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Good service from Luna Display. I received a return merchandise authorisation (RMA) and mailing label within an hour of e-mailing them. See post #20-24 for my experience with Luna Display and my reasons for the return.

I haven't decided yet whether this will be a refund or an exchange for the USB-C version. I'll be trying Luna Display with the current 12.9" iPad Pro, which will have a bearing on that decision.
 
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I've now tried Luna Display with a 12.9" iPad Pro. The iPad screen capture below is full size.

I'm still impressed with the technology. However...

Enabling Retina resolution delivers less than Retina; acceptable if using Luna Display for something like a Lightroom palette, but I certainly wouldn't use it to edit a photograph.

The iPad screen is pretty responsive, but with a 12.9" iPad and Retina enabled there is no getting around the fact that there is noticeable lag. Tolerance for this will vary.

It's a good solution for some purposes if you don't want to purchase, or don't have room for, a second monitor.

It's also a good solution if you want to use an application for which there is no suitable iOS equivalent. For the screen capture, I used the Qobuz app on my 2014 mini. This made it possible to stream music from my mini and its audio interface. With the Qobuz app on an iPad, the music streams from the iPad itself, which due to the iPad's inferior preamp provides noticeably lower quality in the absence of additional hardware. For iTunes, Apple's iTunes Remote app plus Home Sharing is a far better solution than Luna Display.

If I decide to keep Qobuz (I'm using it on a 30 day trial), I may keep the Luna Display unit notwithstanding that I now have an RMA to return it. I haven't ruled out using Luna Display as a second monitor for applications like Lightroom, but I would not do this with an iPad less than 12.9", and so far I'm not sold on the idea even with the largest iPad.

ipad.jpg
 
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Further to the above post...

I just tried Luna Display on my 10.5" iPad Pro, without Retina enabled, to control the Qobuz app on my mini.

I must say that this works extremely well. Lag is negligible, and it gets around the sound quality problem of using the Qobuz iPad app. If Luna Display works well with Qobuz, it should work equally well for other music streaming apps, such as TIDAL and Spotify, if you want to play the music through a computer audio interface.

This works so well that I think that Luna Display is a selling point in my decision whether to continue with a Qobuz subscription. I can see using Qobuz and Luna Display as a package.
 
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I've been meaning to test what Luna Display would do if I turn off my main monitor and/or unplug its HDMI cable.

It turns out that Luna Display lets me use an iPad, via WiFi, as my mini's sole display. In other words, the primary display does not have to be on/connected.*

This broadens its utility, although I still think that there's a fundamental limitation, which is that it only makes sense to use it if there is not an iOS app that can do the job.

However, if you want to do work that doesn't have iOS support, and you don't have a standard monitor at hand, it looks to me like Luna Display is a solution.

*As Jonathan Morrison says in his video (post #11), you need to use a primary display during Luna Display's initial setup, but it appears that the primary display is unnecessary thereafter.
 
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The final piece of this puzzle is to decide what music streaming service to use, which in turn has an impact on the utility of Luna Display.

The decision turns on whether I’m going to continue purchasing music, which is what I've done historically, or instead stop buying and go exclusively with streaming.

If the former, my choice is Apple Music. I've decided to go with iTunes for my personal music library (see earlier posts), I like the radio stations (especially Beats 1, BBC World Service, National Public Radio and Public Radio International)*, the music catalogue is comprehensive and AAC quality is fine for auditioning albums that I may want to purchase and for listening on an iPad or iPhone. On this scenario, Luna Display has no role for the reasons explained earlier. Cost of Apple Music for AAC streaming: US$100/year.

If I stop buying music, I want access to 16-bit (aka CD quality) recordings. This means Idagio, TIDAL, Deezer or Qobuz. I like Idagio’s interface and editorial content, but it specializes in classical music and my interests are broader. I like TIDAL’s inclusion of music videos, but find it unappealing otherwise; TIDAL is too slanted editorially toward popular music, and I don’t want to subscribe to a service that promotes a proprietary, indeed secret, audio codec.

Perhaps the people behind Deezer think that they are being helpful, but I found the service annoyingly intrusive. It took me awhile to figure out how to navigate the Qobuz app (it’s worth taking time to watch their tutorial), but unlike Deezer the service knows its place/stays in the background, the catalogue is fairly comprehensive and its playlist and offline listening features work well. If I go with Qobuz, Luna Display is a welcome complement. Cost of Qobuz for 16-bit streaming: $200/year.

Here are the annual costs of Apple Music and Qobuz translated to the cost of purchasing single 16-bit albums at ~$13 per download:

Apple Music: 7.7 albums
Qobuz: 15.4 albums

Haven't decided yet which way to jump, but it’s doubtful that I have the discipline to stop buying music :)

* You don’t have to pay for Apple Music to listen to the radio stations, but having the two rolled together in one app is from my point of view convenient.
 
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Somewhat to my own surprise, it looks like I'm going with Qobuz + Luna Display for music streaming.

