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Official TIDAL HIFI Streaming Issues Thread


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i have not had any problems with using my mac mini(late summer 2013 version i7 with 16GB RAM through amarra SQ USB out to newest Schiit Gungnir RCA out to my system and also seinnheiser 598's to Schiit magni amp. no dropouts, a few pops crackles hisses distortions tho.TIDAL sounds almost or is as good as Qobuz. QUANTITY tho is limited on TIDAL. for example if i search on Qobuz for say RHINO RECORDS i get 65000 songs 5200 albums and 139 artists-i got NOTHING on TIDAL. some artists are limited and you get very few albums of covered music.i used to get a lot more frequent distortions using PureMusic's 'playthrough mode' and PM crashed every 10-15 songs no matter what i was streaming Qobuz or BeatsMusic so i disinstalled PM. bobbmd

 

I wonder if either the i7 or 16 Gigs is making the difference. I always get dropouts (and etc.), but am running on a 2013 i5 with 8 Gigs. May I ask, are you using the Mac application or Chrome? And if using the App, what are you using for the "Album Cache Size?" I've got mine set at 100 MB.

 

Ironically, I didn't have any problem with PM Playthrough.

2013 MacBook Pro Retina -> {Pure Music | Audirvana} -> {Dragonfly Red v.1} -> AKG K-702 or Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

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I'm also noticing pretty regular cut outs all morning today November 6. I haven't gotten through more than about 30-45 seconds without it pausing with streaming problems.

 

I'm on a 150/20 Comcast connection in the San Francisco Bay Area. All of my other internet activities _seem_ fine.

 

Screen Shot 2014-11-06 at 10.05.29.png

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I have problems similar to the other posters. Skips, long pauses, and delayed start to some songs. I’m also getting the same warning message “We are experiencing HiFi playback problem. This may be caused by low bandwidth….” as one of the other posters.

 

I have tried both the desktop and Chrome players on three different PCs. All of the PCs have i7s with 16gb of RAM. My bandwidth tests are showing 50Mbps down and 5Mbps up. The three PCs have different OSs. I’m using Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7. Task Manager shows the Tidal bandwidth utilization to be between about 7Mbps and 11Mbps (when it’s working).

 

There seem to be no OS related differences. The Chrome player seems to perform a little better than the Windows player but the SQ seems to suffer. Setting the Album Cache Size in the Windows player higher than 50mb (I tried settings as high as 1000mb) seems to have no effect.

 

One more observation, it seems certain songs have more problems playing without problems than others. For example, I always have problems playing Sara Gazarek’s songs but I have no problems playing Pharrel Williams, Miles Davis (Kind of Blue), and most other more “main stream” artists. Has anyone else noticed this?

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I'm also noticing pretty regular cut outs all morning today November 6. I haven't gotten through more than about 30-45 seconds without it pausing with streaming problems.

 

I'm on a 150/20 Comcast connection in the San Francisco Bay Area. All of my other internet activities _seem_ fine.

 

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I'm noticing issues today (Nov. 6) as well. I'm on day three of the 30 day trial, and the first two days were flawless. There were occasional pops/clicks, especially after starting a new song or skipping to another track, but never had issues with getting a song to play smoothly all the way through or having random drop outs.

 

Today, though, has been full of hiccups. Songs will take a long time to load, will freeze in the middle of a song and showing the "buffering" spinning wheel of death and not resume, and will either stay stuck or I'll have to skip forward/backward to restart the playback.

 

I'm using the Chrome based player on Windows based system. If you open the Task Manager and compare memory usage with the standalone app, the Chrome based player is WAY less of a system resource hog. Just FYI, because I don't think I saw that mentioned anywhere in this thread.

 

I don't think this is an internet connectivity problem on my end. I'm able to stream Netflix HD content and my download speed test shows I'm getting everything Verizon promises I should be getting. However, when I drop the quality of playback down to 320, though, I do get flawless playback. My Spotify streaming at that speed has also worked flawlessly (it always has). So, maybe just an issue with FLAC streaming today??

 

I want TIDAL to work so badly. Even more than that, I want Spotify to start offering CD quality playback, as that's what I've been on for a long time and have playlists on playlists there! None the less, TIDAL sound quality is most definitely a step up from Spotify. Can't wait to see what the future brings!

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flatmap- PM tried to tell me it was the'clocking' on the schiit DAC jason stoddard said 'HOGWASH' so like i said i ditched them

i use the apple app for both Tidaal and Qobuz

i'll have check the album cache where do i find that info?

