Am I getting the best sound? BeoSound Core\TIDAL\Airplay

12 replies
CU
Curly
Bronze
458 posts
Posted June 18, 2020 at 21:21 GMT
#2140009

Greetings, my friends. I’ve been lurking on the forum for a long time but this is my first post.

I have a question about my setup. I have a BeoSound Core driving a pair of Beolab 17s (which I love, by the way. John at B&O Manchester is totally right—the 17s are underrated; such great bass!). 

To listen to MQA-quality music I stream from TIDAL Hifi. I open the TIDAL app on my iPhone or iPad and then connect to my BeoSound Core via Airplay (2). I have the app set to stream Master quality audio over WiFi.

Unfortunately, the B&O app does not have native support for TIDAL as it does for, for example, Spotify so using only my iOS devices and the gear mentioned, this is the only way I know of to get TIDAL to my Core. I wonder if I am getting the best quality audio possible over Airplay (2). Can anyone confirm?  Can Airplay (2) stream the hi-rez music from TIDAL in the best quality possible and can the Core process such a feed via AirPlay (2)? Thank you! 

(Also a plug for suggesting B&O incorporate native support for TIDAL and Qobuz in their app!) 

SA
Sandyb
Bronze
2575 posts
Posted June 18, 2020 at 21:49 GMT
#2140010
MQA does not transmit over AirPlay.

Hiort
Hiort
Gold
3593 posts
Posted June 18, 2020 at 22:06 GMT
#2140011
Have you tried Deezer HIFi?

Beo app support that natively.

Location: Sweden

My B&O Icons:

Beovision-11.png Beovision-11.png
Beosound-Emerge.png Beosound-Emerge.png
Beoremote-One.png Beoremote-One.png
Beoplay-M5.png Beoplay-M5.png
Beoplay-M3.png Beoplay-M3.png
Beoplay-Earset.png Beoplay-Earset.png
Beoplay-Beosound1.png Beoplay-Beosound1.png
Beoplay-A1.png Beoplay-A1.png
CU
Curly
Bronze
458 posts
Posted June 18, 2020 at 23:02 GMT
#2140012

Thus, there is no way to get TIDAL MQA wirelessly to a BeoSound Core using an iOS device?

Does this not seem inherently wrong...?

 

Thanks for the response, both of you!

CU
Curly
Bronze
458 posts
Posted June 18, 2020 at 23:02 GMT
#2140013

Thus, there is no way to get TIDAL MQA wirelessly to a BeoSound Core using an iOS device?

Does this not seem inherently wrong...?

 

Thanks for the response, both of you!

CU
Curly
Bronze
458 posts
Posted June 18, 2020 at 23:37 GMT
#2140014

Apologies for the double-post. Mods, please delete the duplicate.

 

It appears I need to purchase a Bluesound Node 2i and sell my Core. Shame B&O won’t integrate native high-rez streaming services into their software. 

M(
Mikipedia (archived2)
Bronze
2150 posts
Posted June 19, 2020 at 01:53 GMT
#2140015
MQA not transmitting over airplay seems to me to be an apple thing, not a B&O thing
Millemis
Millemis
Bronze
15984 posts
Posted June 19, 2020 at 10:25 GMT
#2140016

Curly wrote:

I hope this helps! I certainly learned a lot. Thanks, all!

There might be a lot more to learn about MQA.

You could start here:



 Archimago has posted a lot about his findings about MQA (since day one).

Also this might be helpfull, if you want to avoid being the cashcow of the modern audio industry:

link

These two guy are some of the very few ‘rational audiophiles’ in the audio press today.

As far as I know B&O they seem to be in that camp too.

 

P.S. 
I’d be much more interested in the provenance of the files/the music - and what has been done in the chain up till the point where you get to buy/stream them - than in the delivery format.

Long live the CD specs....they cater for all that human beings need for listening to music and what our audio gear usually can handle - be it as a disc or as a stream.


MM

 

Location: Flensborg————Danmark

JA
Jaffrey
Bronze
529 posts
Posted June 19, 2020 at 17:55 GMT
#2140017

Long live the CD specs....they cater for all that human beings need for listening to music and what our audio gear usually can handle - be it as a disc or as a stream.

That is so true. Close friend of mine who works in audio/video  (actually he is an encoder) has been saying the same thing for a while now...👍🏼

CU
Curly
Bronze
458 posts
Posted June 22, 2020 at 13:31 GMT
#2140018

I purchased a Bluesound Node 2i after reading very positive reviews. This product has native support for all the high-rez streaming services, so I will not have to use Airplay and therefore can get sound quality better than Airplay’s max CD-quality of 44.1/16.

 

I will post back to note if I can hear differences on my BL17s between 44.1/16 (BeoSound Core) and 96/24 (Node 2i).

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