Squeeze as player

No I’d fully agree with you about retaining Roon. Although there are some marginal gains to be had sonically by using Squeeze/Squeezlite, the interface absolutely stinks by comparison. There’s absolutely no way I could ever put up with that. Roon into Squeeze suits me just fine.

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@Chilli
Have you tried the Antipodes Material?
Feedback?

No I haven’t & to be entirely honest I wouldn’t even know how to. What I can say though is that if it hadn’t been for the availability of Roon as an available interface then I’d never have considered buying an Antipodes server/player. Even then & as I’ve previously mentioned, I originally stayed away as I found the set-up & management too user unfriendly. Strangely enough, I also really didn’t get on with the first example of a K50 I owned (up until the middle to latter part of last month). The earlier CX units I’d tried & the K30 I had on demo at a later date, sounded much better than the first K50 I actually owned (unfortunately no K50 was available at the time to demo). To say I was disappointed with the sound of my first K50 is a gross understatement. I thought that unit far too forward, edgy & in need of fleshing out & that’s despite a great many hours of use. I couldn’t even bear to listen to it in the same room until it had been powered up for a minimum of three days. It did however lead me to start experimenting with different cables. I already owned a top quality Live Cable X-treme USB cable & also an Audioquest Wild AES/EBU. The two cables together retail at the best part £3,700 in the U.K. but I found neither to be entirely satisfactory. The USB cable was against my expectations the better of the two & what I’d used when auditioning the K30. The K30 sounded fabulous with this cable, but the first K50 considerably less so. Because of my dissatisfaction & because against expectations the Live Cable X-treme USB sounded better than the Audioquest Wild AES/EBU it peaked my interest in trying another Live Cable, This time the X-treme AES/EBU. This was & entirely as it should have been for an AES/EBU cable within the context of my system the best yet, but it was still nevertheless a little on the bright side. This is why I raised the question as to what other AES/EBU cables K50 owners used & arranged to also try a MIT Oracle MA-X AES/EBU which allows the user to tone down any brightness or excessively forward presentation. However since that original post on AES/EBU cables I’ve become the owner of the latest revised version of the K50 & this sounds absolutely amazing with either cable, even from cold. Is it the revisions that are responsible for this? I obviously don’t know as I don’t really have much to go on & from what I’ve read they’re supposedly similarly voiced. All I can say Is that this K50 sounds absolutely amazing (even with the Audioquest Wild) & is entirely what I was expecting, whereas I’d grown to really dislike my first K50 example. As regards the AES/EBU cables. Having heard what a better cable can do with a player I didn’t actually like that much, I’m extremely eager to see what it can do with one I absolutely love. Sorry & I bet you rather wish you hadn’t asked. :roll_eyes:

You can also try free Squeezer app that I installed in an old android phone at my sofa as a remote control as well as my current phone that I carry with me.

Nothing further to share since it just works 100% of the time especially when I wish to quickly check playback bitrate.

Cheers.

@MarkCole sounds interesting, if you are looking to improve on Roon, sound that is, not UI I understand. But how to make it work, is there more information about Material setup and use out here? Thanks

Okay, so I had (am still having) a problem with Roon selecting my new K50 as a core. I selected account settings on my current core, macbook pro, and it then spit me out to the login page where it asked for my authenticator token (code). Hmm, I seem to recall this logging into Outlook about 6 months ago… I look and find this rolling code for authenticator, plug it in Roon, and nothing. It won’t accept it- tried several times no dice. You can see my support ticket I put in Roon support forum 6 hours ago- no response yet.

So, point of my post, didn’t have a clue what the squeeze is- I have used Roon exclusively for the last 6 or so years. So I recall seeing it in the past, knowing it was a logitech app, and of course I see it on the Antipodes dashboard. I think I’ll give it a go, because I didn’t pay this money to just use this K50 as a renderer only. I look up the “squeeze” app on my iphone (i use as remote with Roon). I don’t see squeeze, other than some exercise apps- one was Kegel for men? who knew. I don’t see squeezebox, or squeeze player or anything. I search on internet and find this app from Germany but it is Android? No google play on iphone. Hmmm.

Well, about an hour of searching forums- this one included and no mention of what to do to use squeeze- nothing. What the hell is squeeze network player? How do I get it? So I just decided to click on the squeeze button on the solution dashboard, and it pops up? Seriously! it’s that easy! I don’t have to download something, login, buy any license? Okay you can all have a good laugh with me- but not at me :wink:

Okay, a few songs later, holy @#%$. I may never go back to Roon.

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Thank you for expressing your thoughts as you made me smile. Glad to hear you were able to land in the right place.

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You could have looked in the User Guide?

Yes, after I spent over an hour updating the unit from 4.1 to 4.4, rebooting it about a dozen times, I just went through the guide to insert the Samsung drive, set it up, and add files, and then step 5: setup playback: One can see the choices there, but with Roon one needs a license/subscription, which I have, and with HQPlayer one also needs a license/subscription, which I don’t have, would it be stretch to see someone who has never used squeeze before to assume the same?

That’s a very fair point.

@MarkCole it would help if there was an indication in the following and in the user guide as to which option are free and which require a license.

(I could be wrong that this isn’t mentioned in the user guide as I could swear that I saw it mentioned at one point).

Thanks for that link- There is a page I haven’t seen before.

Indeed, Applications>playback solutions looks more “support” related than “product” related .

There are new user guide videos for AMSv5, that will be up once v5 is released.

Also AMSv5 includes a new user onboarding walk thru.

No help for users on v4 etc, however we are making strides in ensuring new users find the experience an easy one.

I assume that your device being on v4 was purchased used?
For AMSv4 there are user guide videos located onsite.
Which shows launching Squeeze.

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Hello,
In the squeeze you have developed, is it possible to have the files presented in list form and not in table form as now, it would be much more readable for me.

This is rectified in AMSv5 with a list and folder view toggle.

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I found it- server dashboard at the bottom:

@MarkCole^ looks like a typo there Mark “best souding”

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The fact is that I am still on
image
witch is supposed to be up to date.
How can I get this AMSV5?
I have an S30

AMSv5 hasn’t actually been released yet, but is due quite soon.

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AMSv4.4 is the current version, AMSv5 is set for release shortly.
The update will be available in the AMS Dashboard
Sorry I should of been more specific in my response.

Tried Roon server/ squeeze player yesterday streaming from Qobuz (K22 running as a server player), not playing gapless. Roon as server and player is. I don’t know why or if there is any setting to achieve gapless playback with Roon/Squeeze. Squeeze/ Squeeze is gapless.
I try these combinations every now and then, always end up back with Roon. Different to some on Antipodes own forum, (including Antipodes saying their devices being optimised for Squeeze), I prefer Roon, it just seems a bit more relaxed to my hearing.
Although, it does seem to be a much more obvious difference with one DAC compared to another. Using Squeeze as either just the player or as server player out to the Aqua La Scala results in a much more noticeable difference, seems more energetic with Squeeze, I have more listening to do to understand this combination more.
Playing either Roon or Squeeze into a Playback Designs Merlot DAC via the Playback Designs StreamIf via either Ethernet or USB has much less of a difference, a much more energetic presence either way.

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