Like so many other folks using this thread, I had daunting problems with dropouts when streaming music from Tidal. Also, like all of you I have eagerly awaited the return of loss-less hi fi streaming since MOG died. I'm a freshman on this site, but by no means one where high fidelity sound is concerned. Working my way through a couple of years in college as a salesman at an audiophile store and as an engineer at commercial radio stations, I very quickly became addicted to the best of equipment and sound that was avaliable in the sixties. My first serious system included a pair of EICO 60 tube amps driving Bozak speakers in large infinite baffle enclosures. After numerous iterations and recent trials at computer/internet streaming, I've learned a couple of things. The complexity of processes on PC's or the like do not always work as expected or satisfactorily in a "wide band" streaming application. My first (and failed attempt) used an old hyper-threading Pentium 4 based PC. Like most people reporting on this thread, a crazy large number of dropouts and glitches were present. I live in the middle of nowhere where the only internet service available is satellite based with a seriously limited data allocation except from midnight to 5:00am when it is unrestricted. The Pentium 4, running under Windows 7 in 32 bit mode certainly has enough speed to keep up with hifi audio streaming. It was even challenged a bit with occasional dropouts when streaming from Sony Music at 320 kb/sec. Digital stereo sound is being output to an external DAC (Asus XonarU7) and fed directly to either (1) a Kenwood M2 amp and custom speakers using Peerless drivers or (2) headphones. This system simply would not produce output audio without significant dropouts, especially when Tidal hifi was the source. A notable improvement occurred when I switched to an ASUS U64E laptop (Intel i5 and 64 bit Windows 7). All I can attribute this to is possibly a more crude hyper-threading implementation in the older Pentium 4, producing glitches and cutouts frequently. For example, opening another window while streaming would produce a dropout. This type problem is gone using the Asus laptop instead of the older Pentium 4, and dropouts decreased but were not entirely gone. Still no Havana cigar! Another thing I learned was to keep my hands off the mouse and keyboard while streaming as this would occasionally introduce dropouts even with the ASUS. For inexplicable reasons, but apparently having to do with fixes on Tidal's end, I have had entirely no dropouts while streaming in streaming many hours of music over many sessions over the past 10 days or so. Flawless streaming!! It is more than just exciting and I am ecstatic. Sometimes I expect to wake up from a dream, but it is real. Yes Dorothy, it is possible with Tidal. Nothing else has changed on my end except that I have gotten out of the habit of trying to tweak stuff while streaming is going on, especially if it is being recorded. And yes I do record it using Total Recorder for time and spatial shifting, as otherwise it would be totally useless here for two reasons. The first is that my satellite internet data allocation would be used in no time if I streamed during anything but normal sleep hours and the time I spend in my shop, which is a metal building, has no satellite service and requires time shifting. The second is that the satellite bandwidth available during normal wakeup hours hours is often marginal for hifi streaming but is usually fine from midnight to 5:00 am when it is 12 to 20 Mbs. Yes, Tidal, lots of folks who have this kind of satellite service could use an easy-to-use recording capability that could be scheduled easily. And no, I do not sell or distribute these recordings. Total Recorder provides an effective, if not so user friendly way to accomplish this.
So my hat is off to Tidal HiFi. I just don't think my recent excellent streaming results could have been occurred without your having worked through some of the technical and/or software issues. I hope other people are having similar success and that this improvement is universal. My fingers are also crossed that this will continue as I have recently experienced it. This will make a lot of audiophiles very happy and will do much to guarantee the success of this music service into the future. This involves more than just receiving a high quality product for money. It may well involve the very expansion of available sound quality for a large and potentially growing fraction of the music community. I, for one, am sticking in with Tidal to give them the support and time to help make this the ultimate US hifi streaming service we all want so much. As for HiFi in general, playing back some of these FLAC recordings the the sound system in my large, concrete-floored shop is making new audiophiles out of many previously inexperienced listeners who happen in when it is on. Of course, we had to determine the acoustic transfer functions of the building and implement appropriate acoustic compensations where possible for the outrageous effects of the building on sound first. This has succeeded better than originally expected thanks mostly to electronic compensation. I will post updates and hope to hear of other positive Tidal experiences on this thread. Harve Waff, 17 miles from Eugene, Oregon.
