IFi Zen Stream with Qobuz

Yeah, search is not a Qobuz strength even on their website and I’ve mentioned it to them.  I get around the spelling issue by just typing in the name of the artist and then pull up their albums or songs in that area.   I didn’t notice any notable lag in searching when searching in the HD version, and although I’m not sure I think HD gives you more unlimited access to hi-res recordings.  I just saw several people having issues with the free version, so for 6 bucks I thought I’d just avoid the hassle. 

The free versions are meant to be used with their own streaming hardware like the Bridge II in the Directstream DAC's.  You need to use the $6 version to get the best results.  Still it will never be as good as one of the dedicated apps from companies like Aurender, Auralic, Lumin or Innuos.  It just does it's job in a workmanlike fashion and that is all.  Though not my favorite I've never had a problem getting it to do what I needed.  It's a "catch all" app just like Bubble for Android. 

As of today (12/23/2022), the free version, Mconnect Player Lite, is working smoothly with ifi ZS in the AIO mode on iphone for streaming music from Qobuz. It has most of features you need such as gapless play. If you need track sorting which I don’t really care for, go with Mconnect Player. The sound quality is really good, just a tad better than playing the files from SSD via USB but I am spliting the hair. Both are noticeably better than playing / steaming music out of MS-window PC / Macbook. I start streaming music from Qobuz from now on because of the SQ, convenience and grand selection of music of all genres. I think $120 per year is well worth it.

Note that, after you setup the ifi ZS player and Mconnect Player, for some reasons it may take a few hours (in my case) for ifi / iFi icon to eventually show up in the UPnP devives field. Just be patient.

Audirvana 2.2 works well UPnP with DLNA and should work well with the Zen Stream. I'm using it right now in my system but don't use the ZS.

I've heard the Zen Stream is tricky setting up as AIO (All In One) is the best way to get started. But I would give a shot to Audirvana 2.2 as that solution will get you hooked up with Qobuz pronto.

I like Qobuz and use it as the quality is consistently superb. 

I like Qobuz better than Tidal primarily because, although they both have similar number of songs (90 millions), the Qobuz has more newer productions. For example, Qobuz has the albums of Beady Belle, the female singer I like, after 2020 but lacks the prior albums that Tidal only has. With the mid-level suscription, you get higher resolution of music up to 24/192 while Tidal entiled you up to CD quality only.

In terms of mconnect vs Audirvana, I was advised that, technically, the quality of streaming using Audirvana or mconnect is the same. The sound quality of streaming mainly depends on the quality of the (dedicated) streamer, the usb/spdif interface quality and/or internet network. iFi ZS has purified spdif and ANC on usb which suppress jitters and sounds quite nicely if not surpassing the streamers many times of its price.

As such, there is no obvious reasons using the paid Audirvana while one can be well served by the free or one time minimal charge mconnect player. At least for me ...