What shall I do after my horrible experience with Volumio and Musical Fidelity MX-Stream?

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I’m an aging audiophile, and this is my first experience with streaming. My priorities are great sound, reliability, and a smooth user interface. I’m OK with paying a premium for a high-end sound system.

I already have an excellent DAC with a USB input, and I needed a way to connect Chrome, Spotify, and my ribbed CDs to this DAC. I did my research, and the Musical Fidelity MX-Stream seemed to be perfect for my needs. Little did I know. This has been the worst purchase in my life as an audiophile.

The full manual and the quick guide to using MX-Stream tell you all about how to download and use the software for controlling it, the’ MX-Stream app,’ which it says is free to download on Google Play. Both brochures have multiple photos of how to make everything work.

BUT THIS SOFTWARE DOES NOT EXIST. If you have an iPhone, you can get it, but for us Android users, the entire manual with screenshots of how to control the unit is pure fiction. Musical Fidelity pretends that it has built the software for us, but it hasn’t. You can Google all you want, but it’s not on Google Play, it’s not on the Musical Fidelity website, or anywhere else.

Moving forward, knowing that the marketing material and the manual from Musical Fidelity contain untruths, I started setting up the unit with Volumio and with a degree of suspicion. What else would prove to be untrue?

And boy, was I right to be suspicious! My descent into Musical Fidelity hell had just begun.

Using Volumio, I connected the unit to my wifi; I can control it from the web browser on my PC. It can log into Spotify; it can show my audio files on my HDD connected to the USB input of the streamer. But …

• When I try to play my own files, I get an error message saying:" Failed to open ALSA device." hw:5,0": No such file or directory.

• When I try to play web radio, I get the same message.

• When I try to play Spotify, sometimes it works, but if I press" Skip to the next track," the device freezes, and I have to reboot it. Sometimes Spotify is frozen; other times, it plays, but no music comes out; often, it will play only one second of a song and then stop. I can then press" Play" again and again and hear one-second bits of the entire song. Sometimes it’s dead, and I get the error message:" Spotify API error."
I am still trying to figure out any underlying system in this avalanche of errors. If I want to see my Spotify playlists, the MX-Stream only shows one; the rest are weirdly gone. If I want to see my liked songs, it shows recently played songs instead.

• When my SSD was connected to the unit, Spotify wouldn’t play. I had to disconnect the SSD for Spotify to start. I tried connecting an HDD instead to see if the external media storage might cause the problems, but that left streamer unable to connect to the wifi.

• And then there’s the Bluetooth option. Here’s one point where the manual is correct and straightforward. It says that you can’t use Bluetooth from a Windows computer. One sentence buried deep into the" full manual", like it’s no big deal. But it is! It’s a huge deal that you can’t use the unit with Windows.

I have lost count of how many times I have rebooted my Musical Fidelity MX-Stream; I’ve tried numbers of settings and connections. I’ve double-checked my DAC, which is recognized by the MX-Stream and works fine as long as the MX-Stream is out of my system.

Sometimes my MX-Stream will play, and then I must say it sounds great. I love the sound. But I’ve spent countless hours trying to get it to play, and during these hours, I’ve had, in all, 20 minutes of beautiful music at entirely unpredictable times.

Here’s my question for you.

There’s no doubt I’m returning this unit. But should I give Volumio and Musical Fidelity one more chance? Is this a single defective unit? Or is it just how Volumio and Musical Fidelity always are? Bear in mind, I’m new to streaming.

Should I ask my dealer for another sample of the MX-Streamer and hope that it will work the next time? Or should I abandon Volumio and Musical Fidelity for good?

There are other streamers with a USB output for DAC that I could get instead. This one might be an option https://ifi-audio.com/products/zen-stream/

Please remember, my priorities are great sound, reliability, and a smooth user interface. I don’t mind paying for this. But I need a product that WORKS.

What are your experiences with Volumio and Musical Fidelity? What shall I do?

Please help.

