Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Spotify now available in the US!

Yeah does it have all those wonderful features?

Because if it doesn't have said plethora of bells and whistles, then there's no way you can have access to the gazzilions of garbage quality songs for all of your various devices

Sorry Crion
I know you like the service, but........

This is a Meridian forum, where I imagine for most, Sound Quality trumps ALL

There is no denying that only 25% of Spotify's Library being Streamed at 320kbps is a serious limitation for anybody interested in feeding this Stream into their Meridian system........160kbps just doesn't cut it IMHO.......no excuses

Then IN ADDITION you have the serious issue of Normalization, which as we all know has a detrimental impact on music enjoyment.........and it can't be switched off on many of the devices and servers that many people here use........with no Fix date from Spotify in sight

To me, those two serious limitations trump ALL other considerations listed above

Now, as it so happens, MOG has ALL of those Features PLUS AMG Album Reviews.......plus Artist Only "Radio Stations" (e.g. only Bob Dylan tracks)......plus Downloads to Mobile Devices at 320kbps

Their Streams have been tested and ALL (except for one particular label) Tracks are at 320kbps......that Label restricts MOG to 256kbps Streaming & Downloads only

Likewise, despite many "complaints" on their Forum about Loud and Quiet songs, they are looking into implementing Replay Gain, as opposed to Normalization, as a way to maintain the sound quality standard

I don't have a horse in this race, as I'm not subscribed to either service........but just based on the above Two Critical points, I believe MOG to offer the superior service for Meridian users........and I will probably subscribe sometime soon

For those interested, Video here

http://cdn.mog.com/movies/MOG_sections/MOG_Long_vers_111609_no_slate.mov

You must not be aware that Synology's Audio Station on the NAS TRANSCODES Lossless to Lossy MP3 prior to Streaming???

Which obviously makes an amount of sense in a Broadband world where most people do not have the Broadband Upload speeds of 1Mbps to sustain Lossless streaming (see recent threads on Real World Broadband speeds in the US, UK and elsewhere)

Lossless streaming only appears to be supported for Local connections.......not for the Port Forwarded "Internet" ones

Even your link to the App Store does not mention any support for ALAC amongst the many different formats mentioned.........same per the Synology website

Yes Ronnie it does transcode my lossless library for my iPhone and that is a good thing.

But remember I can log in anywhere in the world and access my lossless iTunes library. Not to mention can pull said files (and iTunes lib file) onto other media servers etc. etc.

Just one man's approach...

And yes I agree with you that in this forum it is, at least to me, exclusively all about lossless.

I'll let you examine the Synology capabilities for file formats and such since my needs are all currently met

Looks like you would have to resort to a proxy server to subscribe to MOG in the UK. Has it launched officially anywhere outside the US yet?

US Only.....so VPN required......but many already have these for work already.......if not, try Overplay.net

US Credit Card MAY be required as well.......not sure until I delve deeper........HDTracks say the same thing about US Only, but easy to get around

USUnlocked.com also handy for US Credit Cards.......I use with a variety of different US Services.....quite handy

All fine, just as long as you understand that any Port Forwarding Streaming from the SYnology NAS involves the Lossless file being Transcoded into a LOSSY format........I've seen some references to 128kbps and 192kbps MP3 on their Forums

So, for ANY Device (Phone, PC, SB, Sonos etc.) not on the Local Network will receive a Lossy Stream........not a Lossless one

Nothing wrong with that.......and I understand the benefits of being able to DOWNLOAD or Transfer some of your ALAC Files or iTunes Library files.......but that is Download and then Play........which is obviously not Streaming

Lossless Streaming would be great.......but Audio Station and DS Audio don't provide it.......and neither do any of the other NAS / PC vendors at this point......they likely see the Broadband Upload speeds as being the critical limitation

One does not require lossless on iPhone unless you are rocking big headphones which will drain the hell out of the battery.

The Synology does provide lossless in a home network.

Please. I know you want to be the expert, but you need to know the DSM.

For iTunes you are doing lossless via router etc. etc. As you are for media player's like Dune.


"The settings [transcoder] apply to some DMA only." And to DS Audio for bandwidth considerations.


Please.

Sorry, but your earlier posts CLEARLY implied that a User could Stream their LOSSLESS library over the Internet using the Synology DS Audio app

It was clear you were implying that this was a substitute for Spotify or MOG etc. at their 320kbps lossy rates

I was interested in this, as I would like to Stream losslessly at Remote locations......so I did a little research.....the results of which are above

Every NAS, PC and Network Player ever made, can Stream Losslessly within a house......this is hardly unique to Synology or the DS Audio app......in spite of your posts to the contrary

How close does this gets to be an audiophile liking. I have Pandora for the iPad and it's sounds pretty good.

I own my lossless. I stream it at home as such. I have it transcoded to my iPhone due to bandwidth at smaller bandwidth. Ergo I am not interested in anything but lossless

But you did learn a few things Ronnie. And that's good. One of which is logic?

And you CAN stream losslessy at REMOTE LOCATIONS! You just need to know HOW! And not via an iPhone, right? Or is that what you meant?

Please.

Defies further comment really!!!