[jarnopp]

I am very pleasantly surprised that the Poly works with my iPhone in this way with Airplay and that the sound quality is so good.

Since I am streaming from the iPhone via Airplay, the Tidal app must be getting the stream from LTE and then push it over the Poly's wifi network. Since I am connect to the Poly hotspot and it isn't connected to the internet, none of my other apps can access the internet either. I am surprised that Tidal can still access LTE and get the stream. Very happy about it. I need to figure out why it works. I feel like it shouldn't actually work, but it does.

This is the so-called “hybrid hotspot mode” described in in this video:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cho...on-1st-page-◄★☆.831347/page-532#post-14134003

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

This is the so-called “hybrid hotspot mode” described in in this video:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cho...on-1st-page-◄★☆.831347/page-532#post-14134003

Brilliant find. Thanks! I am going to provision it completely now.

Chord really did itself a disservice by releasing the Poly before it was ready. It's already a hard device to explain. If you don't have a networking background, this product could be a nightmare to set up without the subsequent tools they have released. Now they have to live with all of the angry customers who couldn't get it working without significant pain and they scare the heck out of potential new customers. My situation was the opposite. I expected the worst nightmare situation and it didn't happen.

As soon as I get home, I am going to test the direct to wifi use case and to see if the sound quality improves even more. I must admit, for the use case of travel, the Poly does it for me because I can access music with LTE and stream to the Poly using airplay and with this hybrid mode, I can still browse head fi at the same time I am listening to music. It's not the highest quality possible, but it is the most reliable connection which is required when travelling and you don't know what type of internet connection you will have.

 

[Sral94]

Does the Poly work with Spotify and Tidal Connect? If not, why is that? (is the sound quality worse or something?).

At the moment, no, it does not.
Chord are supposedly working with Spotify on an update, but it doesn't seem like they care much.

In August 2019 they stated:
"what we assumed would be a simple process has turned into months of work with Spotify to get code and licensing. We still have more work to do but it's
much close now."

and now in July they stated:
"We are still tackling this with Google but Spotify is a separate case and we are making some progress now."

this was an advertised feature when the poly was released...

 

[grokit]

...if the charger specs / build are so critical - why on earth don’t Chord supply one?

Chord's Hugo 2 charger should work with the Mojo/Poly. It's 5v USB Micro, same as for the Qutest.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Okay. I'm pretty close, but I can't get the Poly to work with a DNLA app. If anyone can provide me with a tip, I'd really appreciate it.

1. I have the Poly connected to my home wifi network
2. I have my iPhone connected to the same network
3. I was able to provision my Tidal account into the Poly. ID, Password and Lossless....
4. I am using 8Player. 8Player can see my Poly. i have it set up as my Remote Access DNLA server
5. Then, I go to Servers on the home page and I can access my Poly.
6. Then, I can see Tidal > My Music > My Playlists.

I am thinking this should work right now. But, I get "Service Login or communication failure."

I have set and reset my Tidal credendials on the Poly several times. I am pretty sure it is correct. I seem so close. Anyone has any ideas?

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Okay, so I switched to mconnect lite. It allows me to connect to my Tidal account and stream via airplay and my wifi network. I think this is the same as streaming from the native ios Tidal app. Mconnect does say it is FLAC, 44k, 24 bit, 1024 mbps streaming. But, the sound quality is not even close to as good as my Bluesound node 2i streamer.

Do I need to upgrade to full mconnect to get to the Chord Poly Media Service (renderer)? I can see the renderer with 8player, but not mconnect lite.

 

[grokit]

Okay, so I switched to mconnect lite. It allows me to connect to my Tidal account and stream via airplay and my wifi network. I think this is the same as streaming from the native ios Tidal app. Mconnect does say it is FLAC, 44k, 24 bit, 1024 mbps streaming. But, the sound quality is not even close to as good as my Bluesound node 2i streamer.

Do I need to upgrade to full mconnect to get to the Chord Poly Media Service (renderer)? I can see the renderer with 8player, but not mconnect lite.

Do you have an Android device? I have had good luck with BubbleUPnP.
I need an iOS player too, all I know about is the two you're trying so I'm following your journey.

 

[senyame]

1. I have the Poly connected to my home wifi network
2. I have my iPhone connected to the same network
3. I was able to provision my Tidal account into the Poly. ID, Password and Lossless....
4. I am using 8Player. 8Player can see my Poly. i have it set up as my Remote Access DNLA server
5. Then, I go to Servers on the home page and I can access my Poly.
6. Then, I can see Tidal > My Music > My Playlists.

I am thinking this should work right now. But, I get "Service Login or communication failure."

I've same crap. As we Russians say .. Who is to blame and what to do?
By the way, it makes no difference which application to use. 8Player or Glider or HibyMusic.

 

[jarnopp]

Okay, so I switched to mconnect lite. It allows me to connect to my Tidal account and stream via airplay and my wifi network. I think this is the same as streaming from the native ios Tidal app. Mconnect does say it is FLAC, 44k, 24 bit, 1024 mbps streaming. But, the sound quality is not even close to as good as my Bluesound node 2i streamer.

Do I need to upgrade to full mconnect to get to the Chord Poly Media Service (renderer)? I can see the renderer with 8player, but not mconnect lite.

