Tidal

Mofi is right, of course, but you'd probably find the SQ to be less than satisfactory. No matter how you work it, just remember to keep the volume maxed out on your computer/software and attenuate the signal w your regular pre.

I used the Halide HD DAC, which has attached cables, to try Tidal on my office system. I liked it very much and just received a Sonos to connect to DAC in main system. I am not a computer person, but both were very easy to do.

I am not sure about others here but my personal experience with Tidal has not been satisfactory. I get drop-outs in the early part of a track and then the track would just stop altogether. I simply gave up. I don't think it's an issue with my home broadband as I can listen to Spotify with no drop-outs.

2020, You should get your Broadband checked, at my home I have almost zero issues with dropouts, listening to Tidal while writing this. At my office I have no issues on weekends and evenings but during the daytime its impossible to listen because of dropouts, I can speculate that its because of heavy data flow in our office building.

I think that the reason you have better luck with Spotify it because its not full format requiring less data flow, I'm sure folks more knowledgable on this subject can fill in on this.

Good Listening

Peter

John, Spotify doesn't drop out on your rig because it is a much smaller signal nd is compressed. There is not much there to download. You need throughput for tidal, as it is uncompressed. If you can put the infrasturcture together, tidal BLOWS Spotify off the planet.