DTS Play-Fi Has Major Design Flaws

Just created an account to say thank you for this act of public service. Oh how I wish I had come across this info much earlier, several years ago. I, like most others, got some very cheap Play Fi gear (clearance/thriftstore/used). I had delusions of this stuff working, multi-room and all. What I got instead was so much lost time, headaches, and useless expertise in the disaster of Play Fi software. I can now operate and set-up all this Play Fi stuff like a ninja, well, a hobbled-by-Play-Fi-ninja, just in time to realize it's a lost cause. It almost sort of works, but the manner in which it works is absolutely unacceptable. It is so clunky it frustrates and bewilders with its strange logic and strange function. Another issue with Play Fi speakers is that there is no input/output standardization. In other words, speakers from different brands will have all sorts of different I/O configurations. This is not flexibility; it is another inconsistency headache for the Play Fi end-user. Also, some Play Fi speakers re-broadcast line in to other Play Fi speakers, while other Play Fi speakers do not have this functionality. Because of the inconsistency, it is difficult for Play Fi customers to know what to expect from their Play Fi speakers. This is not good brand functionality. It leaves customers confused. And last I checked, to do "critical listening" mode, it wanted to do it with only one speaker! What is the point of one speaker critical listening mode? Seriously?

The speakers actually sound pretty good 3 Pioneer VAFW40s (were 4 but 1 died), 1 Klipsch RW1, 2DefTech W7s, plus a Phorus PR5 receiver). When played with good sources every speaker put out high quality sound. I got everything working such as groups, multi-room, stereo-pairs, broadcasting line-in to other Play Fi speakers, etc. These Play Fi speakers were never main/primary speakers thank God. The problem is not just the software, but the engineering, which makes any software improvement (whether bugs or features) irrelevant. It is so badly designed that it can barely, or often not at all, do what it promises it can do. That the speakers sound decent is a fact that exists only to tantalize and frustrate, because you will not have the freedom to actually access and experience your music without constraint. The Play Fi app experience sucks compared to the native Tidal application for instance. Although it can, if conditions are met, pass a high resolution signal to the speaker, Play Fi is a soul-less, illogical mess of engineering which subjects its users to experience its foundational design flaw: I never wanted my music to stream through my phone or tablet; of course, I simply wanted to use those as remote controls; and I wanted a short, direct, and sensible signal chain. DTS should abandon Play Fi. They should support existing Play Fi products for five years. In the meantime, Play Fi should start over and try again. It does not seem fair to ask engineers to fix Play Fi. I don't believe it is fixable. I'm guessing that Play Fi is such a mess that it could never be considered for Tidal Connect certification. 

It didn't help that my s/o is a computer engineer who was used to the bluetooth and sonos experiences. Anyhow she said wanted some patio speakers so I quickly volunteered two Pioneer VAFW40's (Play Fi speakers) for the job. I hung them under the eave with some fishing net, each in an adjacent corner. Tested them and they sounded good, even a little bass reinforcement from the corner placement. Then I helped her download the DTS Play Fi app (and also the Pioneer Play Fi app, just in case) and yes, it didn't go well. We set them up as a stereo pair. She could never understand Play Fi because she had basic expectations of what it should do. I would try and explain it to her. She had good questions. She had simple requests, like having her phone audio play on the patio speakers like bluetooth or like sonos does. That was a rough patch, but then her next request: she shows me her phone, and the horror, it was youtube!  What was I and Play Fi supposed to do with that? I wonder what techno-magic she'd experienced to even think to attempt such a thing? I mean in 2023, playing the audio of a video-stream wirelessly to some speakers? Is it possible? Yes, depending on which equipment is used. So I start to explain to her how Play Fi won't do that. Anyway, a few days go by, and she has more good questions and more simple requests. To each of her questions or requests, I had to answer, Play Fi won't do that. She would then explain that sonos, and yes even bluetooth, could fulfill her requests, then she would ask why these Play Fi speakers couldn't do simple things. The entire experience, everything, is controlled by the DTS Play Fi diluted crap version of the Tidal application. She would ask why the Play Fi speakers were better than sonos or even bluetooth when they could do less, and do it less easily? She understood Play Fi was broken (before it began) quicker than I did.

