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[Sailor4W]

I am still struggling with the concept of Core Infinity: would it be possible, for example, having Audirvana running on my MacBook Pro that is in my study and stream Audirvana to the Devialet in my living room? Is that a scenario that would work with Core Infinity? Sorry for the umb questions, but I am hopelessly confused with the concept of Devialet Air and Core Infinity. Thanks for your patience!

Let's try to unpack this in some other way.

The CI streaming inputs are currently Devialet AIR, UPnp, Airplay, and Spotify Connect. If you can run the Devialet AIR app on your MacBook and use it to stream Audivarna to your Devialet, then that's one option. Another option available to you with a Mac is Airplay but that doesn't involve Audivarna. Yet another option which doesn't involve Audivarna would be to use a UPnP app such as JRiver or Plex or something similar to stream the music from your music library files on the Mac to the Devialet. All of those options don't require an intermediate device between the Mac and the Devialet and the other thing to remember is that the CI streaming inputs use either the Devialet's physical ethernet input or the wifi input because they require the Devialet to be active on the network you're streaming over.

If you want to bring the MacBook Pro to the same room as the Devialet you can connect it to the Devialet via USB and use the Devialet as a USB DAC.

Alternatively, if you don't want to have the MacBook Pro in the room with the Devialet, then you can look for some intermediary device or other software which can connect to the Devialet.

In the old days life was simple. You connected a source device (turntable/CD player/tape deck/radio tuner) to a pre-amp via an interconnect and that was it. Things aren't really much different but we've got a much wider group of sources to provide our music signal, we've got a wider range of inputs on the Devialet to accept the signal, and wifi, ethernet network connections and USB to make the connection from source to Devialet as well as the range of physical interconnects we've had for years. That's the way to start thinking about what you're trying to do. Take a look at the software you're using on the MacBook Pro and how it can output a musical signal. Take a look at the inputs on the Devialet and see what they can accept. If there's a match between what you can output from the MacBook and what the Devialet can accept, then that will tell you what kind of a connection you need to make between the MacBook and the Devialet. If there isn't a match between MacBook output and Devialet input, then is there some sort of device that you can insert between them which can accept an output from the MacBook and convert it to some different sort of output which the Devialet can accept.

And if you can't make a working connection between the MacBook and the Devialet then you need to change something about the source at the MacBook end or change the Devialet to something which can make a working connection with the MacBook, remembering that in both cases the connection between the source and the endpoint can be direct or may include another device which facilitates the working connection.


That's the process you need to work through whether your Devialet has the CI board or not. The only thing the CI board does in terms of streaming functionality is to increase your options but it won't make every option that someone can come up with possible and there's no guarantee that Devialet will evermake the CI board compatible with every streaming service or server software. In fact I think you can guarantee that they won't because it's probably impossible to keep up with all of the changes in streaming services and server software options so the CI board will be useful for some people but not for others. There's also no guarantee that if you use a particular streaming service or server software now to stream to your Devialet, you'll still be using the same streaming service or server software in the future and if you change your streaming service and/or server software which is something people actually do for all sorts of reasons, there's no guarantee that the new streaming service or server software is going to be able to work with your Devialet in the same way and with the same ease as your current method does. Whatever the CI board does, and it does a number of things, it isn't a silver bullet which solves all problems, now and forever, and it isn't going to become such a solution.

Hey, you're great! You gave me the right hints! I downloaded Devialet AIR onto my MacBook Pro, in Audio Devices I set the output to Devialet AIR and opened the Tidal app on my computer and the thing started to stream nicely. First impression: very good! Now I need to get it to work with the Qobuz app and there we go!

I was beginning to be afraid of looking like the biggest digital idiot, not being aware that the era of streaming has begun   . I just couldn't get a foot into this Devialet business since I was fixed to Roon and not knowing realising, even though it had been mentioned in numerous replies, that AIR is available.

I still need to check how reliable AIR works. So far no drop-outs, but let's see once my wife starts to hack her iPhone mails if streaming is still smooth and without hick-ups.

Thanks so much for your help!

Paul