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[Fred le Barbu]

Hello,

With Tidal, at the begining of each track , the sound is bad, jerky, during several seconds and then it comes good. I have this problem with both Tidal and spotify, but not Qobuz.
And when MQA decoder of TIDAL is used (MASTER tracks with "Passthrough MQA" not delected), the sound is definitly terrible, almost inaudible.

In Tidal, audio output is "JRiver Media Center 22 (JRiver Media Center 23)" (I need the "convolve"function of JRiver)
 with "exclusive mode"

I have no problem with audio output "Speakers (Hiface)" (but then without JRiver)

I put all the buffers I could find (in JRiver and in my M2TECH HIFACE sound card) at the maximum. No effect.
I've tried to play with the Thread priority in Windows. No effect.

Everything works fine with the same parameters with Qobuz (but can't try HiRes tracks).

I have a recent Core I5 Laptop with 8GB and Windows 10. Not other application running. Processor allways <20%.

Do you have an idea about the origin of the problem ?

Thanks a lot for help.

Fred

[tyler69]

Hello,

With Tidal, at the begining of each track , the sound is bad, jerky, during several seconds and then it comes good. I have this problem with both Tidal and spotify, but not Qobuz.
And when MQA decoder of TIDAL is used (MASTER tracks with "Passthrough MQA" not delected), the sound is definitly terrible, almost inaudible.

In Tidal, audio output is "JRiver Media Center 22 (JRiver Media Center 23)" (I need the "convolve"function of JRiver)
 with "exclusive mode"

I have no problem with audio output "Speakers (Hiface)" (but then without JRiver)

I put all the buffers I could find (in JRiver and in my M2TECH HIFACE sound card) at the maximum. No effect.
I've tried to play with the Thread priority in Windows. No effect.

Everything works fine with the same parameters with Qobuz (but can't try HiRes tracks).

I have a recent Core I5 Laptop with 8GB and Windows 10. Not other application running. Processor allways <20%.

Do you have an idea about the origin of the problem ?

Thanks a lot for help.

Fred

For the first problem: are you using wifi or a cabled network? Did you try both?
For the second problem: AFAIK MQA is not supported by MC. This might be a good start: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,113274.0.html

[dtc]

I presume you are feeding the Tidal output into WDM. There is a known issue with Tidal Masters playing through WDM at 24/88 or 23/96. Hi rez files do work with some other sources, so it is unclear what the problem is.


https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,113482.msg784429.html#msg784429



And here is some background.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,112739.0.html



Not sure why you are having problems with 16/44 files. I have not seen reports of that from others. When I have tried it in the past, I have not had the problem you are reporting at the beginning of the track.

[Fred le Barbu]

Wifi,

humm, I will try to connect a long cable if I can. But, no problem with Qobuz...

For the second problem, i can understand that the MQA has to be decoded in TIDAL because MC can't do it,  so I should not check "Passthrough MQA" in TIDAL. Am I wrong ?

[Fred le Barbu]

Thank you,  but no WDM: In Tidal, audio output is "JRiver Media Center 22 (JRiver Media Center 23)"

But the problem is the same with WDM (it's the same with spotify)

[dtc]

That is JRiver WDM you are seeing in Tidal.

[Fred le Barbu]

OK. Thks

[fitbrit]

DO click on MQA passthrough on Tidal.
In MC make sure you are using JRiver bitperfect dithering.

[dtc]

MQA Passthrough  just passes the MQA file through without any unfolding. So it is sending 44/48 Khz samples for Masters files.  The JRiver WDM problem comes when you do not have an MQA DAC and want the software to do the first unfolding to 24/88 or 24/96. Doing that first unfolding and using JRiver WDM produces lots of distortion.  So using MQA Passthrough works with WDM, it just does not provide any advantage for non-MQA DACs.  If you want to the unfolding of  MQA Masters without a MQA DAC, then bypassing JRiver is the way to get the decoded data to a DAC.

[fitbrit]

MQA Passthrough  just passes the MQA file through without any unfolding. So it is sending 44/48 Khz samples for Masters files.  The JRiver WDM problem comes when you do not have an MQA DAC and want the software to do the first unfolding to 24/88 or 24/96. Doing that first unfolding and using JRiver WDM produces lots of distortion.  So using MQA Passthrough works with WDM, it just does not provide any advantage for non-MQA DACs.  If you want to the unfolding of  MQA Masters without a MQA DAC, then bypassing JRiver is the way to get the decoded data to a DAC.

I assumed the presence of an MQA unfolding DAC like a Mytek Brooklyn, and I should not assume. The DAC is a hiface.
I have had MQA files play back fine in Tidal via WDM, though.

[dtc]

I have had MQA files play back fine in Tidal via WDM, though.

With software unfolding in Tidal?  Most others are getting a lot of distortion with 88/96 KHz unfolded MQA played through WDM.

The original 44/48 KHz MQAs should be fine with WDM as long as it is bit perfect.

[fitbrit]

I just tested it again.
I would get it to work for a while - except that the first second of a track was repeated once before normal playback. But then, either halfway through a track or after the first track, all I got was white noise.
A few months back when Tidal released a new version, supposedly JRiver friendly, I thought I had tested all combinations and all was well. I may have been using my Brooklyn DAC and passing through though.

[gvl]

I'm getting a fair amount of initial stuttering and sometimes an initial delay in playback through WDM even with Tidal Masters disabled. I found pressing "Stop" in JRiver prior to starting playback in Tidal somewhat helps to minimize these effects. No issues once it gets going. This doesn't help with software-decoded MQA Tidal Masters which constantly stutters and drops out as others reported. Tried to change buffer sizes to no avail.

[rockabillybass]

The problem with stuttering at the beginning of a Tidal track has been reported on the forum for one of JRiver's competitors, so it may not be a JRiver issue.