I’m having terrible tidal dropout problems with my Naim streamer but absolutely no issues at all wifing on my ipad using the tidal app. Surely then this has to be a Naim compatibility issue??
No, I see - maybe it is truly a Tidal issue (as per Sgm2010) in that the changes they have made are affecting only certain devices, dependent on their software/architecture??
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This issue can be created by any one of several changes. It can simply be that an introduction of an extra hop in the TCP/IP routing path from your house to one of Tidal’s streaming servers is enough to cause poorer performance.
It could be they changed their caching model or an Application Programming Interface call. They could have changed the Content Distribution Network provider. Any glitch, re-transmit, hop delay in that path could be enough to choke off the flow long enough for your streamer to empty its buffer and then for the Tidal app on your streamer to time-out and drop the feed.
A path from your house to Tidal would look like this 
Your Streamer <-> to your broadband router
Your Broadband Router <-> to your Internet Service Provider’s network
Your Internet Service Provider’s network <–> to their breakout to the internet
Transit or Peering with a Tier 1 Internet core backbone provider <-> To another Internet core backbone provider
Internet core backbone provider <–> To Tidal’s Internet Service Provider Internet breakout
Tidal’s Internet Service Provider’s network <—> To Tidal’s incoming Firewall
Tidal’s Incoming Firewall <–> Tidal’s playback streaming services - likely distributed and likely across many nodes.
In the above examples, the packets that make up your stream are flowing across all that infrastructure and all those routing, peering hand-offs. If something isn’t as optimal is it can be, for example a change in routing policy, a change in peering strategy, poor caching strategy, poor content distribution, anything like that, can run down the margins of what will work and when it will work.
There is an art and science to engineering for good network latency and removing network jitter and unnecessary hops. And when it’s not all aligned, and there are platforms with small buffers, then they will be impacted by anything suboptimal before anything else.
I just ran Traceroute on listen.tidal.com and am able to deduce something surprising about Tidal. Normally I’d expect a service like that to have a CDN like model, with more locally cached services in Europe, APAC and the US. I’d expect to get directed something run by Akamai, Limelight, or Amazon Cloudfront more locally. I don’t. My request goes all the way via London on NTT’s network to an Amazon node in New York. This is particularly suboptimal. It takes more than 10 hops, 4 of which happen in the USA to get to the service.
Qobuz on the other hand are run out of AWS EU West, which is Dublin Ireland… Your BT, SKY, Virgin, etc broadband service are very likely to peer their networks directly with Eircom to expose that service.
Hi Django84. If you’re getting the music onto your iPad directly from the Tidal app and listening to it on your iPad, then you’re not benefitting from the sound quality provided through your Naim device. If you’re listening to music on your Naim product using AirPlay from your iPad to the Tidal app, sound quality is diminished because of reduced bandwidth on AirPlay.
What those of us are saying about the dropout issue is that we’re using a device (iPad, etc.) with the Naim and Tidal apps on it to stream music from Tidal to our Naim device. That gives the highest sound quality, esp if you’ve subscribed to Tidal’s hifi option.
I’m not going to venture a guess at what is causing the dropouts mid-song multiple times per hour but Naim and Tidal are aware of the problem and apparently they’re working on a resolution.
Steve.
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Here is an example of how three different networks, all from the same PC in the same house, same home network to the same destination perform according to the different routing and peering strategies of an internet service provider that I performed one day.
All three of these are going to Salesforce.com.
Example one ISP takes 18 hops with a round trip time average of 416ms (Fixed Broadband - Same bandwidth as example two ISP)
Example two ISP takes 12 hops with a round trip time average of 291.5ms (Fixed Broadband - Same bandwidth as example one ISP)
Example three ISP takes 12 hops with a round trip time average of 124ms (4G Broadband - higher bandwidth than ISP)
So I literally only changed the broadband service provider that I access the internet with in these three examples. In the case of the fixed-line providers both provided exactly the same up and down bandwidth. The massive improvement in network latency is because the ISP 2 has a better peering and internal network architecture than ISP 1 and well, ISP 3 is an example in the industry in this field so is even more impressive.
But as usual, most people fixate on their internal home network and the broadband up and down, but in terms of really improved performance its the above stuff that really matters.
s/IT/Apple/
Same for me
Well despite my enthusiasm forTidal in my other thread it’s not working at all now!!
I sent Tidal an email earlier today to express my frustration and to ask for a solution to the signal dropping issue. I received a reply within the hour suggesting I log out of my Tidal account, reboot my iPhone, and re-sign in to the Tidal app. I did that and, predictably, absolutely no change. First, second, and fourth song all dropped the signal within the first 30 seconds of play. Then I went out for a walk…
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Yeah, my dealer suggested logging in and out of my accounts on the Naim app. Drop outs continue, but the Nova is fine. Mostly playing from my Core at the moment.
Hi Steve,
Sorry - I didn’t explain myself very well. Dropouts ++ using wired Naim streamer/Naim tidal app (on ipad), but if I just use the tidal app on the ipad (wifi’d) and bluetoothed to my crappy little device in the garage, or, just playing on the ipad with earphones, there’s absolutely no dropouts.
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Django, same as me when going thru Tidal app via AirPlay for music — no drops. However this doesn’t give the rich sound that going wifi to Naim does.
I guess we just have to do whatever workarounds we can to listen to music and be patient while Naim and Tidal work out a solution to the dropout issue.
Exactly what I am experiencing. Was listening via headphones to iPhone and Tidal app no issues for hours. Wife Jen meanwhile was playing Soundgarden via Naim app on Tidal in main system and ended up throwing the iPad on the floor in frustration, due to the cutouts, fortunately rug is shagpile and no damage done. She is firmly of the opinion that Spotify is much better!
Another workaround solution for anyone who has a new generation Naim streamer as well as an old one is to use the new one to stream it (muted if necessary) and multiroom it to the old gen. streamer which will then be unaffected by the latency issue.
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Great idea, I was going to try that when the girls are out.
So anyone with a first gen streamer who is affected by this can use as temporary solution a media proxy such as BubbleUPnPServer. Lots on the old forum on this and is extremely effective and resolving Naim related internet flow issues.
Another temporary work around method that might work in some circumstances if you are using Ethernet is to try WiFi instead. The network flow dynamics are slightly modified and if you are just on the edge, this might work better. A bit suck it and see but you might be lucky.
Okay, Tidal is working on my iPhone and iPad but nothing on my Qb. Very frustrating.
Guess I spoke too soon. Still an issue, though I now get an hour or two until Tidal shut’s off (vs 10 minutes.)
That’s the way my 272 has been. I just updated my Qute so now I’m playing it to see if any improvements compared to prior to update.
Didn’t take long to know that the update has had no positive impact. Oh well.
Touch wood, Tidal on my 272 is working well.
G