Tidal - Master High resolution

[callesoroe]

Hi

Tidal has introduced "MQA high res 24/96" streaming in master quality. Will it be possible to get this working with Squeezeboxes(Transporter,Touch) ??

[callesoroe]

Hi

Tidal has introduced "MQA high res 24/96" streaming in master quality. Will it be possible to get this working with Squeezeboxes(Transporter,Touch) ??

It is possible to listen to 24/96 versions from Tidal. Sample rate does not change and stays on 44.1 . Don't know if it is 24 bit ??
Fact is that the High Res some versions sounds better. Pink Floyd "The Division Bell" for example. Maybe because of a better master version.
"A rush of blood to the head" with Coldplay is another example. There are 3 versions and one of them sounds much better. Much quieter mastered.

[DanSmedra]

Depends

Hi

Tidal has introduced "MQA high res 24/96" streaming in master quality. Will it be possible to get this working with Squeezeboxes(Transporter,Touch) ??

The best we can hope for is 24/96 max, which would be software decoded (unfolded 1 step) by the TIDAL app in MySqueezebox.com OR a similar software modification of LMS/ickStream.

Decoding to any higher sample rates, out to 384, requires a MQA-certified DAC.

No one seems to want to step forward with information regarding who wrote the TIDAL app at MySqueezebox.com. So patience is called for.

[Vegz78]

Tidal - Master/Hi-res

Hi,

As this thread captures the same subject I and many others seem to be exploring, and since has been dormant for a while, I hereby respectfully hijack and expand it a little.

I'm looking to stream Tidal Master/Hi-res to my Squeezebox Touch or any other player(like Raspberry Pi), the same way we today can play Flac files of 24/192kHz(and above?), with different, but still better quality output, depending on the player(i.e. Touch I believe outputs 24/96 max).

Having crawled both this forum and the internet extensively, I've so far found 3 potential, but still unsuccessful ways to achieve this:

1. Develop the native MSB Tidal plugin to support streaming Tidal 24/96 with 1st unfold of MQA or full decoding and passthrough to external renderers of higher quality MQA directly (mherger?)
2. Using the Tidal Windows application with its built in 1st unfold of MQA to 24/88,2-96 on a server and stream via "Stereo mix"/a virtual audio cable and the Waveinput plugin, remote controlled from the phone by Unified Remote, or similar, like @DanSmedra suggests above
3. Some setup involving OpenHome, BubbleUPnP etc.
4. Other solutions


1. Would be the best solution, but I'm uncertain if it's any hope holding one's breath until this happens? (mherger etc.?)
2. UPDATE 2019.09.11: Found a working 24/96 solution for the streaming part of point 2 above, with great help from @bpa: https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...l=1#post950355
Now looking into and would appreciate tips on the remote control part. Something better than than the RDP solution I'm running now from my laptop and with less success on my phone/pad. Tba.
3. I haven't tried yet, but found some promising posts on the web without complete instructions. I'm also a bit sceptical about installing too much extra on my server outside the Squeezebox ecosystem.
4. I would be very happy to hear tips/ideas!

As the common and thread goal is to get Tidal's(or other streaming services') Hi-Res/Master stream to play with the highest resolution possible on our players, and with the least amount of work/resistance, and the highest ease of use possible, and inside the Squeezebox ecosystem, I'm hoping people could share their thoughts and tips in this thread, by:
I. Posting complete and detailed instructions for any of the above 3 suggested Methods
II. Post maybe existing alternative methods with complete and detailed instructions
III. Upvote or in other ways inspire/motivate/continue the work of the in-house gurus on method no. 1 - The official Tidal plugin.


I hope for a populated, alive and motivated forum thread with many good ideas and ultimately a solution to get Hi-Res/Master sound from our streaming services and easily out of our different Squeezebox players!

Alea iacta est...

Br,
Vegard


Some sources:

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/WaveInput_plugin

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?102543-WaveInput-setup-issue

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?102551-WaveInput-Setup-Troubles

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?102689-Looking-for-plugin-which-parses-stream-for-sample-rate-bits-per-sample

[left channel]

1. Develop the native MSB Tidal plugin to support streaming Tidal 24/96-192 directly (mherger?)

1. Would be the best solution, but I'm uncertain if it's any hope holding one's breath until this happens? (mherger etc.?)

I indeed would not hold my breath. Tidal is not likely to license their software "unfolding" to Logitech for free. Even less likely: any of us paying for it. :-) We're a notoriously cheap and DIY-oriented bunch. So unfolding is unlikely. And I'm not even certain @mherger can implement bit perfect raw MQA pass-through without a license or technical support from Tidal, but even if he did then it would only be useful to those who own MQA-decoding DACs capable of doing all unfolding in their own firmware.

The other ideas you've mentioned will not work with LMS as far as I know, but I'll leave it to others smarter than me to comment.