Thank you

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Sorry to hear this. Your comment contains many questions. In my opinion, you could suffice with a relatively ‘cheap’ streamer solution when you would use a Raspberry Pi4 (or equivalent single board computer), set it up with the latest Volumio software, connect the unit to your DAC (USB in). Basically, this is all you need if you want clean and bit perfect transport to your DAC. It is highly unlikely that more expensive streamers would add to the sound quality, apart from colouration (like in e.g. tube streamers). Volumio let’s you organise and choose from your music sources quite easily, has a large collection of plugins to customise your needs even further (like FusionDSP for room optimisation) but there may be a learning curve if you’re put off by working with a web interface or making some optimisation tweaks yourself. For most of us on this forum, this is part of the fun of working with Volumio. Volumio developers are open to suggestions and respond quickly to issues with the software. If you prefer turnkey solution, ifi might indeed provide a nice selection of gear.

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Yes, I know a lot of you think all this learning and tweaking and developing is great fun. I did too some years ago. But yes, now I do prefer turnkey solutions. :blush:

OK, IFI might be it. This is your suggestion for me?

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I’ve no personal experience with the brand for streamers (perhaps others on this platform?) but these units tend to measure well and are sold at a reasonable price (albeit 4x the price of a Pi4, I expect without any noticeable SQ difference, and apparently also without out-of-the-box Volumio support). [Edit: ifi streamers do seem to use a customised version of Volumio].

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I agree with the above. Let a Raspberry Pi do the streaming and connect to a good USB DAC.

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Thank you very much for your help. :smiley:

I can see on this forum that people have a never-ending array of problems (and a lot of fun) with the constantly evolving open-source Volumio software.

Apparently, the Musical Fidelity streamer is a thin layer on top of Raspberry Pi hardware and Volumio software. I suppose this means that the needed software for this streamer is in constant development. I’ll forever be the tester of Musical Fidelity’s semi-finished product.

This is not what I’m searching for. I prefer a rock solid, finished and polished, professional product. And I’m willing to pay the extra price to get it.

Do any of you have experience with the software for the IFI streamer? Is that also Volumio software with some tweaking?

Do you know of any other streamers with USB outputs that’ll play out of the box and continue to play, without me needing to learn to write computer code?

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No experience with the IFI, but it looks good. If I had the budget I’d look at Volumio’s own hardware. That is purpose built to get the most out of the software. And is fully supported.

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As I understand how streaming devices work, they need an operating system and some dedicated sound processing software, that will need some care (=updates) from time to time. The latest Volumio supports automatic updates, which is quite nice to stay up-to-date. Actually, this is a good thing, not only for your online safety, but also to keep your device fully functional (it has happened even with larger brands like NAD that a broken Spotify API in a digital DAC/streamer could not be fixed, which was end of story for the owner…). The time to set the thing up will also depend on the services you want to use on the device. With Volumio, there have been some issues using the Spotify plugin in the past, which seem to have been resolved by the team in the latest release of the plugin. Qobuz an Tidal work natively in Volumio, which requires only minimal setup and no programming skills. If you like the ifi solution you might ask a local dealer (or tech savvy friend) to help you with setting the thing up for you?

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I recently bought Volumio’s own Rivo streamer, after having happily used a Pi4 and DigiOne hat for quite a while (no fiddling necessary, by the way). I am very satisfied with the sound of the Rivo and it worked out of the box with my Heed Obelisk DAC. I am using Qobuz and SSD as sources which work flawlessly (haven’t got Tidal or Spotify). The whole setup worked after 10 minutes or so and works every since. In my experience, Volumio is very stable now for some time and Version 3 improved the sound noticeably. Works well with various browsers on my laptop as well as the Volumio app under Android. The problems you read about in this forum often concern unusual use cases, extensions, or older versions of Volumio. The fact that you can update the OS is an advantage IMO. I have no idea what kind of agreement Musical Fidelity has with Volumio. Obviously, there could be all kinds of problems with the specific hardware used in the MX. If you have a physical dealer, why not bring your MX there and try it out with his setup to exclude you have a faulty device?

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Please keep in mind it’s not that Volumio + rPi are unstable. the problem is the 1000 different combinations you can make and plugins that can be added. If you develop SW like volumio, you can’t test it on 1000 of different combinations/configurations. So there will always be some fiddling around.
The units that are under full control of Volumio, Primo, Integro and Rivo are pretty stable, so is about 40% of all thinkable combinations.

