GitHub: github.com/dabooze/mopidy-qobuz
Goal: Stream Qobuz hi-res audio (up to 24bit/192kHz) to a Raspberry
Pi and remote-control it from my Mac. No existing tool did this
properly. So I built one.
The setup: Raspberry Pi running Mopidy (an extensible MPD-compatible
music server), connected to my DAC. I wanted to browse and play my
Qobuz library from any MPD client on the network. There was an
existing Mopidy-Qobuz extension by vitiko98, but it was immature —
missing features, rough edges, the kind of "works on my machine"
code that needs someone obsessive enough to actually finish it.
I'm that someone.
Philosophy: Need a tool? Build a tool. Or in this case: find a
half-built tool, fork it, and finish it properly.
Stack:
- Python (Mopidy extension API)
- Qobuz API (streaming, search, library browsing)
- Raspberry Pi (headless audio endpoint)
- Any MPD client (remote control from Mac/phone/whatever)
What I added:
- Favorite tracks browsing (tracks alongside Albums, Artists,
Playlists in the Favorites menu)
- Hi-res quality watermark on track titles (so you can see at a
glance which tracks are 24bit vs lossy)
- Various fixes to make it actually reliable
Learnings:
- Sometimes the best contribution is finishing what someone else
started. Not every project needs to be from-scratch heroics.
Fork, fix, ship.
- The audiophile pipeline (Qobuz → Pi → DAC) is the same
obsession that led to ChordKiller. This was the software side
of the same itch: get the best possible audio signal to the
best possible hardware.
- Open source done right: upstream gets the improvements, everyone
benefits, I get my hi-res remote jukebox. Everybody wins.
Timeline:
- 2025-12: Forked vitiko98/mopidy-qobuz, added favorites browsing
and hi-res watermarks. Scratched the itch. Moved on.
Status: Active. Public repo. The kind of small, focused utility that
just works and doesn't need constant attention. Peak engineering.