Official TIDAL HIFI Streaming Issues Thread

[left channel]

@northernbreed mine just updated,

from: 2.1.11.333 (W: 2.4.5--3) (NP: 2.4.2)
to:   2.1.12.375 (W: 2.4.5--3) (NP: 2.4.4)

 

I tested it on a track in which more than one user was getting the same MQA dropouts/resyncs at the same places repeatedly, and did not experience the same glitches this time. There was one hiccup halfway through the track, but that could have been a network thing, or a caching thing caused by my clicking around inside the track so many times, and I couldn't reproduce it.

So, in summary: there is hope.

[exdmd]

Just got notified of the update to 2.4.4 on Win 7 went smoothly so far no skips on tracks that previously caused problems. Need to try for a few days of course but nice to see progress being made.

[alcibiadesGR]

I'm trying to use an Equalizer APO EQ while streaming Tidal Masters to my Meridian Explorer 2 DAC. What I noticed is that if I play a 'Masters' track and disable 'Exclusive Mode' the Blue 'MQA' light shuts off on the DAC. Re-enabling 'Exclusive Mode' turns the little blue 'MQA' light back on but my EQ is audibly shut off/overridden.

 

My question is what the role of 'Exclusive Mode' is versus enabling 'Passthrough MQA'. Do they always need to go together to get hardware unfolding of the 3rd layer, or will hardware unfolding still happen with my EQ intact if I turn off 'Exclusive' mode just without the "MQA' light of approval? If the answer is yes I'm pretty sure the benefits of hardware unfolding are washed-out as I definitely prefer my speakers EQ'd to not.

[left channel]

@alcibiadesGR MQA hardware decoding requires a bit perfect signal, "untouched" by your system. That is what "Exclusive Mode" does. You should also choose Exclusive Mode for any external DAC, MQA or non-MQA, to let the DAC do all the work.

 

"Passthrough MQA" tells the Tidal app to turn off its built-in 1x software decoding, and instead send the undecoded MQA output to your DAC. If you select that option but send the output to a non-MQA DAC, you will hear a lot of noise on the signal.

 

There are two types of MQA DACs: a "renderer" like the AudioQuest DragonFly which requires the 1x software decoding and then takes it to 4x unfolding, and full MQA DACs which require passthrough MQA and work unassisted to produce 4x unfolding.

 

In summary, you can't use software EQ or any filtering on an MQA signal. If you want equalization, you'll need to add a hardware equalizer or tone control on the audio output. For example, the Schiit Loki Mini.

[alcibiadesGR]

13 minutes ago, left channel said:

@alcibiadesGR 

In summary, you can't use software EQ or any filtering on an MQA signal. If you want equalization, you'll need to add a hardware equalizer or tone control on the audio output. For example, the Schiit Loki Mini.

 

That's very helpful, thanks. This experience has really clarified to me how big of a scam MQA is - how can they say I'm hearing the 'studio master' if they have no idea what speakers I'm using? Or how much those speakers might need to be EQ'd to be as flat as possible in my listening environment? MQA takes that aspect of my system away from me to use it and that really sucks.

[left channel]

20 minutes ago, alcibiadesGR said:

 

That's very helpful, thanks. This experience has really clarified to me how big of a scam MQA is - how can they say I'm hearing the 'studio master' if they have no idea what speakers I'm using? Or how much those speakers might need to be EQ'd to be as flat as possible in my listening environment? MQA takes that aspect of my system away from me to use it and that really sucks.

 

I'm not defending MQA, but part of what makes it work (or not) is a set of proprietary filters. Therefore Meridian requires every app and DAC manufacturer to disable all of their own filters whenever MQA is engaged. If you don't like that, join the club with manufacturers like Schiit, Linn, and Ayre who won't play along for that reason and several others, some of technical and some business. Anyway, I own the Schiit solution I mentioned above: a Loki Mini.

[Abtr]

Every once in a while a Tidal stream starts producing irregular digital popping sounds. What helps at such a time is to stream a different album (switch to another Tidal server). So I'm sure it's not my 200Mb internet connection causing this. It seems the Tidal infrastructure at times can't keep up with the  worldwide load or there may be other intermittent server problems. To be honest, I'm fed up with this and other highly annoying Tidal streaming anomalies and bugs. Time to try Qobuz for lossless streaming..

