*PLEASE READ CAREFULLY* Be a decent human being: kindly keep your sexist/racist thoughts and conspiracy theories to yourself. External links are also a no-no. Comments that advance the conversation are most welcome.
Thanks for the update. I just updated my Volumio. At this time all I have is a drive connected with Flac files of CD. Since I just lost the job at hospital I will hold off on tidal or anything else for time being. Thanks for starting me on this journey.
Thx John for the update on Volumio. I have two Pi based dacs did a update on both and had Tidal connect working within a hour. I’m pleased with the results much better way to stream Tidal on these devices.
Love this Raspberry Pi stuff! I've been considering a move to Tidal, but I think I'm going to hold off until Spotify go lossless. Just comfortable with the Spotify app!
I have been using Volumio for a couple of years. I am currently running on a pi-zero W with a pimoroni dac shim. I have a hard drive on my network that has a couple of gig's of music I have collected. The FLAC's of live performances sound awesome. My system is only about $250 in total with speakers and amp, pi, etc. It is a little slow to get started (the pi zero is pretty wimpy) but it is something I can take in my pocket and connect anywhere I have wifi or cellular and stream all of my music or pretty much any service that volumio supports. The community on volumio has been great to help me with gotchas over time. I could put a much nicer DAC on it for $100 but for my needs, it is perfectly adequate. Thanks for the great content and for spreading the word that great-sounding audio doesn't have to be expensive.
Great video, and I love how you geek on this stuff. It's not as elegant but I have been streaming Tidal to my Pi using LMS. Just another alternative. 👍
@@Patricia-kk8tr Similar, but what I have is a plugin for LMS, so it uses the LMS/Squeeze interface. Advantage - it integrates seamlessly with my own library of music files on a share. Disadvantage - a bit fussy to set up, and not as elegant looking a UI. You're correct - both stream audio bits straight from Tidal to the device, not through my phone. The phone app is just a controller. Turn the phone off and the music keeps playing.
I like how you're honest. I am just starting to get into HIFI home audio and a DIY'er. I am never satisfied with my equipment lol I feel I can always get better
For me Tidal connect is far more important than MQA. Both are amazing bits of software, one lets me find and listen to music with ease and other makes me go looking for MQA versions of albums.
My Spotify (and connect) running on volumio and pi, just started streaming 16 44.1 this week (according to volumio app). Everything I've played thus far. Last week just 320kbps. I have a "premium" account and I'm in the US. The advantage is I'm not a my Volumio subscriber. Thanks for your great videos.
I think the hi-res stuff is relevant for newer albums that get released but I get the point overall that its a small part of the library. Keep up the great stuff, John and team! I love the point on streaming convenience though! I've mostly moved to using Spotify Connect as the default option to enjoy music, first and foremost, on my KEF LSX. If only the chips inside had the ability to run Tidal Connect as well.
Neubauten... Eisbär.. you certainly make an effort to go full Leberwurst :) I just started Tidal mainly to give Ek the finger he deserves but as you mentioned, the beauty of it all is that my amp speaks Spotify natively, while for Tidal or others I have to go through Heos, and that just isn't nice, at all. So hooray hifi quality, but now I have several new maintenance vectors with a range of responsible parties (or sometimes there won't even be a party assuming responsibility, RasPi foundation won't care if that external hat doesn't work or if the 3rd party OS can't do this thing or that thing): a Pi, a modified OS (updates? ITsec?), additional hardware (USB DAC I might just plug into a 50EUR tablet off local ads and keep near my hifi spot), a _subscription_ to a service that provides the data path to the hifi system, an annual subscription --- I think it's easier and more reliable to put a USB sound card with digital outputs of any band on a pi, add an SSD with all my CDs ripped to in CD quality and have a web interface on top.
Compare Qobuz and Tidal MQA and decide for yourself. To me there is no contest, MQA is a gimmick and the honest streaming Qobuz offers is superior in terms of sound quality.
Google: Tidal worse than flac reddit Should be the reddit link titled: Testing MQA: Is it worse than FLAC? The test was done by another youtuber. User:goldensound Very interesting read. However, do try it for yourself. This might not even matter to you.
In your video you said installing the tidal connect is impossible in Volumio but actually tidal connect is included already with the Paid Membership in Volumio , all you hv to do is to pay for the membership thingy and upgrade it, tidal connect is there working perfectly.
Hi, John. I write about tidal, volumio and the denafrips ares 2 you mentioned you're reviewing. I know you're not focused on hi-res streaming or hi-res music in general - and I get where you are coming from. However, please note that there's an easy and ostensibly free option in that volumio allows you to up sample files. I've been using the ares 2 with volumio running on an Allo USBridge Signature for about a year now. I A/B tested all the options, and I now upsample tidal in volumio to 384khz and then in the ares 2 I oversample the upsampled files. This might sound like a lot of trouble. But I do it because to my ears this produces the best sound quality with LS50s paired with a REL T7i sub and driven by a Rogue Sphinx V2 amp. Please note this "hack" doesn't work with tidal connect. You have to use the clunky (but improving) volumio app. Lastly, a big thank you to you and your colleagues for creating such great content for music-first audiophiles. I'm a big fan of your website and your TH-cam channel! Thanks again, and best of wishes, Veli
I think it's amazing that people can differentiate between 2 good DACS. While telling apart a laptop or android built in DAC from say a Chord Mojo or a Fiio K3 is easy, comparing top tier DACS is no easy feat.
