No Air for macOS Catalina?

[PhilP]

I just bought a new iMac with macOS Catalina 10.15.3. I like listening to music while I work and have for years found it convenient to be able to stream from the same Mac that I am working on. I was very disappointed to discover from Devialet support that Air 3.04 is not compatible with Catalina and they ‘don't have any information for the moment about a new version that would be compatible with Mac OS Catalina.’ 

Perhaps Air will be compatible in the future but I need a solution now.  USB seems to be the obvious choice but I would need a 10m run and am not keen to have another cable in my study.  Other suggestions gratefully received...  I use Audirvana and stream Qobuz plus local files.

[thumb5]

One option might be to use Roon, which has built-in support for AIR, instead of Audirvana. It has a nice integration with Qobuz. Arguably quite an expensive hammer to crack a nut, but possibly the most elegant solution if you want something that avoids wires. There's a free trial so you'd at least be able check whether it would work OK in your set-up, and if so, whether you like it enough to switch.

[PhilP]

@thumb5

Thanks for the suggestion and you’re right Roon would allow me avoid to using cables. I think I would only use perhaps 10% of the functionality that Roon provides so it would certainly be overkill. On the other hand it works and at the moment I can’t think of another wireless solution...

[David A]

I've got no experience with Audivarna or the 200 but can Audivarna connect using UPNP and will the 200 recognise a UPNP input? It's worth having a look at Audivarna's own connection options over wifi and seeing whether one of them is compatible with your 200. That would be a no cost solution.

Alternatively you could look for a streamer/bridge device which you could locate near your 200. You could then stream to it over wifi and connect from it to the 200 via USB or other digital connection and avoid a long cable run and additional cables in your study. I used an Auralic Aries Mini that way years ago but they're now discontinued but there are many newer options available including some low cost Raspberry Pi options.

[thumb5]

Isn't UPnP only supported on the Pro CI models (not sure)?

[PhilP]

Thanks for your suggestions.

As Ian says, UPnP is only supported on the Pro CI models. The upgrade cost is £2990 in the U.K. - a lot to pay just to avoid a cable; though I’m sure the upgrade would yield other benefits...

It just occurred to me that Chromecast might work? I will look into it and let you know what I find.

[PhilP]

I checked and Audirvana doesn’t support Chromecast... however, it is apparently possible use BubbleUPnP server or similar to bridge between Audirvana and Chromecast. I’m not sure whether I really want to go in that direction.. messing about with s/w always seems to take a long time ?

[Baldoun]

You can try the Metrum Acoustic Ambre with RopieeXL or any others raspberry Pi distributions including Upnp features (Moodeaudio, DietPi, Volumio...) and stream directly from Audirvana to it. You can use the Ambre AES output to the D200. From my point of view, the sound quality is largely above AIR.

[PhilP]

@Baldoun (and David A earlier). I used to use a Raspberry Pi when I had a Naim system - they were really slow providing support for streaming services like Qobuz. I understand that 5 years on they now just have it .

Interesting to hear you have a high opinion of the SQ of the solution you describe. I will try it out hopefully over the weekend. Thanks, Philip

[CongoFather]

Hi,
I think there is something wrong with your configuration. Maybe it's because you are using Devialet 200. I use both Audirvana and Roon on Mac Mini with Catalina OS 10.15(19A602). Audirvana successfully supports AIR protocols(Devialet Air 3.0.4) and UPNP(I can play any song from NAS using Upnp on Audirvana). Moreover, if you run some scripts, you can use "Direct Mode" and enable Exclusive Access which bypasses the operating system and directly sends bit-perfect stream to the DAC using Ethernet. In this case, the streamer(Mac Mini, iMac etc.) and Devialet(in my case 220 Pro) are connected to a switch(audiophile switch is prefered) with ethernet cables.