Is there a way to convert the Tidal stream to WAV before sending it to streamer or DAC?

caesar

Well-Known Member
May 30, 2010
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Heard Tidal recently with a couple of reference level DACs - Bricasti and Naim. Tidal was streamed in FLAC, and TIDAL sounded considerably worse (think of bad elements that give digital a bad name - on many songs) than the WAV files on those 2 reference level dacs.

Is there any way to convert the Tidal stream from FLAC to WAV before sending it to the streamer or DAC?
 

asiufy

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Jul 8, 2011
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caesar,

Which albums? My bet is most likely on different versions/masterings. I have multiple versions of some CDs, and sometimes the version on Tidal would be better than some, and worse than others. It's hard to know, since Tidal often doesn't mention which version of the album we're listening to. And with some albums having 4 or 5 different remasterings out there, that's where I think the blame lies.

While there IS a difference between FLAC and WAV/AIFF, it shouldn't be enough to warrant a "considerably worse".
 

caesar

Well-Known Member
May 30, 2010
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caesar,

Which albums? My bet is most likely on different versions/masterings. I have multiple versions of some CDs, and sometimes the version on Tidal would be better than some, and worse than others. It's hard to know, since Tidal often doesn't mention which version of the album we're listening to. And with some albums having 4 or 5 different remasterings out there, that's where I think the blame lies.

While there IS a difference between FLAC and WAV/AIFF, it shouldn't be enough to warrant a "considerably worse".

Thanks - We were just playing around, but the differences were obvious even when not seriously listening. Interestingly, I think both of those brands recommend ripping everything to WAV, or at least converting WAV to FLAC before sending it to the DAC.
 

RubenV.

Well-Known Member
Feb 23, 2015
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I get the most out of Tidal (hardly listen to anything else) by using Roon and HQPlayer to sample everything up to 512DSD. I think this is the best way to get the most out of it. I am using a dual streamer setup (both fully passively cooled, no mechanical-moving components, lpsu's and a lot of other tweaks). What kind of transport do you have in mind to feed the dac?
 

still-one

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Aug 6, 2012
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It must be the DAC's because it sure isn't the Tidal FLAC causing the issues.
 

caesar

Well-Known Member
May 30, 2010
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It must be the DAC's because it sure isn't the Tidal FLAC causing the issues.

Yes, it's definitely the DACs - both of those companies prefer their DACs to get WAV files, that's why I am curious on how to do it.
 

caesar

Well-Known Member
May 30, 2010
4,290
767
1,698
I get the most out of Tidal (hardly listen to anything else) by using Roon and HQPlayer to sample everything up to 512DSD. I think this is the best way to get the most out of it. I am using a dual streamer setup (both fully passively cooled, no mechanical-moving components, lpsu's and a lot of other tweaks). What kind of transport do you have in mind to feed the dac?

Thank you. I was just playing around in a friend's system. In your setup, how do you route the Tidal signal from Roon to HQ Player?
 

bibo01

Member
Nov 26, 2013
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Roon converts to WAV when it sends a Tidal flac to your DAC, with or without HQPlayer.
Similarly, LMS (Logitech Media Server) does the same. You need to install two plugins, one to support Tidal (ickstream) and one to support FLACtoWAV conversion (C-3PO).
 

bibo01

Member
Nov 26, 2013
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Thank you. I was just playing around in a friend's system. In your setup, how do you route the Tidal signal from Roon to HQ Player?

There are good instructions on Roon website.
In Roon Output you need to point to HQPlayer exclusively; in HQPlayer you open network connections button (top right) and point to your DAC in output.
 

RubenV.

Well-Known Member
Feb 23, 2015
101
14
148
Thank you. I was just playing around in a friend's system. In your setup, how do you route the Tidal signal from Roon to HQ Player?

I use the roon player on a Macbook Pro (but you could also use a tablet or smartphone I believe), the tidal stream goes from roon player to roon server on my control pc. In roon you can select HQPlayer as output, as long as you are on the same LAN. HQPlayer samples up the tidal stream to DSD512 and sends it to the audio pc which has a slimmed down version of HQPlayer called NAA. Both servers run on WS2012 with Audiophile Optimizer. The audio pc runs in core mode (Windows without GUI). Between the switch and the control pc I use fiber optics converters to isolate the noise travelling over LAN. This was a very cost-effective tweak.
 

Nakor

Well-Known Member
May 14, 2011
33
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913
caesar,

Which albums? My bet is most likely on different versions/masterings. I have multiple versions of some CDs, and sometimes the version on Tidal would be better than some, and worse than others. It's hard to know, since Tidal often doesn't mention which version of the album we're listening to. And with some albums having 4 or 5 different remasterings out there, that's where I think the blame lies.

While there IS a difference between FLAC and WAV/AIFF, it shouldn't be enough to warrant a "considerably worse".

Thanks - We were just playing around, but the differences were obvious even when not seriously listening. Interestingly, I think both of those brands recommend ripping everything to WAV, or at least converting WAV to FLAC before sending it to the DAC.

I'm inclined to agree with asiufy. A “considerably worse” is likely a different version of the track. Perhaps a remastered version, with compressed dynamic range? Who knows. I suppose it could even be a lossy version, yet to be replaced with a lossless version.

Not hugely surprised by this recommendation re. ripping. If your choices are a file with lossless compression and one without any compression, then I suppose the latter would/should be better. However, you lose the rich metadata that you can have with FLAC or ALAC.
 

Nakor

Well-Known Member
May 14, 2011
33
23
913
Yes, it's definitely the DACs - both of those companies prefer their DACs to get WAV files, that's why I am curious on how to do it.

I don’t think it’s the DACs. The DACs don’t get WAV or FLAC etc. to their digital inputs anyway, they get a PCM data stream (or DSD) from your digital source.
 

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