PiDAL: the Raspberry Pi as a TIDAL CONNECT streamer

the raspberry pi the last time that i spoke about  this we were talking about how to turn it into a   spotify streamer today i want to shift the focus  to tidal tidal is an alternative streaming service   that offers cd quality streaming on their hi-fi  tier that's why many audiophiles or people who   care about sound quality like me choose to use  tidal some people also choose to use tidal because   between five and seven percent of their library  is available in high-res audio encapsulated by mqa   i also made a video at the start of this year and  the end of last year about something called tidal   connect and tidal connect is like spotify connect  for tidal so we might pick up the tidal app   here i've got a new ep from mod selector and  the the lead track com features blixerbargelt   who was in einstein neubauten and nick  cave in the bad seats also for a while   so i might want to play this you know if i've  got a title connect supporting device i click   play on here and then select that supporting  device as a playback zone inside the app and   then the stream moves from the phone to that  playback device somewhere here now so far   there's only been a few hardware manufacturers  who have implemented title connect and i've just   been thinking all the time like wouldn't it be  wonderful to get title connect on a raspberry pi back in january i received an email from a very  enthusiastic raspberry pi software coder and he   was he wanted to let me know that basically a  certain british hi-fi manufacturer had put their   tidal connect code on github and he pulled it  down and was trying to spin it into a sort of more   generic raspberry pi install of tidal  connect and i tried to install it and i got   nowhere but what that did is that  triggered the internal hobbyist in me   i was kind of determined to get  tidal connect working on a pie   as soon as i possibly could and that over the last  couple of months has sent me on a bit of a journey   so today we're going to go on a bit of a journey  through my journey in in getting title connect   onto a raspberry pi now we're in april and i have  here a dac plus hat board from hi-fi berry this   acts as a d a-converter for my raspberry pi when  i attach it to the 40 pin riser here snap that on now this is not the best sounding dac hat i've  ever used it's a bit thin it's a bit gray sounding   it's fine for its price point but i think there  are better options out there but you might be   wondering then why am i using it well the answer  lies in getting tidal connect up and running   on this pi streamer about a month ago i googled  again how to put title connect onto raspberry pi   and i found a new set of instructions and i  thought great i'm going to try this out this   is all command line stuff so you have  to secure shell using a terminal into   into your pi's operating system which  is running on the micro sd card here   so first of all i installed ropey so i tried these  instructions and it just it wouldn't work it just   it wouldn't run tidal connect my phone didn't see  any other new output zone in my house then i tried   volumio tried the same instruction set again no  dice and then i tried hifiberry os because another   page had suggested that that might work and all  the command line stuff worked just perfectly   it took a long time it took about 40 minutes for  one command to run the others are pretty quick but   i couldn't get sound out of my raspberry pi and at  the time i think i was using a a usb dac like the   dragonfly cobalt so i could see the title connect  zone on my phone click play but when nothing was   coming out of the cobalt i did a bit more digging  and found out that hifiberry os only talks to   their dak hats which is why i bought this dak  hat and sure enough as soon as i tried it again   running the command set on hifiberry os  installed on this put in here with the hi-fi   hifiberry dac plus board on here i got tidal  connect up and running and that was actually yesterday so title connect on here works with desktop  title apps and with mobile title apps   and it works with track skipping forward and back  track scrubbing also works the only issue i had   i think was with with buffering i don't think the  code has quite sorted out the buffering of the   title stream so if my internet connection has a  wobble which he often does because i'm in germany   then the stream pauses and has to rebuff  and then resumes but usually once it gets   going it's pretty good but it's not perfect  not perfect it's a bit like the bleeding   edge of diy network streaming  at least that's the way i see it two so when i was planning this video i got  to about 4 pm yesterday and i thought yep   got the script done pretty happy no this  doesn't work with usb dax no it doesn't   work with the headphone socket coming out  of the pi but it still works with this dac   hat that's something worth talking about so  i thought yep i've got a video ready to go   so i closed my laptop thought i'm set picked  up my phone started scrolling through instagram   and there i saw it volumio their instagram  account was announcing that they had   implemented tidal connect and put it inside their  volumio operating system so i sat there and went   you bastards you've completely screwed my video  but we need to talk about what that means and   what that is so here i have a raspberry pi 4 in  a heatsink case many people still ask me about   these little weights on top it's just to keep  it in place stop it sliding off with the cables   on the micro sd card or the front  here i'm running volumio version 2.878   which bakes tidal connect support into  that operating system but you do need a   virtuoso or superstar my volumio account which is  a paid account it's a minimum of 29 euros a year   in order to