This is a great solution for getting Tidal Connect up and running. Just completed my setup last night with the dragonfly cobalt and it was fairly simple. One issue regarding MQA on this setup. I notice that the Dragonfly led only lights up blue instead of purple on MQA songs and then green on everything else. Seems a bit odd... But Tidal Connect is the big win here with MQA being an added bonus.
with the Raspberry Pi 3B plus you can send the signal directly via the USB port to, for example, the Denon pma-600ne.with volumio you can perfectly stream music such as Nas server, spotify and perhaps also TIDAL payment. the Dac of the Denon is exceptionally great. sounds even better than the hifiberry hat, HiFiBerry DAC RCA+ Pro this is equivalent to the Bluesound node 2i
That's actually pretty good news because the Pi2AES uses the the Hifiberry Digi+ Pro Driver , so you could actually use your own outboard DAC. Worth a try at least.
Iphone / RPI with Dietpi OS / and Tidal Connect! This config works via the Iphone via Airplay choice. No need for other 3rd party Software. The only problem is I can't see the same choices in Tidal connect on my PC as I don't have airplay on the pc. Iphone works fine so its kinda ok Maybe Airplay for Windows 11 will do the trick.
Well I took the bait and bought a rasberry pi 3 B and digi hat. Loaded Volumio and stream Tidal Connect. I’m not tech savvy, but I got to work. It sounds so good that my dear wife commented on how good it sounds. That is a first. For reference, I was using an iFi Zen Blu, which sounded good, but not nearly this good. The rest of the system is: Schiit Bifrost Mutibit DAC, Naim Nait integrated amp driving Focal Aria 906 speakers.
I'd have gone for a digi HAT instead of a DAC HAT so you can then still use an external DAC, although obviously via COAX or TOS. Removes the need for the volumio reliance....he says as a Roon user. 😅
Hey John, great video. Did you notice audio quality differences between RPi3b+ and the RPi4b? The 4b sounds so much worse to me - would be glad to hear about your experience. Cheers, love your videos.
What I understand so far is that my Rapberry should be capable with Hifiberry OS and my Allo Digione Tidal Connect. Right? From the Allo HAT I can then go to my DAC with COAX. Did I understand that correctly so far? Is Hifiberry OS a standalone program or do I need a Raspberry Pi OS as a base? Thanks
I got on board the Pi-train thanks to one of your videos a while back. Currently working on a nice wood and glass housing with a built in display to put the Pi front and center in my setup. I have a question about volumio though - what do you think of the CD ripping feature of volumio with a standard USB CD drive, in terms of the potential quality you can get out of it? Interested in your thoughts on the topic.
I'm gonna start building my touch screen Raspberry Pi music player/streamer in a few weeks using the Raspberry Pi 4, official touchscreen, smartipi case, HiFi berry digi2 pro, and Volumio. This would use internal memory for my music collection of Redbook flac rips, mp3's, HiRes Flacs, and iTunes ALAC files, and Spotify for streaming. This would also be connected to my own DAC(Modi Multibit for now), and then to powered speakers. I'm excited to start the project. I liked Tidal when I tries the free trial a couple years ago but I'm sorry, I just can't support MQA or anything that uses it.
Hello John, you talk about the hifiberry software but in the video you click on your phone on volumio in tidal connect? It’s a bit confusing wich software I can use on my raspberry pi with tidal.
Good morning, I find the information super good. I am looking to make my own streamer with raspberry, but I wanted to know if anyone had tried a Raspberry streamer where you can connect the ifi zen dac to the streamer via usb? I know that the ifi streamer has that ability but I don't have the budget to spend an additional US$400.00. Or in any case, which streamer would you recommend to have a dac equivalent to ifi zen? Thank you so much, Jorge.R
Too bad that the feature is locked behind a subscription plan... I had found it a while ago but skipped it cuz of that. Since you havent really covered it yet, what are your thoughts on the latest MQA/Tidal drama? MQA seems to add noise to music even when you select HiFi on Tidal.
Goldensound did quite an interesting MQA evaluation TH-cam video where he had a test piece put up in MQA and compared the master with the MQA version. On the back of it I've taken out a subscription to Qobuz in parallel with my Tidal subscription to get to know the platform a little better. Personally I'd prefer to stream FLAC if there are artefacts being introduced by a codec that really doesn't offer me any benefits.
Hi, and greetings from Norway. I am courious about the Pi and the hats, and I am wondering, have you tried installing Linn Kinski desktop on a Pi? Can it be done? Best regards, and Thank you for good videos😊
Hey John! What do you think about the Yamaha MusicCast WXAD-10? It is almost that what you were trying to do in the first place (streamer with dac and analog outputs) and it is low priced. Unfortunately there are no digital outputs to connect a different dac.
Hi John, thanks for the video. I use two RPis, one with HAT DAC, one with outboard USB DAC and have a Volumio Virtuoso plan on one of them, on which I have Tidal Connect for two weeks already. Previous version of Volumio (I think it was 2.878) was not reliable, but so far, the new version (2.882) works fine. I noticed one thing, though, whatever the OS I was using on RPi: sound quality seams noticeably better to me if I use wired connection instead of WiFi. I wonder if anyone else notices the same issue?
Okay John, s'been 3 weeks. I own an Ares II. Before I buy a Pi4, Oyaide USB ab cable and download Volumio, may we please have a video of your experiences with same?
