The smart stu – Cyrus Cadence
The Cyrus Cadence app controls the Lyric very e ectively, and was particularly good at ‘finding’ it when first opened. On just two occasions in a month of use the app jammed on either iPhone or iPad Pro, and both times an app reinstall fixed it. Cadence nicely fits a phone, with a neat input screen (right) from which you select a source then browse through the sub-menus, be they for TIdal, internet radio or your various networked and USB-connected music collections. While the Lyric could take a little while to connect each time to, say, a USB hard drive, this indexing period pays dividends, as therea er navigation was unusually speedy, with instant folder browsing where so many network systems take a moment to populate each screen or worse, fail to fill in scrolling lists as they scroll. None of that here
tracks started near instantly (and sounded fine indeed, see main review). This punctual playback goes to compensate for no apparent way to create a playback queue as you browse, other than a master and semi-permanent ‘network favourites’ list of up to 250 songs.
The Now Playing screen (right) shows artwork where available, and displays more metadata than most, and you can swipe sideways for more (bottom screengrab). Things can look fairly spacious on the tablet version, which adds only little volume buttons, though it’s far better to press the volume icon at top right (on either screen size) and enjoy the long and responsive volume slider that pops up.
Lacking, unless we missed them, were the main settings menus available only from the Lyric’s front panel, though the app does have a settings section dealing mainly with app things
including Tidal sign-in and a toggle that changes that virtual volume slider into a sexy but slightly less responsive giant rotary pot. Also under these settings is a master maximum for the whole amplifier, which was default set to -30dB. This applies only to the app, to sensibly stop you accidentally sliding to the max; the physical remote control can take you wherever your material may lead (you’ll certainly need more for quiet classical passages).
Cyrus Cadence is a simple enough app, with no multiroom abilities, but it proved pretty reliable and was especially good at speedy network and drive browsing.