But there are some benefits of having some DTS Play Fi speakers. They teach you what you want and what you don't want. Good sound, yes. Bad foundational engineering, no. No, not at all. There now exists a product that does everything I want it to do. It's called the Wiim Pro. You might also look at their Wiim Mini. It is a bitperfect audio streamer that gets the signal directly into your audio chain without having it richochet through your phone non-sense. You can pair the Wiim Pro or mini with an inexpensive DAC like the SMSL SU-1, which gives you bit-perfect Tidal (with or w/out MQA, whatever your preference) to feed directly to your DAC. Since the Wiim Pro was well-engineered and can do Tidal Connect, none of the aforementioned headaches of Play Fi will afflict you. Tidal Connect is what Play Fi tried and failed to be. The combination of high resolution music with the easily directable Tidal Connect is the best music streaming experience I've found to date. It is the experience of the the Wiim Pro with Tidal Connect which has taught me that Play Fi is unusable for me. The Wiim Pro can also do your TV audio via its optical input. 

But all is not lost if you still have Play Fi speakers. Things you can do with Play Fi speakers:

*Initiate the divorce of an otherwise happy couple

*Some can be used as decent Alexa speakers

*Throw a bluetooth dongle on it

*Put a Wiim Mini streamer on it, but that is an expensive solution for a broken speaker, or a Chromecast Audio (if you can find one)

*Donate them to a thriftstore

*Give them away to someone you don't like

*Use as landfill material

*Though not rated for the outdoors, Play Fi speakers hung under an eave have a lifespan of about 1.5 years

*Paper weight

*Target practice

*Boat Anchor

24 minutes ago, Jethro said:

Just created an account to say thank you for this act of public service. Oh how I wish I had come across this info much earlier, several years ago. I, like most others, got some very cheap Play Fi gear (clearance/thriftstore/used). I had delusions of this stuff working, multi-room and all. What I got instead was so much lost time, headaches, and useless expertise in the disaster of Play Fi software. I can now operate and set-up all this Play Fi stuff like a ninja, well, a hobbled-by-Play-Fi-ninja, just in time to realize it's a lost cause. It almost sort of works, but the manner in which it works is absolutely unacceptable. It is so clunky it frustrates and bewilders with its strange logic and strange function. Another issue with Play Fi speakers is that there is no input/output standardization. In other words, speakers from different brands will have all sorts of different I/O configurations. This is not flexibility; it is another inconsistency headache for the Play Fi end-user. Also, some Play Fi speakers re-broadcast line in to other Play Fi speakers, while other Play Fi speakers do not have this functionality. Because of the inconsistency, it is difficult for Play Fi customers to know what to expect from their Play Fi speakers. This is not good brand functionality. It leaves customers confused. And last I checked, to do "critical listening" mode, it wanted to do it with only one speaker! What is the point of one speaker critical listening mode? Seriously?

 

The speakers actually sound pretty good 3 Pioneer VAFW40s (were 4 but 1 died), 1 Klipsch RW1, 2DefTech W7s, plus a Phorus PR5 receiver). When played with good sources every speaker put out high quality sound. I got everything working such as groups, multi-room, stereo-pairs, broadcasting line-in to other Play Fi speakers, etc. These Play Fi speakers were never main/primary speakers thank God. The problem is not just the software, but the engineering, which makes any software improvement (whether bugs or features) irrelevant. It is so badly designed that it can barely, or often not at all, do what it promises it can do. That the speakers sound decent is a fact that exists only to tantalize and frustrate, because you will not have the freedom to actually access and experience your music without constraint. The Play Fi app experience sucks compared to the native Tidal application for instance. Although it can, if conditions are met, pass a high resolution signal to the speaker, Play Fi is a soul-less, illogical mess of engineering which subjects its users to experience its foundational design flaw: I never wanted my music to stream through my phone or tablet; of course, I simply wanted to use those as remote controls; and I wanted a short, direct, and sensible signal chain. DTS should abandon Play Fi. They should support existing Play Fi products for five years. In the meantime, Play Fi should start over and try again. It does not seem fair to ask engineers to fix Play Fi. I don't believe it is fixable. I'm guessing that Play Fi is such a mess that it could never be considered for Tidal Connect certification. 