Hi John, it would be great to get some review on how to get the best audio from a PC to desktop speakers and headphones. I am considering that journey starting with KEF LS50 Meta. Just need to pick out a suitable amp/dac and connection to PC, probably via USB.
I finally decided to jump in :) It is excellent for the price. I was about the buy the innuos mini but this one with an external dac do the trick for me. Specially with Tidal connect and Qobuz available. I wonder if you have tried the cd player add on ? I'm waiting for my cd drive to come to try it and rip my collection. I tried the pie 4 with an linear power supply, a good one with an oversized toroidal transformer and regulated : wow !
Congrats on getting that to work! I know how good that feels. As for Tidal Connect, maybe I am missing something. I have a Raspberry Pi 4 running Ropieee to which I can stream as a Roon endpoint. What does Tidal Connect support on a Raspberry Pi potentially do for me that I don't already have with Roon? And I would much rather be using Roon than any of the streaming services' apps. I am curious, what have I missed? What is the value proposition for Tidal Connect or Any Service Connect over Roon? One other point, I recently migrated from Tidal to Qobuz and was quite surprised to see how many albums Qobuz has now in hi-rez format. Many more than Tidal, at least for my library. Qobuz has been pretty busy so I would bet those 5-7% figures need to be updated. Thanks for your great reviews! Always fun to listen.
Hi John. Yamaha WXAD-10 is cheaper than the Pi. It does Tidal, Spotify, and Deezer. Plays multi room and sounds pretty good. If you are right and Spotify comes at no extra cost Tidal will have a problem. I really enjoy your videos John. Very informative. Thank you.
@@DarkoAudio It is less than £149 in the UK. You quoted a bit more for your set up. Tidal Connect will be less significant once Cd quality Spotify comes online.
@@DarkoAudio It does do multi room. Surely worth the extra cash. Plus Airplay, Bluetooth, and Internet radio. Yes the video is about Tidal and The pi. The Yamaha and Spotify Cd quality will be direct competition with these products.
Hi there, I just stared to be interested more in the sound quality and founding your explanations are on-point and make it really easy to understand the usually complex theme. I am using Hi-fi Marantz M-CR612 and Speakers Dynaudio M20. I chose Marantz primarely because of direct Tidal connect (user-friendliness). I stream music through TIDAL over WI-FI via HEOS application (when using smart phone) or directly through Tidal app if streaming over desktop computer. Would kindly ask for recommendations on how to get the best possible quality with the current equipment. Tnx
Love this! As soon as i read on your site that TIDAL Connect were available on Volumio i got to the store and got myself another microsd card. Took out the card with Ropieee on it and got up and running with Volumio. Thinking that i would have to switch between the OS, because i use my RPI4 as a Roon endpoint. But as you mention in the video Volumio does both! Great! My only niggle is that my Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital (say that fast a couple of times), does have trouble with Mqa when it does both decoding and rendering. (It drops and glitches) Works better with just rendering via Roon and the core decoding. It’s not the end of the world,but if something has a function i would like it to work and i like having the possibility to listen to Mqa. But that said,i’m really Looking forward to the dac reviews ! 👍🏼🎧
I have small question.. if the FLAC CD quality is all that matters, how about Deezer für Hi-fi? Are Deezer‘s CD quality songs less than Tidal or Qobuz? No offense in any streaming services, I just love music and want to know other opinions :)
The problem with Volumio is the subscription model. If it was a one-time thing, I could think and forget about it. This subscription is ironic for someone who wants to do a DIY solution as a cheaper solution. Do you know anything if it can work with LMS via piCoreplayer? I'm using that solution for streaming since you made a video on it a while ago.
I got HiTide working on volumio on the side follow googled instructions. The only quirk is that it hard grabs my allo katana. I guess if inside volumios own orchestration it can let services release the audio device when switching, kindof like on ropieee. Bummer you need to pay for it, and I really hope volumio is paying the coder for HiTide if their implementation is the same.
Question. I’m $200 invested into the Raspberry PI and related helm attachment. Is there any way link the streamer with my amp and speakers. Everything seems to support headphones rather than speakers and the primary listening device
The % of the Library that is hi res is not the important stat, its the % of the Library you will want to listen too that is hi res that is important. Its probably going to by much higher than 5%, though of course this varies by person.
I think that Spotify cd quality is due to be launched as part of their standard service, so I’m not sure whether Tidal Connect will convert that many Spotify users. Also, a lot of Spotify users don’t like the home brew multiple box raspberry pi solution, they want the set and forget solution. Good video though.
Would love to see you check out the Pi2AES HAT, supposed to be one of the best sounding for the price and has all the outputs possible (optical, coax, BNC, AES, and I2S)
You're totally right that tidal connect is the single biggest move they could make to be more attractive. I for one are looking at reviving my account with them. The other big move all the streaming services could do is to be transparent about how artist get paid from them. The uncertainty here is a turn-off/worrying.
Great video John - thank you! If I wanted to connect the volumio pi to KEF LS50 Wireless v1s (optical input) what would I use to convert the USB signal into optical?
I have been using Amazon Music with Ultra HD. Is Tidal still better? I use a firestick connected to my AVR via HDMI dedicated to just playing Amazon UltraHD and Hd music via the Amazon Music app. Am I missing something here?
Came here to say the same thing as the person that cant wait for the zombies. Google: Tidal worse than flac reddit Should be the reddit link titled: Testing MQA: Is it worse than FLAC? The test was done by another youtuber. User:goldensound Very interesting read.
