Deezer HiFi for Denon HEOS and Denon / Marantz HEOS built-in devices

I switched my subscription to HiFi because of this announcements and there is only MP3 - 320 kbps on my Marantz NR1200 in HEOS display ‘now playing’. Should we wait on HEOS update? Any extra information would be helpful...

If I had to guess, I’d say the 3 most widely used audio component streaming hardware platforms globally are Sonos, Denon/Marantz Heos, and Yamaha MusicCast.

Deezer HiFi FLAC works on 2 of the 3, right?

I feel Deezer should make Denon/Marantz Heos a priority for HiFi FLAC, as Denon/Marantz AVRs and Processors are very popular.  Also, I believe that the folks who own traditional audio components and nice speakers are probably some of the more fervent people when it comes to sound quality, so getting Deezer HiFi FLAC to these systems would be of high interest to these people (self included).

If Deezer does implement HiFi FLAC on Denon/Marantz Heos, please implement Favorites/My Music.

While Amazon Music HD does play at full resolution on Denon/Marantz Heos, the lack of one’s personal library Favorites/My Music was a deal breaker for me personally, as you have to search for tracks/albums each time.

 @Rudi, in the Chromecast thread you said the Deezer HiFi now works with Heos.

However, like the poster above, I’m only getting 320 kbps MP3, so HiFi is not working.

Heos is on my Marantz AV7704 processor, which works with tracks up to 24 bit/192 kHz on Amazon Music HD and Qobuz.  Also, my Heos app is up to date.

Like the others i really want hifi via the heos app so that i can play hifi on my music marantz receiver. I have a hifi deezer account but i cant use it now!!

@Rudi  out of curiosity, what would you recommend to use to stream deezer hifi on a denon receiver, or any power Amp for that matter? I guess it's a broad question that does not only apply to deezer specifically but streaming services in general. Just wondering If you have any tips 

@JakobPra @Rudi I’m not sure if I understand JakobPra’s question: “What would you recommend to use to stream” - what kind of music, which gear (speakers)? When I compared Deezer HiFi to Spotify Free back then, I mentioned some tracks that I used and posted about it here and on Reddit. I also posted a photo of my ancient stereo gear somewhere (SAC 50T  mono power amps and Axton AX-80 3-way speakers). Or did I completely misunderstand the question?  And I don’t know anything about the Denon Heos system, but still own a very old Denon CD player, I think it might still be my most expensive single HiFi product - which I don’t use anymore. 

OK, thanks for clarifying. As Rudi has stated, theoretically Deezer HiFi = FLAC streaming at CD specs with 16bit and 44.1khz (which is not HiRes which would use a higher bit depth and sample rate) should already work on HEOS systems, I think. Please correct me if I am wrong, @Rudi. The display on your receiver might tell you it is still MP3 at 320kbps, but that may be wrong, e.g. the new Chromecast version is said to support HiFi streaming now as well, but the display cannot show this yet. It might be necessary to update the firmware of the Denon / Marantz receivers for example. So it’s up to the developers and/or product managers to dig deeper what is the true current state and then tell Rudi who will then tell it the community. 

In the meantime you could use your Deezer HiFi account on a laptop or desktop computer and connect it via cable to your receiver, maybe with an external DAC between them if you own one. I don’t, so my PC stereo 3.5mm line out jack is connected via adapter and two good short cinch cables to my SAC monos which are placed behind the speakers for similar short cable connections.

Another option might be the new Chromecast version with your phone if your Denon receiver can be connected via Chromecast. Bluetooth does not know the FLAC format, so this would not work and/or not be ideal for lossless FLAC streaming.

By the way, it’s a bank holiday in the UK today, so UK staff might not work at all, except from home due to the Corona virus of course.

As I am not familiar with the HEOS system, is there a way to find out the amount of transferred megabytes per song maybe? That way you could at least make an educated guess if a song is in MP3 at 320kbps or in FLAC with at least 2-3 times the size (depending on its content).

In my experience, Denon/Marantz AVRs and AVPs with Heos will display the actual streaming format that they are receiving.  This is visible within the Heos app, the AVR/AVP image sent to a TV, and by hitting the status button on the AVR/AVP.

Net, Deezer is apparently not able to stream FLAC to Heos.

Qobuz, Tidal, and Amazon Music HD do stream FLAC to Heos.  I’ve tried them all and Heos displays the full FLAC resolution, up to 24 bit/192 kHz, depending on the native track resolution.  Note that Qobuz requires BubbleUPnP to work with Heos, as there is no native Qobuz support on Heos.

I’m going to quit the Deezer trial due to lack of FLAC streaming to Heos.

I’m currently also running a Tidal trial.  From a Heos integration standpoint, Tidal is the best lossless/FLAC streaming service, IMO.  However, it costs more.

@Rudi, OK, I’ll watch this thread to monitor Deezer’s progress on FLAC with Heos, and may come back to Deezer HiFi if this gets resolved.

@e1n Do you mean the display of the Deezer app on your iPhone or on your Denon network player? As far as I know (not using any Apple devices), AirPlay2 theoretically could at least support lossless streaming, because it knows ALAC which is the Apple equivalent to FLAC unlike Bluetooth which does not know FLAC. I am not sure if the FLAC stream coming from Deezer is converted somewhere to ALAC via Airplay, but available descriptions of Airplay suggest it does this automatically with all input sources - another question for @Rudi and/or involved developers and product managers. 

Great, but I think this hasn’t been mentioned or announced anywhere yet, or am I wrong? Anyway, @e1n yes you can, and your question was not stupid at all.  In the meantime I have also read about new iPhones and iOS versions supporting the FLAC format out of the box (e.g. with local FLAC files) which did not work for a long time either.

Hi. I tried to stream the same song with Deezer HiFi and Tidal HiFi on my Denon AVR X4500 via HEOS App. The info panel in the HEOS App shows just MP3 320 kbps streaming with Deezer, but when streaming with Tidal it shows FLAC 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.

I also checked the transfer rate on my router while streaming. It's not accurate, but you can clearly see the difference between Deezer and Tidal.