Next week, I'm attending a concert at Carnegie Hall, and I decided to use Apple Music (AAC) and Qobuz (16-bit) to preview two of the pieces on the programme. The main event at this concert is a new piano concerto by the English composer Thomas Adès. Being new, it hasn't been recorded by anyone, although the Boston Symphony has uploaded a brief rehearsal video (see below).

However, the undercard, if I can call it that, consists of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. For the former, I listened to Sir George Solti's 1975 recording, and for the latter Vladimir Jurowski's 2017 recording (see photo, post #27). I used good open back headphones (Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro) and a good audio interface (Sound Devices USBPre2).

In my previous post, I said that I think Apple Music AAC is fine for making decisions about whether to purchase a recording. Indeed, I think it's fair to say that Apple Music and Qobuz are close enough on Jurowski's 2017 Tchaikovsky recording to defend that statement. However, the older 1975 Solti recording left my belief in shreds. Apple's AAC stream sounds distant and rather lifeless. The Qobuz stream is noticeably more present and alive. I can't explain this, but I'm satisfied that it isn't my mind playing tricks.

Unless this Solti recording is an exception, the lesson is that AAC recordings, for me at least, are not a reliable proxy when making purchasing decisions.

That pushes me toward Qobuz, complemented by Luna Display, and toward serious consideration of ceasing to purchase music in favour of streaming.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty excited about this concert. Here's the video that the Boston Symphony has uploaded, with the composer, Thomas Adès, conducting, and Kirill Gerstein, for whom Adès wrote the concerto, at the piano:




This is the New York Times review of the first performance of the concerto in Boston on 7 March: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/arts/music/piano-concertos-thomas-ades-john-adams.html

If you're in Germany, the concerto will be performed in Leipzig on 26 April: https://www.gewandhausorchester.de/spielplan/
 
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Good luck on letting go of music purchasing. I myself can't relinquish the idea that a piece of music I really like or love can suddenly disappear if I only access via streaming.
 
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Good luck on letting go of music purchasing. I myself can't relinquish the idea that a piece of music I really like or love can suddenly disappear if I only access via streaming.

I get that completely.

Historically, I've purchased a CD or download if I intend to play music at home. Changing to streaming is a psychological challenge. However, if I'm going to pay Qobuz the equivalent of 15-16 albums a year I need to get a grip on the economics. Buying albums on top of that is not clever.

For me, there are three real upsides to streaming. I play the piano, and sometimes it's useful to listen to how others perform a piece. Streaming lets me do this without purchasing CDs/downloads for what is sometimes just one to three tracks.

It will also be handy when I'm making a video and want to test a few styles of music. I hate faffing about with on-line services that sell music for film/video, and streaming will help avoid them until I know exactly what I'm looking for.

Finally, I liked being able to hear music that will be performed at the concert that I'm attending next week (post just above). I don't own a recording of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz, and I don't plan to purchase one, but it was nice to be able to hear it in advance. Qobuz expands what I can listen to way beyond my personal library; and it also makes it easy to stay abreast of new releases.

Anyway, I've now sorted out the respective roles of the 2014 and 2018 minis, and figured out what hardware, applications and services I need to make it all work. Learned a fair bit in the process, too.

Cheers
 
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Further to post #31, the concert was great. Full house for Tom Adès conducting the Boston Symphony in performances of Liszt, Tchaikovsky and his own new piano concerto. I'm always impressed with the acoustics at Carnegie Hall, which work well even if you're up pretty high. The concert was recorded (see one of the microphone cables coming down from the ceiling), so we may see an album out of this.

If you're in Germany, the next performance of Adès's new concerto is in Leipzig in April. If you like modern music, for sure go.

Very happy with how the Luna Display unit is working out with the 2014 mini. I'm finding that it's good for Visual Studio and Terminal as well as the Qobuz app.

iPhone snapshot as the Boston Symphony was taking to the stage:

IMG_0228.jpg
 
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I know that some participants in this forum are involved in sound recording, so a P.S. for anyone wondering why the photo shows only one microphone cable coming down from the ceiling...

There was a second cable hanging 20'-25' to the left. It just isn't visible in the photo. Also, I might mention that from my vantage it looked like they were using Schoeps mikes, possibly DPA.

It is a certainty that Adès's new concerto will be released on an album, and they may have been recording with that in mind.

Coincidentally, if you go back to post #24, the first CD cover in the photo is of Adès's debut album, as a very young composer, in the 1990s :)
 
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Brief update after installing the MacOS Catalina public beta on the 2014 mini.

It turns out that the 2018 mini, but not the 2014, can use Catalina’s Sidecar feature for iPad. This means that purchasing Luna Display for the 2014 mini has not turned out to be redundant.

I’m also really happy with Apple’s decision to separate iTunes into three apps.
 
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Very interesting thread. I plan to use my iPad Pro as the only display for my new mini when I work away from home. For this, Luna is still the only option. I just hope lag will be minimal (enough).
 
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i just started using the Luna display with a mac to mac set up and having a problem with the audio in logic--which sounds scratchy etc. I also get the error while trying to synch Audio and Midi.

Any ideas on where top start looking for the problem,? It happened both with a MacBook and iPad with my 2018 Macmini. It doesn't matter if i use a sound card or headphones from the Mac mini.
 

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