I have used some high-end gear in the past, which I could throw away as the vendor couldn’t solve changes of streaming service by a software update.

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@Beauty-and-the-bit
I have had a good experience with the iFi NEO Stream.
If you want a (fairly) seamless experience, it is probably best to choose a streamer / DAC combination that does away with any interface issues between streamer and DAC. The iFi NEO Stream is such a combination. The streamer part of NEO Stream runs Volumio.
Pls be aware that the NEO Stream only manages local and NAS drives through Volumio. For Qobuz and Tidal you need to use the mConnect app. Having said that, I have found using this combination relatively painless.
Another possibility would be to use a Bluesound device with the associated Bluesound App.

I would strongly advise to use an integrated off the shelf solution. After 65, life is simply too short to deal with unnecessary hassles.
:grinning:

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I would love to buy an integrated streamer-DAC combo, but unfortunately, that is not possible.

My Windows PC has no problem driving my DAC with a standard Windows driver, but actually, my DAC is special; it is not even a DAC; it’s a “DCC” – that is, a digital-to-digital converter.

My DCC is made by Berkeley Audio Design, and the model is their ‘Alpha USB.’ It converts a USB signal into the digital AES/EBU signal that is standard in professional recording studios. This signal is then fed into my Genelec studio monitors, which use a separate DAC for each speaker unit. That is why a streamer with a USB output for DAC is a must-have for me.

I know that my DCC is from a small and rarely seen company, but my Windows PC uses a standard Windows driver for it, and it works.

Yes, it might be that my DCC causes problems for my streamer, but, after all, the streamer can play music (beautifully) through it some of the time. It seems to me that the SSD that I, at one point, had connected to the streamer’s USB input might be a more likely culprit.

It’s my impression that the streamer was more reliable back when I had nothing connected to the USB input. I then connected an HDD with my music files, and Spotify went bad.

I quickly decided that I didn’t like the constant hiss of the HDD, so I changed it to a Western Digital 1TB SSD. After that, my streamer became even more unreliable. The streamer has no problem updating the music folder with the files on the SSD. But it can’t play the files, and then other issues also kept piling on.

Disconnecting the SSD and rebooting the streamer changes nothing. And after having the SSD connected, my streamer also can’t play from the HDD.

I did not expect that HDDs and SSDs and DACs that a Windows PC can handle in a few seconds, will cause never-ending trouble for a music streamer. The Musical Fidelity manual mentions nothing about it.

I’m new to streaming; is this the nature of all Raspberry Pi-based streamers?

Thank you again

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@Beauty-and-the-bit
Have I understood correctly, that you are describing the following configuration in your original post?

Ethernet → Musical Fidelity MX Stream (with Volumio) → Berkeley USB → Genelec Speakers

Musical Fidelity was sold to Project in 2018. This would suggest that the MX Stream is basically a repackaged ProJect StreamBox Ultra S2. I had a StreamBox Ultra S2 some years ago and it wasn’t the most stable product. So the MX Stream may also be sub par. What you are seeing is not a symptom of inherent instability of the Volumio environment, but issues with the Volumio OEM adaptation produced for Musical Fidelity. Volumio gets updated about once a month for the mainstream platforms (Intel, Raspberry) but only about once a year for OEMs. If the OEM does not want to invest into an update, it does not get updated at all.
There may be a second issue. The Berkeley USB is an outstanding but quite old product (I had a Berkeley Alpha DAC around 15 years ago). It is not using a standard XMOS USB chipset at its USB input. It may well be that it is using a bespoke solution that USB Kernels do not cater for. Windows seems to work as you describe.

Does anyone reading this know what USB chipset the Berkeley USB uses and whether this is officially supported by Volumio?

What to do?
I suggest not to bother with the MX Stream. Life is too short. Get a (used) NUC. That will give you two possibiities:

  • Put Windows on it. That will work for sure. You can operate this from a laptop using Remote Desktop.
  • Put Volumio on it. That will most likely work and should get rid of the issues that you saw. Whether Volumio works with the Berkeley USB cannot be guaranteed. It should, as you were successful before your troubles started with Spotify, external HDs / SSDs etc.

