Hi, When using Tidal through Volumio I am not able to access any of the Tidal ‘Radio Stations for you’ despite adding it to my collection in Tidal. Any ideas?
I do not know if the Hifiberry DAC2 HD supports full MQA decoding. It is a relatively new board and I could not yet find any info on MQA support. I left a question with Hifiberry Support and will report back when I know more.
Assuming this DAC does not have full MQA decoding support, which would be better - enabling or disabling MQA in the Source settings? As detailed above, with MQA on a 96kHz/24bit source I am getting 48kHz/24bit output and without MQA Volumio reports 44.1kHz/32bit output. Also assuming these reported sampling rates and resolution are correct, it appears there is a tradeoff with MQA on my setup. My initial subjective reaction is to favor the 48kHz/24bit output (MQA enabled). But it’s hard to tell, really. I’m pretty happy with the quality of the audio. I just want to know what is going on and my post here was intended also to serve as feedback for further development.
With regards the comparison of these various streaming services, I want to check out Qobuz. I initially chose Tidal due to their larger library. As it turns out, I am a bit disappointed in Tidal’s limited selection of “Master” quality recordings. But, comparing services is not why I am here. They all seem to have their pros and cons.
The biggest from my pov dizavantqges of qobuz is that they do not have artist radio or my Mix… But they have Playlist curated by humans not by algoritm and you will find good music.
I use spotify then convert to qobuz… The Playlists.
I do not now why qobuz does not has this feature.
No, according to Hifiberry Support, none of their DACs support MQA decoding.
Regarding HiRes offerings, my experience is that Qobuz has much more when compared to Tidal especially in the Rock, Classic Rock genre. And of course you don’t need special hardware to play it. Volumio has no problem streaming 192/24.
Without MQA decoding, you won’t be able to take advantage of the extra quality ‘master’ tracks have to offer. A 96khz/24-bit ‘master’ track is actually streamed to you in 48khz/24-bit, which is what Volumio reports and what your DAC sees. It is only through ‘unfolding’ that you get 96khz. In other words, a 96khz ‘master’ track is not really native 96khz but one that is obtained by digitally processing a 48khz stream.
Personally, I prefer native high-res streams than those obtained through digital processing. If you are into photography, it’s like digitally creating a bokeh vs using a high-aperture lens in the first place.
Thanks Patrick. I’m seeing varying behavior with MQA decoding in Volumio on my system with a DAC that does not support it. Volumio reports some decoding to 48kHz/24bit but others that Tidal says are 96/24 decode to 44/16. If I disable MQA decoding in the Sources settings then it seems like everything Tidal says is 96/24 decodes as 44.1/32. It seems like turning MQA decoding off in the settings on a system without a DAC that supports it would be the preferred way to go.
I appreciate the off-topic comments comparing Tidal and Quboz. I am starting a Quboz free trial to do my own comparison. Thus far I would say that the Tidal user interface is far superior but Quboz does have some titles in hi-def encoding that Tidal does not. The biggest factor is that I can play Quboz 96kHz/24bit encodings at 96/24 on Volumio with my DAC. So, Quboz is winning both the library (maybe) and audio quality races but loses big time in the usability competition.
I should correct my Tidal/Qobuz comparison above. Qobuz does not win the best library competition. Tidal has many titles in high-res format that Qobuz does not. And vice versa. I think it will just depend on what you like and even then it will probably be split until both deliver significantly more in higher resolution format.
Tidal wins usability. Qobuz wins quality (for those of us that cannot decode MQA fully). Tidal probably wins quantity for most users, for now.
Volumio, if they can, needs to work this out with Tidal somehow. Tidal subscribers probably outnumber Qobuz and are not going to want to switch. Ditch MQA.
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Hi There!
Loving the new version of volumio, big improvement. But since a few days I have a very slowly responding app/interface. Both in browser (chrome on laptop) as in the Android app. I use Tidal exclusively
Whenever I try to change tracks, or put it on pause etc, it takes roughly 2-5 seconds for the streamer to react. Additionally, playlists seem to work improperly: when I try to put on song #23 on the playlist, I need to wait 5 second and then song #25 starts playing. When i try #27, #29 starts playing etc. It is always exactly 2 songs further.
Any idea what is causing this? Is it a known bug?
Thnx!
We are just working on playlist bug
For the other issue, on slow response, have you tried to play local files? Just to exclude internet connection as cause
Davide
Volumio tech support
techsupport@volumio.org
If I’m running Volumio Version 2.882 from April 24th do I still need to activate beta updates or is the new version of tidal integration already included?