Tidal and upmpdcli

Posted by: nbpf on 22 February 2017

I have been meanwhile running MinimServer (a UPnP server) and upmpdcli (a UPnP renderer) for a little bit more than one year on a small, fanless microserver (a fit-PC3) under a minimal Debian system. The server is connected to a Naim DAC via a USB to SPDIF bridge. I had never tried internet streaming services so far. Today, I opened a Tidal account out of curiosity.

I am pleased to share that, after setting username and password in the upmpdcli configuration file, Tidal has been working flawlessly for hours: no dropouts, no whatsoever streaming artifacts. The fit-PC3 is connected to the router wirelessly. I have set tidalquality=lossless. According to the control point (Linn Kazoo) I only get 44.1 kHz and 16 bits. Still, this is not bad.

Right now I am listening to the new Batiashvili - Barenboim album (Sibelius, Tchaikovsky). To me, it sounds as engaging as my local 16/44.1 version from the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra directed by Sakari Oramo.

Best, nbpf

Posted on: 26 February 2017 by nbpf

After a few days of testing I have decided to cancel my Tidal subscription. Streaming works flawlessly but the Tidal browsing experience is not that great. Even in the web interface, album titles are very often cut to the point of being unrecognizable. Refining searches and "intelligent browsing" (à la MinimServer) is not supported and I have not been able to find out how to restrict the results of searches to a specific genre. I also do not seem to be able to organize "My music" through folders or indexes. It's not all bad and they have a lot of interesting albums, though. Best, nbpf