Tidal and Squeezebox

I am running LMS on Ubuntu with a SBT in the bedroom talking to an NAD D3020  and a Mytek via USB in the living room. 

I run LMS on a Innous Zenith and a Synology NAS. 

• The Zenith is in my main system, it is synchronized with a SqueezeBox Duet connected to a secondary system in my rec room.
• The Synology NAS is connected to a Raspberry PI in my home office and 4 AirPlay speakers via the AirPlay bridge plugin in the family room, living room, and guest bedroom. 

I synchronize them all when I want true whole house stereo.

The Zenith plays MQA through my NAD M12 pre/dac.  I love the sound.

I replaced my squeezebox/computer set up with an Aurender N10 and the sound improvement is absolutely amazing.  

At 100X the cost of a Raspberry Pi setup, the Aurender better sound amazing.

I use the Touch for internet streaming, e g Tidal, but their Masters sound notably better in my home office (using a Steinberg UR22 DAC with the Windows Tidal interface) than through the Touch in my main rig in the living room. Mostly due to the 24 / 96 limit of the Touch (I think) and maybe also a bit due to a long ethernet cable. A dramatic demonstration: playing the same DSD recording of a vinyl LP either 1) through the Tascam DA3000 or 2) through the Touch. In analog terms - the Touch sounds like it is three more copies away from the master. This is tested using the Tascam DAC (not perfect, but clearly better than the Touch DAC), also when playing from the Touch.

I have grown to like the Touch for what it does, I like the server app too, and I wonder, what could be done, so that it could recognize DSD and pass it along unharmed - native or "raw". Without users paying a lot for big-term dacs or streamers with many options not needed.