[left channel]

@Abtr good idea, we were just talking about that:

 

[jrflanne]

On 9/19/2017 at 11:05 PM, AudioDoctor said:

 

Never?  It never just stops for a minute or more, or sometimes locking up so you have to force quit A+?

 

What are you running it on?

 

This happens on my 2011 Mac Mini with an SSD and 8gb of ram, as well as my brand new iMac with 32gb of ram and an SSD, super fast 4.5 or so I7 processor.

Sorry it took so long to reply. I have a pretty fast web connection. My Mini sounds like a very similar configuration to yours and my office system is a Mac Pro. It doesn’t lock up at all. Odd. My music is served from a Synology NAS as well.

 

[TubeDriver]

On 11/20/2017 at 9:00 PM, Acesn8s said:

Five months after first post, swapped an iMac for the PC and increased ethernet speed: better results but still serious issues with MQA

 

I posted here on June 20, and several times thereafter, seeking advice regarding MQA streaming issues, initially involving tunes suddenly sounding like 45's being played at 33 rpm, then regarding tracks stuttering or being skipped or refusing to play at all on a dedicated Windows 10 Dell PC doing the initial Masters unfold and passing the signal to a TEAC UD-503 DAC. The slowdown problem went away after one of TIDAL's updates but the skips continued, so I recently swapped in an iMac with 16 GB RAM, changed to a CAT 7 ethernet cable, and increased my Xfinity speed to >200 Mbps. I live in Northern New England, and face a Boston area server.

 

The iMac doesn't skip (and sounds better, to my ears, than the PC) but I now routinely encounter pauses during MQA playback, from a few seconds to perhaps half a minute's duration. And I occasionaly get pauses during CD quality HiFi streaming. This happens even when no other apps are open.

 

So, five months and another $100 in montlhy fees later, I still can't get TIDAL to work as seemlessly as Pandora or Spotify or SiriusXM or the late, lamented MOG. Can anyone provide a little help, then? Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

Tidal worked fine for years and then I started getting pauses during playback every evening.  Using Macbook Pro, 150MB ethernet connection.   Tried various things but the only thing that hekped was reassigning my DNS servers.

[northernbreed]

I totally bailed on the Masters/MQA thing (for several reasons) and I just stream TIDAL WiFi directly to my Schiit Gungnir.  The result is awesome.  

[exdmd]

Tidal has pushed out several updates this month on Windows and I am no longer experiencing skips with HiFi or MQA playback fingers crossed.

[Gerrit Friderichsohn]

1 hour ago, exdmd said:

Tidal has pushed out several updates this month on Windows and I am no longer experiencing skips with HiFi or MQA playback fingers crossed.

Tolerable for me now. Many MQA albums skip at the 5 sec mark, and then play through. 10 mbps down, 15 ms ping. 

[Gerrit Friderichsohn]

13 hours ago, Gerrit Friderichsohn said:

Tolerable for me now. Many MQA albums skip at the 5 sec mark, and then play through. 10 mbps down, 15 ms ping. 

And now it isn't.

 

[Acesn8s]

                                                                                 Member "Support" at its Worst

 

I sent the following message (please excuse typos)  to TIDAL and received the attached response this week. Why, exactly, would any consumer...audiophile or not...put up with this kind of boilerplate, non-responsive response? Which is word-for-word the same  response I received from TIDAL months ago regarding the track-skipping issue. Deezer and/or Qoboz supposedly is gonna stream hi res during 2018 and TIDAL will become superfluous.

 

Hello,  Thank you for reaching out to let us know what you’re experiencing. Our programming team confirmed with me that this is a known issue that is affecting a number of users, which has placed it at the top of their list to fix.  While I don’t have a timeline as to when a fix will go through, please know that our team is working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. We realize that this is an inconvenience for you, so we thank you for your patience.   Best Regards, Kevin - Technical Support Specialist TIDAL Member Support

 

Jan 2, 7:35 PM EST  I stream at >200 Mbps over Wireworld Cat 8 ethernet cable into an iMac with 16Gb RAM, and out via WireWorld USB cable to a TEAC UD-503 DAC. It is impossible to play a single ECM Master quality album without multiple pauses, and it is rare that an ordinary HiFi album plays seamlessly. MQA sounds better than CD quality, but the constant interruptions are unaxxeptable. I am on a free trial right now from Deezer, whose CD quality service sounds as good as TIDAL's, but there never are any streaming issues. I have a decision to make this month, and right now it looks like my two years with you will end.  Do you evere plan to solve this issue? I've sought your help before, with no success. I even swapped out computers, from a Dell to the iMac, to no avail.

