Mac AIR v MiND 180 v Auralic ARIES v totaldac d1 server

[Rufus McDufus]

I am about to order a cubox I pro, and was wondering if I should get the version loaded w/Android or OpenElec, to use with squeezebox software, or does it matter?

Do you have a Link or reference for the process of Programing/installing software to make the cube-I work as a media server?

Thanks!
Ben

I don't think it really matters which distro you get to be honest because neither are going to be useful for audio purposes. I'd probably tend towards OpenELEC purely as it's a more useful version of Linux to have (IMHO).
You'll probably want to get one or two spare microSD cards to write images to. They don't have to be big - 8MB is really enough for virtually anything. Speed is probably more important but I'm finding it perfectly acceptable with 30MB/s cards (you just reminded me, I have a 48MB/s I should try).
I've found it a little picky with UHS-1 cards (which is most of the modern ones I think) and can have problems booting off the cards. There's also complications with the video drivers on some images you can download, and I can't run the Ignition installer image as it won't play ball with my monitor (grr).
The interesting OS images so far seem to be Voyage Mubox and Volumio. The latter is brilliant - sounds better than Mubox to me and really easy to use - you can do virtually anything from the web interface.
The solid-run forum is a good place to start:
http://www.solid-run.com/community/

[Audiobenpdx]

Thanks for that information! Is it possible to control the Cube-i music playback with an iPad? I heard that you can adapt the SqueezeBox Touch software to work with cube-i,
have you tried this?

I was demo-ing the Auralic Aeries, much improved SQ than my Touch, but the Aeries was pretty buggy, couldn't find all of my WAV and FLAC files, and I don't want to have to be reliant/waiting on the manufactures' updates to fix it, I also had the usb playback stopping problem with it.

How does the SQ you're getting from the cube-i compare to the Aeries?

[Rufus McDufus]

You might be able to use Squeezebox Touch - not sure. Both Volumio and Voyage Mubox use the MPD software which can be controlled by Mpad on iPad. It's a bit amateurish but not too bad.
Volumio also has a web interface that you can play tracks from, though I think it's just a filesystem browser rather than using metadata from the music tracks. Volumio also has a built-in DLNA server so presumably this could be the library source and use a UPnP control point to control it from iPad.

If you're looking for reliability then the Cubox solution isn't necessarily the greatest. If you keep the setup stable then it's probably OK but I have a habit of changing things all the time and it can be a bit baffling getting things working. It's not a particularly user-friendly solution. I've just been switching from USB to Toslink for example and it mysteriously refused to work for about 15 minutes and multiple reboots and connection-checking.
Soundwise I'm liking it but it's not blowing me away, though I haven't tried many modifications. I didn't actually like the Aries that much so I'm probably the wrong person to ask!

[Audiobenpdx]

What didn't you like about the Aeries?

[ogs]

@Guillaume @Rufus
Did you at any point try with the Aries playing through the Totaldac reclocker? Sorry if this has been discussed earlier, but this thread has so many posts

[GuillaumeB]

@Gillaume @Rufus
Did you at any point try with the Aries playing through the Totaldac reclocker? Sorry if this has been discussed earlier, but this thread has so many posts

We didn't try this.

Guillaume

[ogs]

We didn't try this.

Guillaume

Thanks Guillaume! Sorry about the misspelling. The Aries looks to be one of the most 'complete' streamers at the moment with Tidal/Wimp and Qobuz support plus DSD and DXD. I've yet to try one as the Andriod version of the app is not available, but some comments say the Aries (or maybe the Lightning DS app) is not quite reliable. And we do not know what DIALOG will do or how it sounds.

[GuillaumeB]

We didn't try this.

Guillaume

Thanks Guillaume! Sorry about the misspelling. The Aries looks to be one of the most 'complete' streamers at the moment with Tidal/Wimp and Qobuz support plus DSD and DXD. I've yet to try one as the Andriod version of the app is not available, but some comments say the Aries (or maybe the Lightning DS app) is not quite reliable. And we do not know what DIALOG will do or how it sounds.

The ARIES is a great package and my experience with the Lightning DS app was positive. I certainly didn't experience any reliability issues. With Dialog being imminently available it probably makes sense to wait and see how it measures up to other standalone streamers.

On the other hand it will probably be some time before Dialog becomes fully functional and no doubt the early versions of SPARK will have issues.

So no easy answer really, I suppose it depends on how long you're willing to wait!

Guillaume