I have found the x86 (Intel) Version of Volumio to be the most stable and bug free (vs Raspberry).

Hope this helps

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@Beauty-and-the-bit
There is another path you could follow, that would also simplify your installation and save you the effort of configuring a NUC:

  • Get an iFi NEO Stream (using just its streaming capabilities) or a Volumio Rivo. They both have an AES output that you can connect directly to the Genelecs
  • Sell the Berkeley USB. The Berkeley being a product with legendary status, you should be able to get a good price for it

I have both the iFi NEO Stream and the Rivo and I am very happy with both

.

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Hi,

Indeed it seems each update of Volumio comes with it’s shares of problems. BUT your problems appear on some “basic” functions so I highly doubt they are Volumio related.

For me the major problem is, you’re trying to use Volumio, which a streamer software" with a device that also does streaming on it’s own.

If two devices are trying to do the same tasks, maybe some interference may be expected ?

So as a starter, I’d decide if I want to stream with MF or Volumio.

If you go for Volumio, I understand you don’t want the fuss as it may sound complicated. Should you wish, I can try to help you step by step and you’ll see it is super easy, provided you have a Raspberry Pi and you have some knowledge on “flashing a SD card” :wink:

Those are the 2 only pre-requisites to use Volumio ona Raspberry pi. Really…

Of course there are also other solutions to almost get rid of all devices :slight_smile:

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It seems like Mobile Fidelity uses a OEM version of Volumio in their streamer.

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Found this review on Audio Appraisal that gives a lot of detailed information including the software that is used (or can be used).

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Thank you, for your help. Yes, this seems to be a good way to go. That way I’ll also be able to control my Genelec monitors through the remote desktop.

On the downside, I think that a USB signal from the Musical Fidelity provides vastly superior SQ to a USB signal from my Win11 PC. I’m going to check that out later. I haven’t been able to make a direct comparison yet, because the Music Fidelity stops working all the time.

Yes, this is correct — except that I’m using wifi, and not Ethernet.

Wow, I did not know that. Yes, I might go that way.

At the moment, my MX-Stream is back at the dealer, along with my DAC and my SDD. He’ll see if he can make it work.

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I only have one streamer. It’s the Music Fidelity MX-Stream. This commercial product is built on top of Volumio and a Raspberry Pi foundation, adding a few tweaks and hardware improvements. It’s supposed to have the same benefits, only with better hardware, and then also to take out all the hassle of setting up the system yourself. It’s marketed as an easy-to-use product.

Wow, that is SO kind of you. I love everyone’s dedication to your “Volumio brothers” on this forum. :smiley:

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Hi,

Oh… Did not knew that :slight_smile:

Since we are at alternatives, I would have a question : do you own a recent and decent DAP ?

If you have a decently recent DAP that is powered by Android, there is something really simple you can consider :

  • the DAP can be used as a streamer + DAC + headphone amplifier or, witrh adapter, as pre-amp ;
  • the DAP can be used as a streamer (assuming the USB port can be used as digital, but that is generally possible) ;
  • the DAP can be used as a DAC + headphone amp or pre-amp.

Mind you, I have recently performend some testings to find out that the integrated headphone amp in the DAP was better than my desktop headphone amp… Of course slightly less powerful, but sufficient to drive all my headphones.

So if you have an Android powered DAP, this can be o pretty hassle-free and least expensive option :slight_smile:

So you could have :

  • your music sent to Volumio and set your DAP to “USB DAC” and set Volumio to output sound to USB so the DAC is used as a DAC ;
  • you can install an app that will turn your DAP into a renderer (BubbleUPnP, Neutron or UAPP). So your music is sent directly to the DAP (no more Volumio in this case :frowning: ) and you can then use the DAP directly as a headphone AMP or, with an adapter (3.5 to double RCA) as a pre-map ;
  • you can install an APP like Neutron or USB Audio Player Pro that will then allow you to use the DAP as a streamer and ouput the sound to your USB DAC… (no more Volumio in this use case scenario either :frowning: )

But that requires just to install 1/2 apps and push some buttons :slight_smile:

Regards.