 

bobbmd, I lived for 5 years in Ithaca and I must say it was hard to leave. Upstate has so many beautiful spots.

 

In the Mac application, there's a gear icon in the upper right corner. Click on that and you'll see near the bottom a field to insert a number for "album cache." Mine's set at 100 Mb, but maybe I"ll try upping it to 1000. Not sure what the significance is, however. You can also clear cache, but likewise have no idea why that might be helpful.

2013 MacBook Pro Retina -> {Pure Music | Audirvana} -> {Dragonfly Red v.1} -> AKG K-702 or Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

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I am using this w Air play to a denon 2112 receiver in a second system. Sounds good ,few dropouts, blame that on my connectivity.

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I spent about an hour today listening to Tidal via the mobile app on my iPhone 5. The streaming experience is far better than what I'm getting on my Mac laptop.

 

I had no dropouts during that hour. And I was on the coffee shop wifi! No dropouts at all. So is the mobile app so much better than the desktop options? Puzzled.

 

Still no gapless, unfortunately. There was about a 5 second gap between tracks on La Boheme.

2013 MacBook Pro Retina -> {Pure Music | Audirvana} -> {Dragonfly Red v.1} -> AKG K-702 or Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

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What is the minimum download speed for tidal in any form to work? Is there a difference mobile, Mac or web browser(Chrome or?).

 

I don't know the answer, but the big difference with the mobile app is that your can download album and then play direct from memory. Thus no internet stream needed and no particular restriction on download speed.

 

I've read that Safari doesn't do handle full resolution; you need Chrome for that. My experience on the Mac desktop, Chrome is the best way to go, far better than the Mac App. At least one poster using Windows says he gets better results on the Windows app compared to Chrome.

2013 MacBook Pro Retina -> {Pure Music | Audirvana} -> {Dragonfly Red v.1} -> AKG K-702 or Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

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Started listening to the new Pink Floyd The Endless River on Tidal. Just couldn't do it because gapless issues just chops up the album. So switched over to Spotify. I'm still in the trial for Tidal, but I won't be staying. Gapless,navigation, and spotify's large selection pushes me to stay with Spotify. I really don't notice a large difference between the two in SQ.

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Something that is not clear on the Tidal website: If you read "Which Home Audio Players will Tidal be available on?" on the Tidal Help page and go to the websites of those vendors, none have information on TIDAL availability or compatibility. They only have signed agreements for future implementation.

 

I emailed TIDAL support: "could you give me a specific device or two or point me to a website"

Here is the response I got from TIDAL:

 

"Bluesound is currently the only player that supports TIDAL.

Integrations with Sonos, Aurender and Squeezebox (Ickstream) is right around the corner."

 

I have been using TIDAL connected to my Macbook Air via USB to my Wyred 4 Sound DAC and over the course of a 1 hour listening session I had four dropouts lasting 1 to 2 seconds each.

 

I am using the Chrome browser player because the Tidal player could not output the sound to the USB port. I changed the Apple Midi setup and the Sound preference app to no avail. It just would not work. It works on my iMac but not on my MacBook Air.

 

Regarding Bluesound, they no longer have the toslink output so you have to output through their DAC. The original AudioStream writeup on the Bluesound unit showed the toslink. However, if you go to their website, it is no longer listed as an output.

 

"The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought", Sir Thomas Beecham. 

 

 

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I am using the Chrome browser player because the Tidal player could not output the sound to the USB port. I changed the Apple Midi setup and the Sound preference app to no avail. It just would not work. It works on my iMac but not on my MacBook Air.

 

In the Tidal App, there is a gear icon in the upper right corner. When you click that and adjust the

settings, there's an option for "Sound Output." I am able to select my USB DAC in the list of

options that appear there. Does that work for you? I'm using MBP Retina, 2013.

2013 MacBook Pro Retina -> {Pure Music | Audirvana} -> {Dragonfly Red v.1} -> AKG K-702 or Sennheiser HD650 headphones.

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In the Tidal App, there is a gear icon in the upper right corner. When you click that and adjust the

settings, there's an option for "Sound Output." I am able to select my USB DAC in the list of

options that appear there. Does that work for you? I'm using MBP Retina, 2013.

 

Yes! Thanks for the tip. I must have done that on my IMac when I first set it up and forgot about it.

 

"The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought", Sir Thomas Beecham. 

 

 

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