[northernbreed]

Yeah - that's annoying.  I suspect a lot of people are just waiting for a better option to come along.  

[Abtr]

I think that most of Tidal's problems are related to bandwidth limitations of their servers. They can only fix this by increasing server capacity, which can be quite expensive..

[jaaptina]

Some of the old Giant Sand Albums like Ramp and Storm give a burst of static at the end of the songs. It's only with these few albums and it's the same with these albums on Qobuz. Looks like a problem with the master. Or could this be a problem of my setup? 

[Abtr]

46 minutes ago, jaaptina said:

Some of the old Giant Sand Albums like Ramp and Storm give a burst of static at the end of the songs. It's only with these few albums and it's the same with these albums on Qobuz. Looks like a problem with the master. Or could this be a problem of my setup? 

I tried with Tidal and I hear a noise burst at the end of some (not all) tracks, so it doesn't seem to be your setup.

[Fridolin]

Hi,

 

i use a "HiFi" subscription for Tidal.

My listening device is an Auralic Aries Mini and i use LDS as an app.

 

As you might know, many albums in Tidal are not really what you pay for (HiFi) but are what i call "LoFi" which means they are delivered as AAC 320 kbps.

 

At least this was the case for a long time. But now i get such albums in even lower quality of AAC 96 kbps. All my playlists that i made for albums which only played with AAC 320 kbps now only deliver music with AAC 96 kbps. That's not acceptable.

 

An example: Chris Standring - Groovalicious

 

Do you get the same bitrates?

By the way, "HiFi" albums are playing correct in high quality.

 

 

[oneartist]

I just streamed Chris Standring's Groovalicious through my PSA DirectStream DAC w/BridgeII and it is displayed as 24bit 44.1K. The kbps is not displayed on the DAC. I have the above mentioned pauses if I play Tidal through my laptop, but not when I use BridgeII.

[Fridolin]

On my Aries Mini it is 16bit, 44.1K , 96kbps.

Unfortunately your DAC doesn't display the critical bitrate.

[oneartist]

Ted, the designer of the PSA DirectStream DAC w/Bridge II says the bit rate of 24 is noticeably better than 16 bit.

[Fridolin]

I don't doubt that your DAC is better than mine.

But that's not the question here.

 

The question is: Does Tidal stream with an inadequate bitrate of 96 kbps?

 

Here another example:

[Cebolla]

15 hours ago, Fridolin said:

Hi,

 

i use a "HiFi" subscription for Tidal.

My listening device is an Auralic Aries Mini and i use LDS as an app.

 

As you might know, many albums in Tidal are not really what you pay for (HiFi) but are what i call "LoFi" which means they are delivered as AAC 320 kbps.

 

At least this was the case for a long time. But now i get such albums in even lower quality of AAC 96 kbps. All my playlists that i made for albums which only played with AAC 320 kbps now only deliver music with AAC 96 kbps. That's not acceptable.

 

An example: Chris Standring - Groovalicious

 

Do you get the same bitrates?

By the way, "HiFi" albums are playing correct in high quality.

 

 

 

Interesting. Same album accessed via my TIDAL HiFi account on two different systems yields different results:

Squeezelite accessing TIDAL via the Logitech Media Server's ickStream plugin - MP3 320kbps!

BubbleUPnP Android app, using its local renderer - AAC 96kbps.

 

The ickStream platform does not have any quality settings to configure for TIDAL, but connecting with a TIDAL HiFi account has always provided lossless 16/44.1 kHz FLAC with other albums (does not support MQA masters), so receiving an MP3 stream is a real surprise.

 

BubbleUPnP has 2 quality options for TIDAL, FLAC (at 16/44.1 kHz, as it doesn't support MQA) and AAC 320kbps - I always have FLAC set.

 

Could it be that some 'older' albums are actually coded in MP3 and if a particular platform cannot stream MP3, being hard coded to only deal with FLAC or AAC from TIDAL, it is forced to ask for the lowest quality/mobile 96kbps AAC stream?

 

See this thread on the Roon forum:

MP3 Albums in Tidal HiFi