Odd that you couldn't get HiTide working with a USB DAC. I have both raspotify and HiTide working flawlessly on the same Pi with output to my Topping E30.
Yes me too. Just remember hitide is a hack. The software is illegal and not legit. It could use trackers etc. use at your own risk. I isolated the player on a seperate network to try it.
Pleased we now have Tidal connect on my Pi using Volumio but not sure of its stability, it doesn’t play all my Tidal Masters albums only about 50% No idea why, I’m sure it will be fixed in the next update though, would love the audiophonics if your giving it away lol
Have someone tried some BT aptxHD HAT to do HQ streaming with wireless headphone like Sony’s and BW which only have aptxHD? I have an iPhone so only aac! I’d love to have a streamer with coaxial for my ampli dac and bt for headphones. Thanks
Tidal connect on volumio works great, but for some reason I get alot of clicks and pops with it. I'm using a Allo USBridge Signature so noise shouldnt be an issue.
1.CD-Quality References Re: Tidal… Recent testing and forum debate is calling out Tidal and MQA for being a lossy format, and not CD quality at all. Please check out the GoldenSound MQA video on youtube. There are also a few threads on the Roon forum. IMO, Qobuz clearly offers a richer, denser sound performance/stream. It’s also MQA free. 2.Tidal New Tiers In OZ.. FYI, In Australia Tidal has just released additional tiers of streaming. One of those tiers is marketed as “Hifi Lossless”, defined as MQA free CD lossless PCM/flac, undoubtedly launched to combat a mass exodus of Aussie users who no longer wish to support MQA. However, it now appears, that some Roon forum members have demonstrated Tidal are allegedly streaming MQA versions with MQA identification removed. I.e. Not lossless. 3.HiTide Software.. A few community threads on the Roon forum, have also highlighted the Git Hub HiTide connect software is illegal. Roon are on the record stating the software/binary was extracted from a player that was licensed by TIDAL to support TIDAL connect. So just be cautious. 4.Suggestions for a quality Rpi4 source.. Can I suggest you look at the Pi2aes hat. The devices provides i2s, AES, Spdif, BNC AES outputs. The device produces great quality music, and it measures incredibly well to boot. At $150 usd it’s a true hardware bargain.
Do you personally use this that much though? I mean you’ve mentioned having Roon in the past and that’s been able to send Tidal streams to all sorts of endpoints for awhile now (including RPis). Also props for listening to Richter’s Sleep.
Be interested to hear your thoughts on ‘balenaSound” if you haven’t all ready. Not tidal connect yet, but it’s like open source pi based whole home audio
I use a Pi4 with HifiBerry Digi+ and Volumio image. The Digi+ is a must, as the USB ports are very noisy. Connecting your DAC (Schiit Yggdrasil in my case) over coax with the Digi+ board is the way to go. Now I have a stream transport with the quality of an Aurealic for less then 200€. Using it with Qobuz, network drive and Airplay. All work out of the box with Volumio.
*PLEASE READ CAREFULLY* Be a decent human being: kindly keep your sexist/racist thoughts and conspiracy theories to yourself. External links are also a no-no. Comments that advance the conversation are most welcome.
Thanks for the update. I just updated my Volumio. At this time all I have is a drive connected with Flac files of CD. Since I just lost the job at hospital I will hold off on tidal or anything else for time being. Thanks for starting me on this journey.
I’m holding out for Qobuz Connect.
Thx John for the update on Volumio. I have two Pi based dacs did a update on both and had Tidal connect working within a hour. I’m pleased with the results much better way to stream Tidal on these devices.
Love this Raspberry Pi stuff! I've been considering a move to Tidal, but I think I'm going to hold off until Spotify go lossless. Just comfortable with the Spotify app!
I wasn't aware of HifiBerry OS. Minimal and effective. That's all I was looking for my Raspberry Pi. Thank you for sharing.
I have been using Volumio for a couple of years. I am currently running on a pi-zero W with a pimoroni dac shim. I have a hard drive on my network that has a couple of gig's of music I have collected. The FLAC's of live performances sound awesome. My system is only about $250 in total with speakers and amp, pi, etc. It is a little slow to get started (the pi zero is pretty wimpy) but it is something I can take in my pocket and connect anywhere I have wifi or cellular and stream all of my music or pretty much any service that volumio supports. The community on volumio has been great to help me with gotchas over time. I could put a much nicer DAC on it for $100 but for my needs, it is perfectly adequate. Thanks for the great content and for spreading the word that great-sounding audio doesn't have to be expensive.
Great video, and I love how you geek on this stuff. It's not as elegant but I have been streaming Tidal to my Pi using LMS. Just another alternative. 👍
How does it differ from the Tidal connect? They both stream directly to the Pi I think, unlike a Bluetooth or Airplay connection.
@@Patricia-kk8tr Similar, but what I have is a plugin for LMS, so it uses the LMS/Squeeze interface. Advantage - it integrates seamlessly with my own library of music files on a share. Disadvantage - a bit fussy to set up, and not as elegant looking a UI. You're correct - both stream audio bits straight from Tidal to the device, not through my phone. The phone app is just a controller. Turn the phone off and the music keeps playing.
Great job John. This is why I love your content. Always trying ways to enjoy music.
Very useful. Like the unintentional pun at then end: 'hats off....'
Brave initiative, John. Am enjoying both Tidal Connect and Qobuz by means of my Bluesound Node 2i.
