The control app thread

[Donuk]

Following up on a suggestion from a previous thread it might be an idea for us to have a thread listing the various control software that is about with some comments and opinions. So I will kick off.

I take for granted that all views are personal, none are right or wrong, and more importantly - in my experience - their usefulness very much depends upon what else you have in the system.

The most critical aspect seems to be the network and wifi itself. I constantly struggled with my own until I got it more or less fine. I now have - a Virgin superhub (in modem mode) into a Netgear router into a Netgear switch. So I get my wifi from my router in 5G. I have researched and found that superhubs (and similar from other suppliers) are notoriously unreliable when feeding hifi systems. I have a Melco, Minimserver, Linn streamer and an iPad.

So those control apps I have tried recently are (in no particular order):

Lumin - probably my favourite. Fast in searches, expandable graphics, but needs its own database updating when adding new music. Latterly has been unreliable in finding the streamer. Supports Tidal and Qobuz well.

Teac - copy of Lumin, older issue.

Esoteric - copy of Lumin, seems more reliable, colour a bit of a watery grey.

Linn Kinsky. An old favourite. Reliable. Still the best Linn offering IMHO.

Linn Kazoo The current Linn preferred software. I have never really got on with it. Keeps evolving.

Linn unnamed white software available in Testflight as a beta. Searches on hard disk and Qobuz simultaneously. Seems to have bugs. Last version will not "find room". Has a way to go.

Fidata - fun but buggy. Playlist keeps disappearing. No Qobuz although will play playlists made up elsewhere which include Qobuz items.

Audionet - crashes on opening nowadays.

All the above are available on my iPad. I do not know about availablility on other platforms (Kazoo is generally available for example).

Donuk beautiful downtown York.
PS how they each display metadata via Minimserver could well be a useful topic to explore. Sometimes Composer comes up in place of Artist and vici versa...... Again Lumin does it right for me, but I am willing to learn!