Tidal Connect Distortion

[CBM]

This is a strange one. I use Tidal Connect with a Node 2 to stream Tidal HIFI to my AVR without using the Node's DAC. There is one track (Marc Scibilia "Something") that has some distortion that sounds like the speaker rattling, so I tried it with Tidal online with headphones and it wasn't there. Then I tried it with the BluOS app to my AVR and the distortion wasn't there either. This is puzzling because both Tidal Connect and BluOS play the same track through the Node. If one sounded bad the other should too. I haven't noticed this on any other track.

Anyone have an idea what could be causing this?

 

[CBM]

OK. This is getting stranger. When I play the track in Tidal Connect it's distorted. If I then pause the song in Tidal Connect and switch to BluOS, it's at the same place in the track and still distorted.
If I close both apps and open the song in the BluOS app first, it's fine. But If I then switch to Tidal Connect, even though it's at the same place in the song, it's distorted. If I switch back to the BluOS app it's still distorted even though it was not before. The reason I'm interested in this is because even though I haven't noticed it in any other song, I now don't trust Tidal Connect.
If there is someone out there who uses Tidal Connect with a Bluesound Node, please try playing "Something" by Marc Sibilia and let me know if you hear distortion. It starts about 50 seconds in and continues through the track.

 

[threni]

I don't suppose there's some EQ in the Tidal case that's causing digital clipping and that's a loud track?

 

[CBM]

I don't suppose there's some EQ in the Tidal case that's causing digital clipping and that's a loud track?

No. There's no EQ on Tidal Connect app and I deliberately played it at low volume. Thanks for asking.

 

[MattyAllen]

Had the same issue today with Billie Eilish The Power and Hayley Demons....kind of full-fat compressed sections...but the distortion was crackling top end.
Changed input valves, hard reset everything, swapped every combination of the amp (4 separate amps and preamps combinations) and any input combination possible.... headphones too.... only to realize it's either tidal connect or the streamer when playing tidal connect

 

[CBM]

The weird thing is that it may not distort every time you play that track.

 

[Chrispy]

But it's always just this one track? No others?

 

[CBM]

There are certain songs that distort sometimes but not always. It's like Tidal has two versions. There are a few tracks where I hear the crackling occasionally. Marc Scibilia's "Something" is one of those. Play that a few times and see if you hear it.

 

[Chrispy]

There are certain songs that distort sometimes but not always. It's like Tidal has two versions. There are a few tracks where I hear the crackling occasionally. Marc Scibilia's "Something" is one of those. Play that a few times and see if you hear it.

They probably do have various versions on servers? Then your ISP gets to screw with things perhaps, but I'd suspect the source if it's just a few tracks. Why would I want to play Marc Scibilia or use Tidal ?

 

[CBM]

So I found distortion on a couple of other tracks and I tracked it down. It's in the Bluesound Node 2 streamer, but only when it's set on "output level fixed". Turn this off and the distortion goes away. I'm not using the internal DAC and the distortion is there whether I use coax or toslink. Does anyone have any idea what's going on?