I have very recently purchased a Windows 10 desktop pc as my Vista jobbie was getting on for 10 years old. One of the benefits of the new PC was to enable me to stream MQA music on the Tidal desktop application.
The problem is that if I try to stream on either the HiFi or Master settings I get a pop-up stating “Could not connect to streaming server. Check your internet connection”. However, it works fine on the High and Normal settings.
This only happens on the desktop app because if I log on to Tidal via the web then the HiFi setting works fine. (Master setting is only available on the desktop app).
To be honest it’s only an issue because I’ve just ordered a pair of HiFiMan HE4XX planar headphones from Drop (EU) and I’m looking at headphone amps so I can take advantage of the MQA stuff.
I’m in the UK using a Virgin Superhub 2ac. I can log in to the hub but it seems that Virgin do not allow the DNS settings to be changed…there are plenty of complaints on Google about it.
There may well be an obvious answer to this question and given the above it’s moot anyway but if it is the DNS settings in the router causing the problem, why would the problem only manifest itself in the desktop app but not in Chrome?
I’m on ethernet and this is only an issue on the Tidal app…nothing else. I’m not sure how Roon could help but that’s a moot point because I’m never going to use it.
I admit to not knowing much about how different settings like a static IP, with or without Google DNS work and to be honest I’m loathe to make changes in case they affect anything else.
I will probably try contacting Tidal to see if they have any idea.
It is almost painless/effortless to download Roon or Audirvana to test your Tidal connectivity. However, Tidal support hopefully can help and it would be interesting to know exactly your problem is.
I have the Tidal app on Windows 10.
I don’t use it much that way, but I’ve just signed in and played a few tracks and they show either ‘HI-FI’ or ‘MASTER’ if it is Master recording, so it’s not a general Tidal app problem. I have a Virgin Superhub 3 but only use it in Modem mode with an ASUS router due to historic general streaming and discovery problems. As that setup works, I’ve never gone back to see if the problems I had still exist now.
I’m not sure if that’s any help; sorry I don’t know what’s causing your issue. Hopefully Tidal might be able to advise.
That’s useful thanks Steve. Virgin would switch me back to the Superhub 3 whenever I want but I don’t trust them to have fixed the drop-out problem. Using the Superhub in Modem mode gives me another option to explore.
I raised a fault report about this at the time with Tidal and their first-line support responded within a day with a couple of options for me to try, including the DNS settings and using a VPN, neither of which worked.
The problem was then passed to their Desktop Client team who actually sent me a link to a beta copy of the desktop app that they had modified specifically for my problem. I thought this was brilliant service but unfortunately that didn’t work either.
I had to leave things with them because I went on holiday though I did get a couple of emails asking me to check again which I obviously could not do straight away. I then got another saying the report had been closed but I could re-open it if required.
Since getting home I’m happy to say that everything is working as expected on both HIFi and Master settings so a big thank you to Tidal support for resolving the issue. I’ve had a quick look through my emails to see what they actually did did but cannot find any details.
I’m also very happy to say that Tidal sounds superb through my HiFiMan HE-4XX headphones connected to a Cyrus Soundkey USB DAC. I have yet to do a full comparison with the headphone output of my 172 but as the headphones were not bought to use on that I’m not too bothered one way or the other.