Tidal on Uniti: better through Airplay and Chromecast than Naim app?

Posted by: kdl6769 on 27 November 2018

Recently got a Nova, and am still experimenting, but one thing I think I have observed is that Tidal sounds much better via Airplay or Chromecast than via the Naim app. Through the app it sounded shrill and uncontrolled, and I started to worry about things like speaker placement, cabling, room dimensions, whether the Nova is all it's cracked up to be etc.  I noticed a substantial improvement when I ran the Tidal app via Airplay and Chromecast - the presentation was much smoother and had none of the fatiguing, glassy shrillness I had experienced with the Naim app.  (Interestingly, Chromecast sounded a bit louder than Airplay.) Curious if anyone has had that experience, and why this could be the case.  (I could also be imagining it, but it seemed pretty pronounced.) 

Posted on: 28 November 2018 by Manu

I should say that many of us prefer the opposite. but your taste... and you are perfectly right to prefer it.

Posted on: 28 November 2018 by Popeye

Yes I agree, this has been spoken about on many occasions that the better sounding option is Tidal integrated not via chromecast or Airplay but if that’s what you prefer ????????

Posted on: 29 November 2018 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Yes, this is quite possible, it really depends on your environment... although it’s nothing to do with playing ‘through the app’, because you don’t play trough the Naim app.. it’s simply a control point... so I think you mean playing using the Naim app.

When using the Naim app, the streamer does all the hard work and pulls the media stream from the source ... this means depending on environment and situation the network software processing in the streamer can be working hard.

When you use Chromecast or Airplay.. you are kind of using a media streaming proxy, and as it’s on your local network, the underlying transfer between the proxy and streamer will typically mean the network transport processing works less hard.. (you can see using Wireshark or similar) .. less processing, equals less digital component noise, can equal different noise profile, can equal a sonic preference.

This will vary from environment to environment... certainly won’t be the same for all.

So it’s good to listen and try things out as you have done.. as you simply can’t rely on another persons experience being the same as yours... as the underlying dynamics could be quite different...