TIDAL Again....

Unfortunately Chromecast Audio does not support true gapless playback and Google will probably never address this issue. Details can be found here: https://code.google.com/p/goog...issues/detail?id=745

Fortunately, the gaps are really small. Just a short 'snip' which might be there for 0.25 seconds.

You can't have it all for USD 39.

It is true CCA does not do gapless. When the firmware update comes for my NDS I guess I will get gapless with no dropouts. To be honest I don't seem to listen to a lot of gapless stuff at the moment. The NDS/Tidal dropouts are a lot more annoying than small gaps which should not be there!

I have done some comparison of Tidal  CCA into NDS versus NDS doing the streaming (when it works - e.g. early on Sunday mornings). The NDS is better when it works. I think that this might be due to the CCA stream having more jitter. It is not night and day, however, in my system.

Thanks for the comments about Chromecast and gapless payback. I am aware of this problem, as using a USB stick into the nDac with FLAC files causes the same issue, but not with WAV files. I raised this on the Forum well over a year ago, before the last firmware upgrade, which solicited comments from Naim, but no solution has been forthcoming. It is a nuisance with classical and live albums, and has caused me to pause before trying Chromecast Audio. But for the price may well be still worth giving it a go.

Wolf R posted:

Unfortunately Chromecast Audio does not support true gapless playback and Google will probably never address this issue. Details can be found here: https://code.google.com/p/goog...issues/detail?id=745

Ooops, you are absolutely right! I have now checked my BubbleUPnP Server setup on the Raspberry Pi and for the Chromecast Audio there is indeed no Gapless replay option. Thanks for the precisation! I am really using the Chromecast only occasionally and for streaming from my laptop when I am on holiday. It is a nice device but I would not suggest it as a source for a Naim DAC. Best, nbpf

CCA are now only £15 on the Currys website.

Tidal has been a bit rubbish again over Christmas with my superuniti, having had a good spell for a few months. Is there any reason?

Tidal ok up until 14.00pm today and then been rubbish ever since. Cant even play it from the iPhone. I guess too many people on the internet but I have to say that I never had this issue whilst I had a Bluesound Node. When the ND5XS struggled with Tidal I just used to switch to the Node. On days like this I'm regretting selling it.

Whisper it quietly but I haven't had any Tidal dropouts using the NDS for 3 days now.....

well thats blown it

Must be related to the fact that it is freezing for a few days.

Airconditioning of datacenters is switched off now, implied distortion cut down and our musical servers are happy.

I was having this exact same problem with TIDAL drop outs on my SuperUniti and UnitiQute. It would be fine during the day but the drop outs would start in the evenings (presumably when either the traffic to TIDAL's servers or to my ISP had increased). I have a 75 Mbps connection to one of the biggest ISPs in the US and both my NAIM units are hardwired. I had no problem streaming high definition video.

Both TIDAL and NAIM said the issue was likely due to the ISP and NAIM said it was likely a latency related issue.

I didn't know what my ISP could do for me, but I contacted them. They suggested I replace my modem - the one I had was only 3-4 years old but was no longer supported by my ISP.

I replaced it with an ARRIS SURFboard SB6190 yesterday and played for hours until around 9.00 pm without a single drop-out. So I'm thinking this has resolved the issue.

I notice websites responding and loading with less delay with the new modem - which I think is indicative of reduced latency - and the only time the buffer bar moves now on my SU is at the beginning of a new track.

Hmm thanks for the input Zinpaw.  I have an older SURFboard perhaps its time for an upgrade.  Nothing worse than getting immersed in a good song then it abruptly drops packets/data.  Its rather jarring.

My previous modem was a SURFboard SB6141, which I thought was relatively high spec and up to date. It never occurred to me that the modem was the bottleneck.

I was getting to the point where I didn't want to use tidal due to the frustration, but I'd become reliant upon it and there were no good alternatives. I'm glad the issue seems to be resolved.

Seriously the SB6141 is the modem I have.  You don't know how happy this is making me once I upgrade my modem.  My service provider has just bumped their download speeds so hopefully a newer modem just may help(some)

I hope this fixes your issue as it appears to have fixed mine.

Phil,

Any update on the likely release of the new firmware which has the code to fix the dropouts at peak internet times? I have caught up late with this post. Very interesting discussions by SIS and other about latency and bandwidth earlier in the thread.  In my very simple understanding, since music playback in one way and unlike games where there is a lot of instructions back and forth and hence poor latency can be an issue. So way not simply have a bigger buffer size? Any impact of poor latency would be seen at the start of a new request.

Very interesting discussions by SIS and other about latency and bandwidth earlier in the thread.  In my very simple understanding, since music playback in one way and unlike games where there is a lot of instructions back and forth and hence poor latency can be an issue. So way not simply have a bigger buffer size? Any impact of poor latency would be seen at the start of a new request.

But it seems there is a fix in the works. some indication of when that will help. We can patiently wait for it then.

Thanks,

ASenna04

Asenna04 posted:

So way not simply have a bigger buffer size?

Maybe because the hardware does not have sufficient memory to accomodate this?

Asenna04 posted:

Phil,

Any update on the likely release of the new firmware which has the code to fix the dropouts at peak internet times? I have caught up late with this post. Very interesting discussions by SIS and other about latency and bandwidth earlier in the thread.  In my very simple understanding, since music playback in one way and unlike games where there is a lot of instructions back and forth and hence poor latency can be an issue. So way not simply have a bigger buffer size? Any impact of poor latency would be seen at the start of a new request.

Very interesting discussions by SIS and other about latency and bandwidth earlier in the thread.  In my very simple understanding, since music playback in one way and unlike games where there is a lot of instructions back and forth and hence poor latency can be an issue. So way not simply have a bigger buffer size? Any impact of poor latency would be seen at the start of a new request.

But it seems there is a fix in the works. some indication of when that will help. We can patiently wait for it then.

Thanks,

ASenna04

Hi,

I've raised this again to try to get a release date but be aware that this isn't a magic bullet that suddenly 'fixes the internet'.

We've done a lot of tweaking with the TIDAL guys to make the Uniti / ND / NAC-N code as resilient as we can to latency induced issues and it will help a number of users with issues streaming from TIDAL that are caused by a specific set of circumstances but it won't 'fix' everyone.

If you want to drop me a direct email ( phil.harris@naimaudio.com ) we can certainly see if getting the Beta code installed on your unit would be an appropriate thing to try...

Phil

Thank you Phil. I will reach out to you.

ASennao4