higher fidelity ways to play music from my phone to the Mu-so vs. Chromecast. For example, would a type C USB plugged into my phone with an HDMI male adapter going into the Mu-so work better? Or perhaps a type C USB in my phone to a type A USB going into the Mu-so? I don’t see any Toslink digital adapters I can use for my phone.
HDMI and USB aren’t going to work with your phone, so your options are AirPlay, Chromecast or analogue.
I would expect better sound quality from the built in Tidal input controlled from the Naim app. Have you tried using that?
Yes, I have, but Tidal on the Naim app is not nearly as easy to use as the Tidal app.
Another option I have considered is a high-resolution audio player, such as a Astell&Kern. I can access the Tidal app from it and the one I am looking at has digital audio output via USB. Any thoughts on that vs. playing from my phone?
Using the Apple lightning to USB converter works. In the past I’ve used an oldish iPad and used the iPhone as a remote. The Naim app works to an extent for volume and track selection. Sound was as good as I have achieved with my Muso 1.
Okay, I have been scouring the web and feel like I may have found an answer to one of my questions. It seems Chromecast will stream Tidal Hi-Fi from my phone to my Mu-so in a lossless manner, so there is nothing to be gained by switching to a wired solution. Am I correct in stating this?