I like how you're honest. I am just starting to get into HIFI home audio and a DIY'er. I am never satisfied with my equipment lol I feel I can always get better
For me Tidal connect is far more important than MQA. Both are amazing bits of software, one lets me find and listen to music with ease and other makes me go looking for MQA versions of albums.
My Spotify (and connect) running on volumio and pi, just started streaming 16 44.1 this week (according to volumio app). Everything I've played thus far. Last week just 320kbps. I have a "premium" account and I'm in the US. The advantage is I'm not a my Volumio subscriber.
Thanks for your great videos.
I think the hi-res stuff is relevant for newer albums that get released but I get the point overall that its a small part of the library. Keep up the great stuff, John and team! I love the point on streaming convenience though! I've mostly moved to using Spotify Connect as the default option to enjoy music, first and foremost, on my KEF LSX. If only the chips inside had the ability to run Tidal Connect as well.
Neubauten... Eisbär.. you certainly make an effort to go full Leberwurst :) I just started Tidal mainly to give Ek the finger he deserves but as you mentioned, the beauty of it all is that my amp speaks Spotify natively, while for Tidal or others I have to go through Heos, and that just isn't nice, at all. So hooray hifi quality, but now I have several new maintenance vectors with a range of responsible parties (or sometimes there won't even be a party assuming responsibility, RasPi foundation won't care if that external hat doesn't work or if the 3rd party OS can't do this thing or that thing): a Pi, a modified OS (updates? ITsec?), additional hardware (USB DAC I might just plug into a 50EUR tablet off local ads and keep near my hifi spot), a _subscription_ to a service that provides the data path to the hifi system, an annual subscription --- I think it's easier and more reliable to put a USB sound card with digital outputs of any band on a pi, add an SSD with all my CDs ripped to in CD quality and have a web interface on top.
What do you think of MQA, I've read and listened to a lot of complains about it, as if it's all marketing fuff that actually makes sound worse.
Compare Qobuz and Tidal MQA and decide for yourself. To me there is no contest, MQA is a gimmick and the honest streaming Qobuz offers is superior in terms of sound quality.
Google: Tidal worse than flac reddit
Should be the reddit link titled: Testing MQA: Is it worse than FLAC?
The test was done by another youtuber.
User:goldensound
Very interesting read.
However, do try it for yourself. This might not even matter to you.
In your video you said installing the tidal connect is impossible in Volumio but actually tidal connect is included already with the Paid Membership in Volumio , all you hv to do is to pay for the membership thingy and upgrade it, tidal connect is there working perfectly.
Great timing! Abandoning my noisy MacBook for a RP with digione signature this week. Tidal connect on Volumio is exciting.
Hi, John. I write about tidal, volumio and the denafrips ares 2 you mentioned you're reviewing. I know you're not focused on hi-res streaming or hi-res music in general - and I get where you are coming from. However, please note that there's an easy and ostensibly free option in that volumio allows you to up sample files. I've been using the ares 2 with volumio running on an Allo USBridge Signature for about a year now. I A/B tested all the options, and I now upsample tidal in volumio to 384khz and then in the ares 2 I oversample the upsampled files. This might sound like a lot of trouble. But I do it because to my ears this produces the best sound quality with LS50s paired with a REL T7i sub and driven by a Rogue Sphinx V2 amp. Please note this "hack" doesn't work with tidal connect. You have to use the clunky (but improving) volumio app.
Lastly, a big thank you to you and your colleagues for creating such great content for music-first audiophiles. I'm a big fan of your website and your TH-cam channel!
Thanks again, and best of wishes,
Veli
Tidal will gain an even more audiophile customers if they develop their own raspberry pi OS or plugin software.
I think it's amazing that people can differentiate between 2 good DACS.
While telling apart a laptop or android built in DAC from say a Chord Mojo or a Fiio K3 is easy, comparing top tier DACS is no easy feat.
This is a great solution for getting Tidal Connect up and running. Just completed my setup last night with the dragonfly cobalt and it was fairly simple. One issue regarding MQA on this setup. I notice that the Dragonfly led only lights up blue instead of purple on MQA songs and then green on everything else. Seems a bit odd... But Tidal Connect is the big win here with MQA being an added bonus.
with the Raspberry Pi 3B plus you can send the signal directly via the USB port to, for example, the Denon pma-600ne.with volumio you can perfectly stream music such as Nas server, spotify and perhaps also TIDAL payment. the Dac of the Denon is exceptionally great. sounds even better than the hifiberry hat, HiFiBerry DAC RCA+ Pro this is equivalent to the Bluesound node 2i
That's actually pretty good news because the Pi2AES uses the the Hifiberry Digi+ Pro Driver , so you could actually use your own outboard DAC. Worth a try at least.
would this work with the Digi2 Pro?
Thanks for your great content! - How good is the DAC compared to a Google Chromecast Audio? Br. LFK
Iphone / RPI with Dietpi OS / and Tidal Connect! This config works via the Iphone via Airplay choice.
No need for other 3rd party Software.
The only problem is I can't see the same choices in Tidal connect on my PC as I don't have airplay on the pc.
Iphone works fine so its kinda ok
Maybe Airplay for Windows 11 will do the trick.
Well I took the bait and bought a rasberry pi 3 B and digi hat. Loaded Volumio and stream Tidal Connect. I’m not tech savvy, but I got to work. It sounds so good that my dear wife commented on how good it sounds. That is a first. For reference, I was using an iFi Zen Blu, which sounded good, but not nearly this good. The rest of the system is: Schiit Bifrost Mutibit DAC, Naim Nait integrated amp driving Focal Aria 906 speakers.