 

It didn't help that my s/o is a computer engineer who was used to the bluetooth and sonos experiences. Anyhow she said wanted some patio speakers so I quickly volunteered two Pioneer VAFW40's (Play Fi speakers) for the job. I hung them under the eave with some fishing net, each in an adjacent corner. Tested them and they sounded good, even a little bass reinforcement from the corner placement. Then I helped her download the DTS Play Fi app (and also the Pioneer Play Fi app, just in case) and yes, it didn't go well. We set them up as a stereo pair. She could never understand Play Fi because she had basic expectations of what it should do. I would try and explain it to her. She had good questions. She had simple requests, like having her phone audio play on the patio speakers like bluetooth or like sonos does. That was a rough patch, but then her next request: she shows me her phone, and the horror, it was youtube!  What was I and Play Fi supposed to do with that? I wonder what techno-magic she'd experienced to even think to attempt such a thing? I mean in 2023, playing the audio of a video-stream wirelessly to some speakers? Is it possible? Yes, depending on which equipment is used. So I start to explain to her how Play Fi won't do that. Anyway, a few days go by, and she has more good questions and more simple requests. To each of her questions or requests, I had to answer, Play Fi won't do that. She would then explain that sonos, and yes even bluetooth, could fulfill her requests, then she would ask why these Play Fi speakers couldn't do simple things. The entire experience, everything, is controlled by the DTS Play Fi diluted crap version of the Tidal application. She would ask why the Play Fi speakers were better than sonos or even bluetooth when they could do less, and do it less easily? She understood Play Fi was broken (before it began) quicker than I did.

But there are some benefits of having some DTS Play Fi speakers. They teach you what you want and what you don't want. Good sound, yes. Bad foundational engineering, no. No, not at all. There now exists a product that does everything I want it to do. It's called the Wiim Pro. You might also look at their Wiim Mini. It is a bitperfect audio streamer that gets the signal directly into your audio chain without having it richochet through your phone non-sense. You can pair the Wiim Pro or mini with an inexpensive DAC like the SMSL SU-1, which gives you bit-perfect Tidal (with or w/out MQA, whatever your preference) to feed directly to your DAC. Since the Wiim Pro was well-engineered and can do Tidal Connect, none of the aforementioned headaches of Play Fi will afflict you. Tidal Connect is what Play Fi tried and failed to be. The combination of high resolution music with the easily directable Tidal Connect is the best music streaming experience I've found to date. It is the experience of the the Wiim Pro with Tidal Connect which has taught me that Play Fi is unusable for me. The Wiim Pro can also do your TV audio via its optical input. 

 

But all is not lost if you still have Play Fi speakers. Things you can do with Play Fi speakers:

*Initiate the divorce of an otherwise happy couple

*Some can be used as decent Alexa speakers

*Throw a bluetooth dongle on it

*Put a Wiim Mini streamer on it, but that is an expensive solution for a broken speaker, or a Chromecast Audio (if you can find one)

*Donate them to a thriftstore

*Give them away to someone you don't like

*Use as landfill material

*Though not rated for the outdoors, Play Fi speakers hung under an eave have a lifespan of about 1.5 years

*Paper weight

*Target practice

*Boat Anchor

Thanks for the post. I feel your pain. 

I am on the otherside of it now, but hopefully others can avoid this Play Fi pitfall. Again, thank you for this much needed analysis.