PS Audio has launched a new streaming software called Maestro. As I don’t have a renderer, I can try it in my system but have started the 2 week trial to play with it around my home Sonos system.
It has worked well for me functionally. So far it only works on my MacBook. A phone app is in the works.
I am curious if one of you Renderer owners might try it in comparison to ROON??
Sits on Qobuz, I’ll try to take a look at some point. I wonder if the app has to live on a PC/MAC, or whether it will run on a headless NUC running Linux?
Non starter till the iOS apps come out though.
30 day free trial without a CC entry. $99/year for annual plan.
Competition is always fun.
It seems it only works on Windows or Mac OS right now but they are working on additional operating systems. It is beta software.
Not sure if they will have a Linux version.
I works fine on Cascade/Renderer. It works with all PCM/DSD except DSD 256 DoP (Native works fine) . It some how layers on top of Qobuz so you need a Qobuz subscription… it authenticates your Qobuz account.
It is pulling its streams from Qobuz. It also include a DSP (like Roon Muse), but that is not enabled yet, though you can look at its capabilities. It’s like an alternate interface to Qobuz.
I’ve only done enough to confirm it works with Renderer, I’ll get around to doing some listening later this week.
Dan
Hi Craig,
Thanks for pointing this out.
Dan
Thanks for digging in Dan.
It is a “Qobuz Connect” type of software but what caught my eye was its ability to also stream from a NAS which Qobuz Connect does not enable. I wonder how it may handle the overall library of your Qobuz favorites and local files. That integration is one of the stars of ROON for me.
I have poked at Maestro a little bit to try to understand what it brings to the table. I found two things.
Overall I think it is a pretty neat tool that is worth looking at.
First of all it is an alternate UI for Qobuz. At first glance, at least, I don’t see the Maestro UI as being better than the Qobuz one, but it is still very useful.
The second thing is pretty neat, the Prism Remastering Suite. Prism, I believe, is the tool that Octave Records (PS Audio) uses to do their final mixes. Note that this is similar to what Roon provides with it Muse processor, except that Maestro doesn’t depend on the performance of your computer to produce a result.
What Maestro gives you is a way to remaster tracks, that is use the final stereo mix and digitally edit it. I doesn’t let you, for example, fix the level of a particular insturment, you would need the original multrack recording to do that. But it does let you fix up a lot of other issues.
What makes it interesting, IMHO of course, is that you a fix a track, an album, or a zone… everythng you play. Maestro remembers what track, etc you made the fixes and recalls them when you play that track, etc. Pretty neat! You are actually making you own remastered recording!
You you can fix every track, etc to work the way you want it to work in your room… zone… device. You are able to make custom remixes for every way you listen to your music.
Of course once you make a remaster you are no longer playing a bit-perfect streams and you will introduce some distortion, but it may be too little to hear or it may end with an overall effect that is a plus. Only your ears can tell.
The Prism Matering Suite is disabled for now, but PS Audio says it will be turned on next month.
Dan
And digging a little deeper… the Prism Remastering Suite is an add on above the $99.00 Maestro subscriptions=.
I couldn’t find the pricing for Prism Remastering Suite.
Dan
I gave it a go just now. No trouble downloading and running the program. It did require my Qobuz login. This all worked fine. I did the sample rate verifications on the Renderer V2. It was also easy to point to my NAS music folder, and it is still working on “cataloging” that.
Initial impressions: I could not tell much discreet differences between the sound between Roon or Maestro. With my system, I can keep the volume the same on both (my usual biggest confounder) If I had to make any evaluation, I sensed a that the Maestro sound was a tiny bit brighter than the Roon.
My comments
There was the presence of artifact pops of sound as the Maestro system picked up the use of the renderer, and when it dropped off. If I delayed too much between songs, I would get some pops.
I really missed the ability to see whether the music file I was listening to was from local files, or Qobuz. As well, cosmetically it is the worse than Roon or JPlay
I am absolutely spoiled by the Apple TV app named TV:Remote, which can be connected to the Roon server, and display album art, and show Artist, Song/Album information, and song progress. (if you have Apple TV in your system, worth the $3) Its also possible that TV:Remote, or similar App will start to work with JPlay and Maestro if enough people use them.
This is the initial release, and I am certain it will improve. Adding the iOS apps would help with my usage. It is currently not as polished as Roon, nor as pretty as JPlay (which recently was updated to include the control of an HQ Player system)
In my opinion, Maestro is worth watching, but not displacing my lifetime Roon subscription at this point. I will say though, its been a fever pitch year of apps now competing well with Roon, which had little competition for so long. (foobar2000 and JRiver were the best 20 years ago too)
Dan & Michael,
Thank you for taking your time and providing such thorough feedback. Sounds like it’s too early for me to consider or make a decision to replace my i2S module with a Renderer 2 and move to this software.
I knew it would be a stretch to replace ROON so easily. I just have experience with both Squeeze and JPlay and they both sound better to me than ROON. Maybe once Maestro gets fully baked, it might be a contender.
Craig