Hi John. Who's the artist that makes the pictures you have in the walls? Thanks
Will the PI output audio over HDMI? I want to be able to pass the digital stream over hdmi to enjoy atmos music. Thanks!
John, Volumio has some buffering settings that I adjusted and the Tidal delays/drops went away for me on my PI based Audiophonics streamer/dac.
Which ones did you adjust ?
I am using VitOS on my Pi4. Just lovely 😊
But works for use as a Roon Endpoint only?
@@AWEG-qu8bz Yes, for Roon only.
Volumio going the subscribe route ? I know it's probably not very expensive now, but I am not too optimistic about that...
I'd have gone for a digi HAT instead of a DAC HAT so you can then still use an external DAC, although obviously via COAX or TOS. Removes the need for the volumio reliance....he says as a Roon user. 😅
Hey John, great video. Did you notice audio quality differences between RPi3b+ and the RPi4b? The 4b sounds so much worse to me - would be glad to hear about your experience. Cheers, love your videos.
What I understand so far is
that my Rapberry should be capable with Hifiberry OS and my Allo Digione Tidal Connect. Right?
From the Allo HAT I can then go to my DAC with COAX. Did I understand that correctly so far?
Is Hifiberry OS a standalone program or do I need a Raspberry Pi OS as a base?
Thanks
Oh.... lol at John with the newly uploaded White Room (Directors cut)
I was waiting for that one to feature in a video. It's a certified Sunday Chill Out album for sure :)
Sounds great, its a pitty that amazon music hd isnt integrated yet. But its worth a try with tidal then ;)
Does this support Dolby ATMOS? Oh - and you're the only other Grauzone fan I know.
I got on board the Pi-train thanks to one of your videos a while back. Currently working on a nice wood and glass housing with a built in display to put the Pi front and center in my setup.
I have a question about volumio though - what do you think of the CD ripping feature of volumio with a standard USB CD drive, in terms of the potential quality you can get out of it? Interested in your thoughts on the topic.
I'm gonna start building my touch screen Raspberry Pi music player/streamer in a few weeks using the Raspberry Pi 4, official touchscreen, smartipi case, HiFi berry digi2 pro, and Volumio. This would use internal memory for my music collection of Redbook flac rips, mp3's, HiRes Flacs, and iTunes ALAC files, and Spotify for streaming. This would also be connected to my own DAC(Modi Multibit for now), and then to powered speakers. I'm excited to start the project.
I liked Tidal when I tries the free trial a couple years ago but I'm sorry, I just can't support MQA or anything that uses it.
Hello John, you talk about the hifiberry software but in the video you click on your phone on volumio in tidal connect? It’s a bit confusing wich software I can use on my raspberry pi with tidal.
I switched from Tidal to Qobuz a month ago and I'm not going back.
Volumio supports Qobuz.
Good morning, I find the information super good. I am looking to make my own streamer with raspberry, but I wanted to know if anyone had tried a Raspberry streamer where you can connect the ifi zen dac to the streamer via usb? I know that the ifi streamer has that ability but I don't have the budget to spend an additional US$400.00. Or in any case, which streamer would you recommend to have a dac equivalent to ifi zen? Thank you so much,
Jorge.R
Too bad that the feature is locked behind a subscription plan... I had found it a while ago but skipped it cuz of that.
Since you havent really covered it yet, what are your thoughts on the latest MQA/Tidal drama? MQA seems to add noise to music even when you select HiFi on Tidal.
Goldensound did quite an interesting MQA evaluation TH-cam video where he had a test piece put up in MQA and compared the master with the MQA version. On the back of it I've taken out a subscription to Qobuz in parallel with my Tidal subscription to get to know the platform a little better. Personally I'd prefer to stream FLAC if there are artefacts being introduced by a codec that really doesn't offer me any benefits.
Just bought an RME ADI-2... hope that Denafrips Ares2 doesn't change your mind about it's relative value xD
Hi, and greetings from Norway. I am courious about the Pi and the hats, and I am wondering, have you tried installing Linn Kinski desktop on a Pi? Can it be done? Best regards, and Thank you for good videos😊
Hey John! What do you think about the Yamaha MusicCast WXAD-10? It is almost that what you were trying to do in the first place (streamer with dac and analog outputs) and it is low priced. Unfortunately there are no digital outputs to connect a different dac.
Hey John. Thank you for the great videos. What is your opinion on Amazon Music HD?
How did you connect the denafrip to the Pi? Not toslink? Can you let me know. I just go the Pi. Will connect to same denafrips
Wish there is a standard way to stream to any device without paying extra other than for sources, i.e. no need for Roon, Volumio, etc.
Hi John, thanks for the video.
I use two RPis, one with HAT DAC, one with outboard USB DAC and have a Volumio Virtuoso plan on one of them, on which I have Tidal Connect for two weeks already.
Previous version of Volumio (I think it was 2.878) was not reliable, but so far, the new version (2.882) works fine.
I noticed one thing, though, whatever the OS I was using on RPi: sound quality seams noticeably better to me if I use wired connection instead of WiFi. I wonder if anyone else notices the same issue?
Hello John, I hope you are having a great day. Now that LG is gone, what do you think about the Sony Xperia 1 mark III phone???
