How to correctly set up DAC to stream Tidal

[smallricey]

I recently got D7 Pro.

I was able to find the instruction on here and set up Tidal (Desktop Edition) to exclusive mode, so the sampling rate is working correctly.
However, I'm not able to find the instruction to set up Tidal's Mobile app (Android or IOS).
So the sampling rate seems to be locked at 96khz.

Can someone point me to the right direction or let me know how to set it up?

 

[Beershaun]

Hi,
I'm not sure I understand your question yet. What mobile device are you streaming from to your DAC? How are they connected? What display are you looking at the DAC or the mobile app that's giving you the sample rate info?

The correct answer depends on these things.

 

[smallricey]

Hi,
I'm not sure I understand your question yet. What mobile device are you streaming from to your DAC? How are they connected? What display are you looking at the DAC or the mobile app that's giving you the sample rate info?

The correct answer depends on these things.

For Desktop, I'm connecting to PC using USB.
So, by using Tidal Windows Desktop edition, there's an exclusive mode option.
Using that mode my DAC is able to output the correct sampling rate, 44.1khz - 96khz sampling rates depends on the songs.

For mobile device, I'm using Amazon fire (Android Platform) with bluetooth
The Tidal mobile app (Android version) does not seem to have exclusive mode.
So D7 pro will always output 96khz sampling rate for every single song.

 

[zermak]

Bluetooth is a lossy connection (for audio streams) and the quality depends on the supported codec by your phone and receiver (aptX, aptX HD, LDAC, SBC etc.) and I suppose the internal chip resamples everything to a give frequency (probably the max supported by the connection) but I can't say more and don't know more than this because I don't use any BT connection for streaming audio.

EDIT: codecs' names corrected

 

[Beershaun]

Agree with zermak. what you are getting is whatever your DAC resamples the bluetooth stream back to. In this case the final bit rate is meaningless in terms of audio quality. edit: And is unrelated to the original sample rate Tidal is streaming to your Fire Tablet.

 

[Beershaun]

If you want to use your fire tablet as a wireless "remote" to stream Tidal music to your DAC. One way would be to remotely control your PC. Install a remote desktop app like Splashtop for Fire Tablet and you can control your PC and the native Tidal App. Other options are setting up a separate upnp renderer on your PC and controlling it via Bubbleupnp on your Fire Tablet. This will not give you all the functionality of the native Tidal app though. Like MQA for example.

 

[Webninja]

Even the best Bluetooth codecs deliver less than half of Tidal‘s steaming bit rate. I am not sure all devices support AptX HD, and that has a max bit rate of 576kbps. There are proprietary Bluetooth codecs that are higher, but I think both the receiving and output devices need them.

I know Roon is pricey, but it does allow you to control the lossless streaming from Tidal to your speakers via your smartphone.

 

[Willem]

Why not get yourself a Chromecast Audio?

 

[smallricey]

I just looked it up, Fire HD streams
SBC (Sub-Band Coding)16 bit48.0 kHz. Shouldn't my codec dislay 16 bit 48khz then?

 

[zermak]

I don't own a DX7 Pro but if you don't get the right sample rate, it's probably because the DX7 Pro resamples (upsample) it. I am sure you can find out more on the manual or asking on the offical thread or Topping.

 

[Beershaun]

Right. The Bluetooth codec sample rate is not the same thing as the PCM to analog sample rate that your dac performs. SBC or a2dp are Bluetooth codecs that encode the original music data, compress it (lossy), transport it wirelessly to your dac. Then your dac has a Bluetooth decoder (codec) that decodes the Bluetooth format and converts it back to PCM, at this time it is deciding what sample rate it will apply to create the PCM stream. This has nothing to do with the original file or the Bluetooth codec. Your dac is likely using the highest sample rate possible so as to make sure it is not losing anything more in the conversion from Bluetooth SBC to PCM. This is now what is being displayed when your dac tells you the sample rate it's dac chip is processing.

Hope that helps.

 

[zermak]

That's not totally correct. Resampling/upsampling doesn't add or remove anything (if implemented properly, it can cause ringing and other artifacts if the resampler is bad) it just changes the sample rate, the initial information is still there (whatever lossy or lossless it is).

 

[Beershaun]

Agreed. It can't add information that doesn't exist. It's just a conversion step from the bluetooth codec to PCM.

 

[smallricey]

Am I understanding this correctly?

According to y'all's comments, since upsampling is not adding information,
then I should be fine leaving the DAC along as is? There shouldn't be much difference unless the resampling is bad.

Thanks for the response

 

[Beershaun]

Correct. Its all good. If you are trying to improve the audio quality while using your tablet as a browsing and control device there are some fun options to explore using your tablet as a remote control and your PC as the media player