Tidal on Mac but control from iPhone/iPad?

Housey · 9 Dec 2018 at 14:57

I have both Spotify and Tidal and though I much prefer the Spotify interface I can't get past (to my ears) the better sound quality like for like I hear in Tidal £19.99 a month subscription. So I am going to bin Spotify and fully commit to Tidal! I have a Mac Mini running the Tidal app as my primary source connected into my DAC, but I seem unable to control the OSX App from my iPhone or iPad, which is simple to do on Spotify.

So what am I doing wrong, or is this feature not possible on Tidal? Also I had to send my DAC back to NAIM the other month due to a fault (now back) and what it also clearly evidenced to me is what a HUGE difference the DAC makes, but that's a whole other discussion.

Advice most welcome

Doug2507 · 9 Dec 2018 at 15:11

Not possible, not directly from phone/tablet. Main reason I binned it. Can work around it but involves adding more hardware, eg, OPPO 103 etc.

I ended up on amazon music unlimited. Deezer I've not tried...

P.S. Get a demo of a MSB Platinum DAC.

Housey · 9 Dec 2018 at 15:13

That is a real pain in the ass! It is far easier as you know, to sit and playlist select from your iPad from the sofa. Poor from Tidal to not support that.

Doug2507 · 9 Dec 2018 at 15:28

Indeed. Shoulnt be too hard to make an app for it, would expect it with the premium they ask for the service. Might be worth sending them an email to see if anything's in the pipeline....

jpaul · 10 Dec 2018 at 22:08

can't you run a remote desktop from your ipad ...
or use a laptop from your sofa with usb dac , make up some long HQ audio leads ... listening to tidal now

Housey · 10 Dec 2018 at 22:43

jpaul said:
can't you run a remote desktop from your ipad ...
or use a laptop from your sofa with usb dac , make up some long HQ audio leads ... listening to tidal now

Far too messy for my liking.

Jaap74 · 11 Dec 2018 at 04:26

If you have your own music stored locally you might want to try Roon :

https://roonlabs.com/

Not cheap but I love it, you can control Tidal and all your locally stored music all from a phone or tablet

jpaul · 11 Dec 2018 at 07:31

I've not used if for tidal, but RDP should work OK though - artist completion would work fine, and who cares about videos.

Martynt74 · 11 Dec 2018 at 09:08

What about a Raspberry Pi running something like Volumio (or Roon as above). That lets you integrate Tidal and then they have an IOS app

https://volumio.org/forum/tidal-playback-t8894.html

Housey · 11 Dec 2018 at 09:11

It’s all a faff. I just want the app to let me chose the playback device like Spotify does.

Martynt74 · 11 Dec 2018 at 09:12

I agree, you should be able to just do that and it must be hugely annoying not to be able to.

Housey · 11 Dec 2018 at 09:53

I think it has become a must have feature if you have multiple playback devices as I do. I want to be able to move between a room and chose a different device to carry on listening on.

jpaul · 11 Dec 2018 at 10:03

Jaap74 said:
https://roonlabs.com/
Not cheap but I love it, you can control Tidal and all your locally stored music all from a phone or tablet

would roon give you access to the tidal master library ?, or,
is it just casting (eg to a chromecast audio) the 320kb/s stream as you can already do from the chrome browser accessing tidal .... i could not see from their web-site.

I could understand if they want to ensure drm protection is good for the best quality streams, so preclude playback on a remote device.

edit: saw tidal now available via plex which can be controlled remotely
BUT for the master mqa 96khz tracks/24bit tracks cant see if these could be accessed (by plex or roon) , but flac 44.1/16 probably can
personally don't have an mqa dac, so that has to be unfolded in software on my pc.

edit2:

A TIDAL subscription through Plex will be identical to one purchased elsewhere (such as through TIDAL itself), barring a couple of minor differences:

While the HiFi plan does have access to lossless quality music in Plex, it does not have access to “master-quality” (MQA) music when played through Plex. (You can still access MQA content in TIDAL apps directly.)

You cannot download TIDAL music to Plex mobile apps for “Offline Mode”. (You can still download tracks for “Offline Mode” in TIDAL apps directly.)

jpaul · 12 Dec 2018 at 14:10

no other opinions on whether plex will fix access to 16/44 flac material ? as opposed to $150 for roon ..
need a plex pass though, or, buy your tidal subscription, through plex

saw roon does now do mqa
https://www.audioxpress.com/news/roon-labs-releases-roon-1-5-update-with-powerful-mqa-integration

excellent description
https://www.audiostream.com/content/mqa-decoding-explained

An MQA encoded file can be played back in four ways; with no decoding, software decoding, hardware decoding, and a combined software/hardware decode.
If you play back a 24-bit/192kHz MQA-encoded file using iTunes through a regular DAC (i.e. a non-MQA DAC), you will get a 24/48 file.
If you play back a 24-bit/192kHz MQA-encoded file through an MQA software decoder like Tidal HiFi, Audirvana, or (soon) Roon, and you are using a regular DAC (i.e. a non-MQA DAC), you will get a 24/96 file. A software decoder does not offer the ability to 'unfold' the original file to resolutions higher than 24/96 (or 24/88.2).
If you play back a 24-bit/192kHz MQA-encoded file through an MQA-enabled DAC, you will get a 24-bit/192kHz file. If you are also using a software decoder like Tidal HiFi, Audirvana, or (soon) Roon, you can have the software decoder perform the first 'unfold'.