Okay John, s'been 3 weeks. I own an Ares II. Before I buy a Pi4, Oyaide USB ab cable and download Volumio, may we please have a video of your experiences with same?
Hi John, it would be great to get some review on how to get the best audio from a PC to desktop speakers and headphones. I am considering that journey starting with KEF LS50 Meta. Just need to pick out a suitable amp/dac and connection to PC, probably via USB.
I finally decided to jump in :) It is excellent for the price. I was about the buy the innuos mini but this one with an external dac do the trick for me. Specially with Tidal connect and Qobuz available.
I wonder if you have tried the cd player add on ? I'm waiting for my cd drive to come to try it and rip my collection.
I tried the pie 4 with an linear power supply, a good one with an oversized toroidal transformer and regulated : wow !
Congrats on getting that to work! I know how good that feels. As for Tidal Connect, maybe I am missing something. I have a Raspberry Pi 4 running Ropieee to which I can stream as a Roon endpoint. What does Tidal Connect support on a Raspberry Pi potentially do for me that I don't already have with Roon? And I would much rather be using Roon than any of the streaming services' apps. I am curious, what have I missed? What is the value proposition for Tidal Connect or Any Service Connect over Roon? One other point, I recently migrated from Tidal to Qobuz and was quite surprised to see how many albums Qobuz has now in hi-rez format. Many more than Tidal, at least for my library. Qobuz has been pretty busy so I would bet those 5-7% figures need to be updated. Thanks for your great reviews! Always fun to listen.
Thank you so much for turning me on to this solution , I have 1 into my amp & speakers & another into amp & headphones, works perfectly!
Hi John. Yamaha WXAD-10 is cheaper than the Pi. It does Tidal, Spotify, and Deezer. Plays multi room and sounds pretty good. If you are right and Spotify comes at no extra cost Tidal will have a problem. I really enjoy your videos John. Very informative. Thank you.
Is twice the price of a Pi and does not do Tidal Connect.
@@DarkoAudio It is less than £149 in the UK. You quoted a bit more for your set up. Tidal Connect will be less significant once Cd quality Spotify comes online.
Pi 3 + Hifi berry HAT is
@@DarkoAudio It does do multi room. Surely worth the extra cash. Plus Airplay, Bluetooth, and Internet radio. Yes the video is about Tidal and The pi. The Yamaha and Spotify Cd quality will be direct competition with these products.
Hi there, I just stared to be interested more in the sound quality and founding your explanations are on-point and make it really easy to understand the usually complex theme. I am using Hi-fi Marantz M-CR612 and Speakers Dynaudio M20. I chose Marantz primarely because of direct Tidal connect (user-friendliness). I stream music through TIDAL over WI-FI via HEOS application (when using smart phone) or directly through Tidal app if streaming over desktop computer. Would kindly ask for recommendations on how to get the best possible quality with the current equipment. Tnx
Nice, I like RPi using it as a streamer. Good recorded 44.1 is good enough for me...
Does this work with gapless playback?
Yes.
Love this! As soon as i read on your site that TIDAL Connect were available on Volumio i got to the store and got myself another microsd card.
Took out the card with Ropieee on it and got up and running with Volumio. Thinking that i would have to switch between the OS, because i use my RPI4 as a Roon endpoint. But as you mention in the video Volumio does both! Great!
My only niggle is that my Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital (say that fast a couple of times), does have trouble with Mqa when it does both decoding and rendering. (It drops and glitches) Works better with just rendering via Roon and the core decoding. It’s not the end of the world,but if something has a function i would like it to work and i like having the possibility to listen to Mqa.
But that said,i’m really Looking forward to the dac reviews ! 👍🏼🎧
Hi, were you able to hook up pre box S2 with your RPi4 just fine ? Via USB or toslink?
There are Tidal Connect running streamers, why didn't you use those yet?
I have small question.. if the FLAC CD quality is all that matters, how about Deezer für Hi-fi? Are Deezer‘s CD quality songs less than Tidal or Qobuz? No offense in any streaming services, I just love music and want to know other opinions :)
Interesting but is it as good as a Dell XPS with an Asus Essence STXII sound card or a Denon CEOL. Might give it a go though just out of interest.
The problem with Volumio is the subscription model. If it was a one-time thing, I could think and forget about it. This subscription is ironic for someone who wants to do a DIY solution as a cheaper solution. Do you know anything if it can work with LMS via piCoreplayer? I'm using that solution for streaming since you made a video on it a while ago.
LMS does have a Tidal plug-in already. Search TH-cam for Ian Canada who got MQA on Volumio running a different way. For free.
I got HiTide working on volumio on the side follow googled instructions. The only quirk is that it hard grabs my allo katana.
I guess if inside volumios own orchestration it can let services release the audio device when switching, kindof like on ropieee.
Bummer you need to pay for it, and I really hope volumio is paying the coder for HiTide if their implementation is the same.
Does it need to be a USB DAC or will a HAT DAC (something like the ALLO boss) also work with this?
Question. I’m $200 invested into the Raspberry PI and related helm attachment. Is there any way link the streamer with my amp and speakers. Everything seems to support headphones rather than speakers and the primary listening device
The % of the Library that is hi res is not the important stat, its the % of the Library you will want to listen too that is hi res that is important. Its probably going to by much higher than 5%, though of course this varies by person.
