Yes I was pulling your leg. It does seem Naims Tidal implementation is flawed not just on the old tech either as many prefee it through Roon or other sources to Native. I can’t say i like native on my Atom it’s a tad brighter.
Will do!
Yup, no probs.
I think that WiFi decoded inside a streamer is potentially nasty because the WiFi module may spread EM noise to the Dac.
But cut the noise from the Ethernet cable…
I’ll try both options and report back. But it’ll be awhile as I have bunch of unrelated things to do first.
Hi-res Tidal may be all I get from it tho, because Qobuz isn’t officially available in Canada yet. But I’ve been told that I can get it when using a VPN, which I have. We’ll see ,
Dave
Yes, Huawei is Android, and I’ll be testing both options.
Dave
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I have BubbleUPnP on my NAS, and compared it to MConnect into my NDX>DAVE etc. I’m afraid it was chalk and cheese - MConnect was utterly inferior, though admittedly better than not having access to Qobuz at all.
You won’t get hires MQA with Tidal and Bubble, Mconnect I believe does perform the first unfold of MQA I believe.
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If somebody can borrow you an Android tablet, you could test Bubleupnp app on it to have Qobuz, and compare vs Mconnect.
Just for curiosity. But I doubt it will make difference.
I asked you because Simon Pepper thinks that the sound of first unfold MQA through Roon is quite or very near the sound of full MQA with an MQA dac .
I really doubt it’s the same.
Whist it gets there resolution wise for the majority of music it’s still missing the final filtering and reconstruction for the specific DAC and any further unfolding and upsampling. It does make a difference to how it sounds at least it does on my MQA devices it
can make it sound more organic.
One advantage though is my Cobalt is limited to 96/24 via USB not because of the DAC but because of the USB interface, they wanted maximum compatibility so it’s USB Audio 1 only. Yet it can playback up to 384/24 with MQA and it’s final rendering stage.
I have auditioned in my home only 3 MQA Capable Dacs. The AQ Cobalt ($300), the Mytek Manhattan II ($6000) and the Meridian Ultra Dac ($24,500). There were differences. All listening done with Roon, same room, same equipment. My criteria is to make the system sound like the performace is in the room and live. The AQ was a definite uptik over not having it. The Mytek was better and convinced me that it was worth going farther, and I auditioned the Meridian Dac. It was a the sound I was looking for. There are lots of factors that influence the sound that one gets with or without MQA. An example is cables, and power supplies. So you can do more with more real estate and more dollars. The AQ weighs a couple ounces and powers off the usb. The Meridian is 40 pounds or so, and as big as 2 full size Naim Boxes. So I felt one got what they paid for. The AQ is well worth it particularly for mobile. Both the Mytek and the Meridian did the full unfold and it sounded like it.
That’s very interesting.
Did you just do that test now, or did you do it previously?
Why do you think it’s so much better?
Because it avoids wifi, or because BubbleUPnP is a better way of processing the files, or because of it transcoding to WAV.
Or all 3?
Plus something else?
If so, then I’ll have to get a bloody NAS and start messing round with rips!
Mrs. Jimdog and my daughters have Android smartphones.
I could try it on one of their phones.
But that will still include 2 wifi legs, so won’t test what Nick and so many others are recommending.
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But the Meridian is just a large box containing an AQ Cobalt and six placebo bricks!
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The MConnect solution sounded flatter, less realistic.
Both solutions went to the NDX via Wi-fi, the difference being (I guess!) that the BubbleUPnP solution took the same route from NAS to the router as my stored files.
How come you use or used wifi to the NDX rather than via an ethernet cable?
And why was it important that the Qobuz files took the same route from NAS to router as your home files?
So your web streamed files are going: Qobuz server > Router > ethernet cable to NAS for processing > Router again via the same ethernet cable > NDX via wifi?
I used wifi at the time because it was impractical to wire the NDX up (we were expecting to move house, and I’m since all wired up). It worked fine unless my younger daughter eas streaming Netflix, in which case my streaming waved a white flag!
I honestly have no idea why the route via the NAS sounded better, it was just one of those never-in-a-month-of Sundays comparisons as far as the MConnect version went.
As far as routing now is concerned Qobuz goes round the house: internet>BT modem>Asus router>Cisco switch (a white one)>CAT6>Cisco (a blue one)>NAS>back to the blue Cisco>back to the white Cisco>to the English Electric>finally (probably exhausted by now) to the NDX.
BTW, I’m not sure, but I suspect that the total EM noise in my hifi is less using wifi to the iPad vs using say a wired link to my iPad (or similar).
Because via wired none of the electro-magnetic noise flying around in the iPad gets directly into my hifi, because it’s not connected to the hifi by wire.
So, yes the router’s doing a wee bit more wifi processing, but it’s doing shedloads of that most of the day anyway with 5 of us in the house.
And that wifi noise in the router gets mostly blocked I think by the 2 or 3 PoE Ciscos I use between router and DAC.
So EM noise is not the issue with wifi legs.
I think it’s more likely to effect timing issues as the bursts of data packets are fired in each direction…?
Hello Jim
But the Placebo bricks are made of precious metal. And the Meridian is Balanced and uses 4 a/d’s so it really 2 AQ Cobalts. 
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Did you run the MConnect app on a crappy phone or a clapped out, cheap or old tablet?
Was it the MConnect free app?
Or the MConnect Player HD £6 app?