How to get best TIDAL sound on iMac

[mistersprinkles]

I got an iMac recently and have downloaded the TIDAL app and am listening on "Master" quality level. I have a pair of KEF X-300-A speakers hooked up to the iMac and the sound is quite excellent but I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to improve fidelity further?

Thanks!

 

 

[Charente]

I started out in the same way, iMac/Tidal player ... my next step was to use Audirvana ... IMO it has better sound quality than the Tidal player and supports your Tidal account. Beyond that would be outputting the sound to an external DAC & Amp that will pair with your speakers.

[mistersprinkles]

Does Audirvana support the master stream quality from tidal? what is the website? Is it free?

[Charente]

You mean MQA ? Audirvana supports MQA but I think not from Tidal. I recall reading something that one could only get Tidal MQA through their own player (at present) ... I could be wrong here... I've moved to Qobuz now.  I found Tidal HiFi perfectly acceptable through Audirvana ...  not free, but only €64 ... https://audirvana.com/ ...

[Charente]

To be honest, I would question whether you would notice the difference between HiFi & MQA on Tidal using the iMac sound system ... you may need to go to an external Dac/Amp (via USB) that supports MQA to really get the benefit (if any).

[mistersprinkles]

Sounds like I'll be sticking with the TIDAL app

[Musicophile]

I really encourage you to try the free trial of Audirvana. It is the best sounding app I've seen so far, has an IOs remote with it (I don't believe the TIDAL app has one), and it fully supports MQA. 

[Charente]

Agree with @Musicophile   IIRC The only other way to control Tidal remotely is via Roon, which is also a good player, but requires more setup considerations and more expensive.

[Marcin_gps]

22 hours ago, Charente said:

Agree with @Musicophile   IIRC The only other way to control Tidal remotely is via Roon, which is also a good player, but requires more setup considerations and more expensive.

You can also use a free OpenHome player and control it with Linn Kazoo app

http://openhome.org/pages/use/downloads/mac.html

[Speed Racer]

A+ does the first layer of MQA decoding when streaming from Tidal. It works quite well.

[DarwinOSX]

It’s even better with an MQA dac.

[GUTB]

To get the most out of Tidal Master you'll need an MQA DAC, such as the DragonFly Black or Red. Big improvement over just Tidal doing the software decoding only. While you're at it, pair it with a Jitterbug for more quality gains.

[DarwinOSX]

I’d recommend a Meridian Explorer 2. The Audioquest are renderers only and still require Tidal to do the first unfold but the Meridian does the full unfold. 

[matthias]

On 20.10.2017 at 3:46 PM, Charente said:

I've moved to Qobuz now. 

 

Hi Charente (or others),

did you compare the Redbook-SQ of Quobuz and Tidal, both played with Audirvana?

Some say Qobuz is superior to Tidal.

Thanks

 

Matt

[Charente]

@matthias ... I can't say that I personally noticed any difference between Tidal/Qobuz SQ ... a more reliable streaming experience, yes ... perhaps because I'm in France ? The other reason I moved is that it seems to me that Qobuz has more European Jazz albums in its catalogue for my preferred genre of music.