I think that Spotify cd quality is due to be launched as part of their standard service, so I’m not sure whether Tidal Connect will convert that many Spotify users. Also, a lot of Spotify users don’t like the home brew multiple box raspberry pi solution, they want the set and forget solution. Good video though.
Would love to see you check out the Pi2AES HAT, supposed to be one of the best sounding for the price and has all the outputs possible (optical, coax, BNC, AES, and I2S)
Would like to see that as well.
Good stuff.
You're totally right that tidal connect is the single biggest move they could make to be more attractive. I for one are looking at reviving my account with them.
The other big move all the streaming services could do is to be transparent about how artist get paid from them. The uncertainty here is a turn-off/worrying.
Jana's keyboard looks cool..
Great video John - thank you! If I wanted to connect the volumio pi to KEF LS50 Wireless v1s (optical input) what would I use to convert the USB signal into optical?
Get a hat. Hifiberry Digi+ Pro should work fine.
Can't imagine why this same fix wouldn't work with a Digi2 Pro HAT that would output the Tidal bitstream to a DAC of your choice.
To be clear, the DAC would need coax or Toslink SPDIF input.
I have been using Amazon Music with Ultra HD. Is Tidal still better? I use a firestick connected to my AVR via HDMI dedicated to just playing Amazon UltraHD and Hd music via the Amazon Music app. Am I missing something here?
Watch GoldenSound's video on MQA and you'll have your answer.
Came here to say the same thing as the person that cant wait for the zombies.
Google: Tidal worse than flac reddit
Should be the reddit link titled: Testing MQA: Is it worse than FLAC?
The test was done by another youtuber.
User:goldensound
Very interesting read.
Odd that you couldn't get HiTide working with a USB DAC. I have both raspotify and HiTide working flawlessly on the same Pi with output to my Topping E30.
Yes me too. Just remember hitide is a hack. The software is illegal and not legit. It could use trackers etc. use at your own risk. I isolated the player on a seperate network to try it.
Pleased we now have Tidal connect on my Pi using Volumio but not sure of its stability, it doesn’t play all my Tidal Masters albums only about 50%
No idea why, I’m sure it will be fixed in the next update though, would love the audiophonics if your giving it away lol
Do you have DAC hat on the pi 4 or is it from usb to dac?
Have someone tried some BT aptxHD HAT to do HQ streaming with wireless headphone like Sony’s and BW which only have aptxHD? I have an iPhone so only aac! I’d love to have a streamer with coaxial for my ampli dac and bt for headphones. Thanks
Could you have a look and review Daphile OS? Please.
Great job again. Nice video.. go ahead
would this stream Tidal better than my Oppo 103? Spotify?
Does hi bit rate go over connect? Or maybe it has to be hard wired
Nvm I think I get it now
Those red Tunetots are waiting to be reviewed aren’t they?
Tidal connect on volumio works great, but for some reason I get alot of clicks and pops with it. I'm using a Allo USBridge Signature so noise shouldnt be an issue.
7:18 I felt that. Poor Germany 😔
"hats off to them" - great pun !
1.CD-Quality References Re: Tidal…
Recent testing and forum debate is calling out Tidal and MQA for being a lossy format, and not CD quality at all. Please check out the GoldenSound MQA video on youtube.
There are also a few threads on the Roon forum. IMO, Qobuz clearly offers a richer, denser sound performance/stream. It’s also MQA free.
2.Tidal New Tiers In OZ..
FYI, In Australia Tidal has just released additional tiers of streaming. One of those tiers is marketed as “Hifi Lossless”, defined as MQA free CD lossless PCM/flac, undoubtedly launched to combat a mass exodus of Aussie users who no longer wish to support MQA. However, it now appears, that some Roon forum members have demonstrated Tidal are allegedly streaming MQA versions with MQA identification removed. I.e. Not lossless.
3.HiTide Software..
A few community threads on the Roon forum, have also highlighted the Git Hub HiTide connect software is illegal. Roon are on the record stating the software/binary was extracted from a player that was licensed by TIDAL to support TIDAL connect. So just be cautious.
4.Suggestions for a quality Rpi4 source..
Can I suggest you look at the Pi2aes hat. The devices provides i2s, AES, Spdif, BNC AES outputs. The device produces great quality music, and it measures incredibly well to boot. At $150 usd it’s a true hardware bargain.
Bloody Tidal Connect is not the same as Spotify connect! It can not see my Macbook from iPhone and vice versa...
Try Deezer also hi-fi quality. Their app is just a little unrefined.
Do you personally use this that much though? I mean you’ve mentioned having Roon in the past and that’s been able to send Tidal streams to all sorts of endpoints for awhile now (including RPis).
Also props for listening to Richter’s Sleep.
Be interested to hear your thoughts on ‘balenaSound” if you haven’t all ready. Not tidal connect yet, but it’s like open source pi based whole home audio
I use a Pi4 with HifiBerry Digi+ and Volumio image. The Digi+ is a must, as the USB ports are very noisy. Connecting your DAC (Schiit Yggdrasil in my case) over coax with the Digi+ board is the way to go. Now I have a stream transport with the quality of an Aurealic for less then 200€. Using it with Qobuz, network drive and Airplay. All work out of the box with Volumio.
If you don't care about hi-res, why not just use Chromecast? It has an optical output.
Chromecast doesn't do gapless playback.
Note to self: internet in Germany wobbles.
Will the Gato 150 be staying? It looks brilliant. I want one.
I am a MQA customer because the 7% that’s offered in that format is >85% of my playlist.