As the common and thread goal is to get Tidal's(or other streaming services') Hi-Res/Master stream to play with the highest resolution possible on our players, and with the least amount of work/resistance, and the highest ease of use possible, and inside the Squeezebox ecosystem, I'm hoping people could share their thoughts and tips

The solution is Qobuz. Hi-Res streaming up to 24/192 without any decoding required. The Qobuz plug-in for LMS works well.

Qobuz is stronger in classical and jazz than other genres, and their catalogs are more complete in some countries than others, so I suggest you trial the service to discover if they have the music you want. I currently subscribe to both Tidal and Qobuz, but I expect to be done with Tidal at some point.

[Vegz78]

...And I'm not even certain @mherger can implement bit perfect raw MQA pass-through without a license or technical support from Tidal, but even if he did then it would only be useful to those who own MQA-decoding DACs capable of doing all unfolding in their own firmware...

Thanks for your participation and reply, left channel!

-As there are already many other threads related to MQA-pass-through/decoding/unfolding, I'd like to dedicate this thread to ideas for just getting the streams with the extra information/quality from Tidal Master&Hifi etc. and through to the players in 24/96, as suggested by @DanSmedra above, and which I believe is a little more mainstream/accessible for the common man. Please educate me if there's something I've misunderstood, for instance that Tidal doesn't deliver extra information/quality in 24/96, even though we get this stream going uninterrupted from Tidal output to player input. It would also be nice if @mherger would comment on the hopes and the time we are expected to hold our breaths directly and on his own accord, with an explanation in this thread.
-Thanks also for the tip about Qobuz, which I most certainly will check out if this is a dead end, and no working solutions are presented. In the meantime I'm hoping to keep and see developments for Tidal in the Squeezebox ecosystem, and maybe generic solutions for any hi-res/master streaming services which can be made to work for the LMS/Squeezebox players, including DIY/RPi etc., which is a growing segment.

I also strongly disagree with you that we're all a cheap bunch, and as many are already spending $20/month on getting hi-res/master sound from streaming services already, I have now doubt that we gladly would spend $20/$40 on a seamless app that would help us achieve this inside our existing ecosystem and what I see as a growing segment of DIY-players and services in the Squeezebox ecosystem. Anyhow, a Tidal(and other services) local apps/plugins for the LMS would be needed when Logitech decides to pull the plug on MSB.com...

I hope that future posts come with suggestions on what can be done and possibilities, and not that this thread is turned into fruitless discussions on what can not be done.

Br,
Vegard

[left channel]

I'd love to be wrong, but I really don't expect to see a solution for Tidal MQA here.

If you buy an MQA download or CD, LMS will play that and your MQA DAC will unfold it.

Qobuz accidentally included an MQA album on their service at least once. The Qobuz plug-in for LMS played it OK and my MQA DAC decoded it, but their own official Qobuz apps could not handle it well, so they removed it: https://www.stereophile.com/content/...er-edition-mqa

[Vegz78]

I'd love to be wrong, but I really don't expect to see a solution for Tidal MQA here.

I'm not sure, but I might be stumbling towards a possible working(workaround) solution here, with the help of @bpa and the WaveInput plugin:

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?102551-WaveInput-Setup-Troubles&p=950355&viewfull=1#post950355

It's based around the suggestion several others have mentioned around point 2 of my first post in this thread above (Tidal PC app + WaveInput). I'll write about it if I find any good remote controllers for the Tidal PC app for the phone or something similar.

The unfolding is done in the Tidal PC app(or any MQA capable PC app), and theoretically it's then transportet unbroken at 24/96 quality to the endpoint Squeezebox player and DAC/amp.

Hacky. Ugly. But maybe actually working...

Br,
Vegard

[Vegz78]

Remote control solution for Tidal PC app streaming through WaveInput?

Hi,

I managed to remote control from my iPhone the Tidal PC app running on the LMS server machine and streaming 24/192 through WaveInput/sox with the help of Unified Remote and ronCYA's nice unified remote plugin with just editing of the Tidal executable path in the remote.lua script.

https://github.com/ronCYA/UR-Tidal

But, unfortunately it doesn't allow for remote control of the Tidal PC app in "headless" mode, with advanced search functionality and playlist selections on the phone, only basic play, skip, stop, volume, shuffle etc.


Does anyone have som nice tips for real interactive remote controlling the official Tidal PC player application from an iPhone/iPad?


Br,
Vegard

[Vegz78]

Continuing in another thread

Continued explorations of ways to get hi-res Tidal audio out of the Squeezebox players, I have now moved to a new more specific and updated thread and under what I believe is the correct category:

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?110959-Master-high-resolution-Tidal-streaming-etc-with-remote-integrated-control

Br,
Vegard

[left channel]

I have one other suggestion, not exactly what you want, but it works for me. I'll reply in your new thread.

[freelsjd]

don't hold your breath

I have found the technical support out of Tidal to be inadequate. I dropped them as a result. Why pay for the hi-res if not even the phone app can play it without skipping ? If they cannot get their phone app right, how would you expect them to improve on the LMS app?