This is a fantastic post, @NickBacon .
Donât get me wrong. It did here, but only when I alternated all the time between discussed options, JPLAY sort of lost it. at one point I also noticed I had two iPads with JPLAY open, maybe that did not help either, specially when the Update Time was set to higher intervals.
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Yeah I did 
Nick, I appreciate your insights and truly trust your opinion. It seems that different presets are increasingly converging, suggesting that anything below the Oladra might not be discernibly different. I also noticed that Christiaan Punter, whose opinion I also highly value, only over the past 12 months has shifted from exclusively using Roon to a combination of Squeeze + Squeeze, and now MPD + MinimServer.
I want to emphasize that when it comes to how tracks sound, we can reach a point where system effects and the listening environment become the primary influences on our experience. The environment can significantly impact what we hear, sometimes even more than the technical measurements of individual components or speakers. If this enhances the overall listening experience, Iâm completely on board with that.
Enjoy exploring and embracing the joy that music brings us!
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Always good to read your comparison insights Nick, thanks.
It may be good to revisit the preferred choice of SSD storage: Is this with the Samsung PM893?
edit: I assume also this is the same resolution for both for stored and streamed-16/44? Flac?
@watts My SSD are unchanged from what I originally installed in my K50 and the transferred them to the Oladra. They are the Samsung 860 EVO.
The albums compared streamed and played from local files were exactly the same. The locally stored ones were purchased from the Qobuz site and the streamed version was the same file and resolution (24bit 96k)
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Itâs interesting that you mention the music SSD. Apologies if Iâm repeating myselfâthis may have come up in a different threadâbut in addition to being highly recommended by Antipodes for music file storage, JCAT also utilizes an âindustrial-grade SSD, carefully selected for its distinctive sound qualitiesââspecifically, the PM893 SSD available in 4GB or 8GB capacities. Coincidence?
To lift performance further, in their latest flagship server, the JCAT XACT S1, the music SSD is connected to the motherboard with a 40 cm directional, cryo-treated SATA cable made with copper/silver conductors.
While in Oladra you can choose the PM893 for storing music files (the 3 slots on top in the image), the Oladra server already comes with a pre-installed PM893 dedicated to the operating system (in center, based on this image from Sept '23), whereas the XACT S1 runs its OS from an industrial SD card (very recent image).
Just more on using JPLAY for iOS with Squeeze + Squeeze (with the two UPnP plug ins enabled) compared to Squeeze + Squeeze and using the Material Skin or iPeng as the controller, I notice no difference at all in sound between all of these.
It is probable therefore that I will use JPLAY for iOS for music selection for the locally stored ripped files on the Oladra SSD and will use the Material Skin or iPeng interfaces when I want to listen to BBC radio 3 on the BBC Sounds app. I rarely listen to streamed music apart from sometimes the internet station HD The Blues and then it will be Material or iPeng used to select that. Often I will listen to the blues on that station for hours at a time whilst reading so once selected I just leave it playing whilst reading a book.
One thing I have noticed is that the Player settings on JPLAY can cause playback issues (renderer error messages or no music) so I am tending the leave them all unchecked at the moment just to be safe. Next time I have time I will see which one or ones were causing the error messages and no music.