activate that title connect running on  there so i've got that mode select ep ready to go   and you can see i've got volumio appearing as  a tidal connect endpoint here and that's this   pi down here right so i've got tidal connect ready  to go and the great thing is it works with usb dax   i've got two usb dacs connected to this pi  right now at the moment i've got the helm bolt   but i've also got this denafripps ares 2  connected and inside the volumio os i can   specify which of those usb dacs i want the pi  to talk to and send its digital stream out to   and as far as i can tell i mean i've  only been using it for like 12 hours   tidal connect works flawlessly on this  pi with the latest version of volumio os   that means we don't well i did have one buffering  issue last night so that may be a gotcha i don't   know yet last night i tried the audioquest  dragonfly cobalt directly inserted into that pi4   tidal connect talks to this no problem  and i was playing some lcd sound system   now i don't know what the sample rate  is originally because it's hard to tell   inside the title app and when i played the mqa  title masters is what it's called inside tidal   when i played the mqa version of  that it didn't change the the light   from green to purple as i expected but it  did with some max erica i think it was sleep   in mqa that turned the light on here to mqa  purple but remember how i said at the start   that roughly five to seven percent of music  on tidal is available in title masters mqa   on a personal level i find it very very difficult  to get excited or agitated about any high-res or   whatever format that only really influences  five to seven percent of the music available   if we cut over to kobo's it's still only five  to seven percent of music available in high-res   i just can't get worked up about that one way  or the other from a personal point of view but   if people want to enjoy those formats if that's  their choice then who the hell am i to tell them   otherwise i am not the warden of other people's  behavior personally i'm into tidal and kobo's   because of their enormous enormous cd quality  libraries i mean they bring the cd store home   those of you that remember my spotify pie video  will remember that i raved about this audiophonics   pi dac solution with the screen on the  front this runs a fork of volumio so i   don't think audiophonics will have it sorted  just yet for a download on their website but   i guess it will come eventually but that's  an audiophonics thing not a volumio thing   one of the key reasons i haven't yet cancelled  my spotify account is because of spotify connect   so i can instigate a stream on my  phone and then hand it off to my hi-fi   i think that tidal connect is a fantastic killer  move and i think this is more attractive this   will bring more people to tidal than any  concerns about high-res audio because it   makes streaming more convenient this little box  that's about what 80 euros i've got a helm ball   on the back that's another 100 euros 200 euros  for a streaming deck that sounds pretty damn good   is just i've said it before i think it's modern  magic i think it's wonderful we can get something   so affordable and that does so much i mean with  volumio we get roon compatibility spotify connect   and now obviously we get tidal connect so if you  want to get a raspberry pi streamer up and running   all you need is the hardware the volumio os the  latest version install that it's very easy to   install and set up add a usb dac and you're  golden i'm going to be using this setup to   review this ares 2 dac over the next few weeks so  now that i have volumio os doing my title connect   on a pi 4 here i do not need this hifiberry  dac hat so i'm going to give this away   to one of my patrons and you know while i'm there  probably going to give this audiophonics you   know dak pi based network streamer away as well  because they give me a budget to buy this kind   of stuff so it's only fair that i give it back  to them but really what today is about is that   i've been on a journey with tidal connect and  trying to get it on a pie thankfully volumio saved   my bacon and probably yours so hats off to them  for doing that so quickly and actually pronouncing   it yesterday so that i didn't look like an idiot  putting this video out and then volumio announced   afterwards and then i have to scrap it so  the thing is is that the journey that i've   been through the journey through stuff is just as  important as the destination as arriving at this   because i learned stuff along the way i learned  about different operating systems i got exposed to   hifiberry os which i would never have used before  it's this super clean super minimal looking os i   think it's lovely it integrates roon and spotify  connect and i think airplay as well so if you   want to go that route you can still do this but  it's a bit more command line intensive it's a bit   fiddlier obviously the express route is this  one here but the express through isn't always   desirable you know sometimes you need to go  through certain things and then you learn and   the experience tells you or what it informs your  decisions later on if you dig that then please   smash the like button down below if you like  my attitude towards high-end audio in that in   it includes super super super affordable  hardware like this and the helm and the i   guess the dragonfly black which i don't think  sounds quite as good as the helm bolt if you   dig all of that then please subscribe to this  channel and as always thank you ever so much for watching

Channel: Darko Audio

Views: 101,459

Keywords: Audio, streaming, High-End Audio, Audiophile, head-fi, porta-fi, sound quality, Darko, reviews, show reports, berlin, techno

Id: j2zJHGbyWxU

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021