If you want to play tidal, why not just use the Tidal app? It’s limited to 44.1k, but that is fine, maybe better than all the MQA nonsense. You get the same quality then both online and offline.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

If you want to play tidal, why not just use the Tidal app? It’s limited to 44.1k, but that is fine, maybe better than all the MQA nonsense. You get the same quality then both online and offline.

I have that use case stable and working really well. The sound is very good. But, it can be a lot better by using the poly as renderer. I know this because I have been connecting the mojo directly to my blue sound node 2i and the sound is glorious. I am so close. With 8player my only issue is logging into tidal from the poly. From mconnnect, it cannot see the poly as renderer.

 

[Stourmead]

I have that use case stable and working really well. The sound is very good. But, it can be a lot better by using the poly as renderer. I know this because I have been connecting the mojo directly to my blue sound node 2i and the sound is glorious. I am so close. With 8player my only issue is logging into tidal from the poly. From mconnnect, it cannot see the poly as renderer.

Ex poly user , and now a Hugo2 /2go user

same issues . Workarounds are...

1) mconnect is flakey to see the chord at the best of times . I got a WiFirepeater to boost the signal in the room it’s in (attic) which gives me about a 70% success rate of finding the chord as a device first time . If not I just put my phone in AirPlane mode and close mconnect and then start again. Seems to be WiFi signal and luck dependant.

As for Tidal . I remember when I first got a poly and tidal login on Gofigure was fine and the qobuz one wasn’t , and qobuz later issued an update on their systems which resolved it allowing the chord to connect.
However now I’m a Hugo2/2go user , the Gofigure qobuz settings are fine and I can get the 2go to do all the streaming work but the tidal side just comes up with the usual service error.

obvs the work around is to use the native mconnect tidal login and the mconnect tailored tidal front end , it’s ok, and outputs MQA untainted. (Not that the mojo you have would see it)

the mconnect qobuz front end is also bespoke and is ok , and I would say it is way quicker than using the browser to open the qobuz directly on the 2go . I guess that’s a measure of the processing power of my iPhone 8 being better than the chord .
The drawback being if I walk out the room with my phone and WiFi goes wobbly , or mconnect goes into it’s own self standby , it all goes messed up .
There’s no easy solution - I had limited success with the Linn app but it was a lot of hassle

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Ex poly user , and now a Hugo2 /2go user

same issues . Workarounds are...

1) mconnect is flakey to see the chord at the best of times . I got a WiFirepeater to boost the signal in the room it’s in (attic) which gives me about a 70% success rate of finding the chord as a device first time . If not I just put my phone in AirPlane mode and close mconnect and then start again. Seems to be WiFi signal and luck dependant.

As for Tidal . I remember when I first got a poly and tidal login on Gofigure was fine and the qobuz one wasn’t , and qobuz later issued an update on their systems which resolved it allowing the chord to connect.
However now I’m a Hugo2/2go user , the Gofigure qobuz settings are fine and I can get the 2go to do all the streaming work but the tidal side just comes up with the usual service error.

obvs the work around is to use the native mconnect tidal login and the mconnect tailored tidal front end , it’s ok, and outputs MQA untainted. (Not that the mojo you have would see it)

the mconnect qobuz front end is also bespoke and is ok , and I would say it is way quicker than using the browser to open the qobuz directly on the 2go . I guess that’s a measure of the processing power of my iPhone 8 being better than the chord .
The drawback being if I walk out the room with my phone and WiFi goes wobbly , or mconnect goes into it’s own self standby , it all goes messed up .
There’s no easy solution - I had limited success with the Linn app but it was a lot of hassle

Bada bing. I got it working. Sounds good. I’ll have to do a/b testing with airplay vs poly as renderer. What I did was reboot my phone to clear out all of the potential conflicts and the poly showed right up, I used the browser interface and it worked

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Oh yes. mconnect rocks. I've done a/b testing between the ios Tidal app streaming airplay over wifi to the poly vs. mconnect controlling the Poly as renderer and there is absolutely no contest. The poly sounds far better with playback as a renderer. It was a little bit harder than it should have been, but the result has been absolutely worth it.

Oh, I got the poly working with my pocket router. I had been mucking around with it to share a wifi link on an airplane and I messed up the configuration. So, I reset it to factory settings and reprovisioned it and then it worked right away. This will allow me to use the poly with mconnect in a hotel room where I either need to pay for wifi or sign in with more than just a simple password.

I just need to figure out how to get the last use case working which is with the poly in hotspot mode and using the LTE connection on my phone to stream to the renderer. I don't even know if this is a supported use case, but if it is it would be fantastic.

 

[miketlse]

Oh yes. mconnect rocks. I've done a/b testing between the ios Tidal app streaming airplay over wifi to the poly vs. mconnect controlling the Poly as renderer and there is absolutely no contest. The poly sounds far better with playback as a renderer. It was a little bit harder than it should have been, but the result has been absolutely worth it.

Oh, I got the poly working with my pocket router. I had been mucking around with it to share a wifi link on an airplane and I messed up the configuration. So, I reset it to factory settings and reprovisioned it and then it worked right away. This will allow me to use the poly with mconnect in a hotel room where I either need to pay for wifi or sign in with more than just a simple password.

I just need to figure out how to get the last use case working which is with the poly in hotspot mode and using the LTE connection on my phone to stream to the renderer. I don't even know if this is a supported use case, but if it is it would be fantastic.

At least you are getting there.
Poly is very versatile, because it gradually evolved with the various firmware updates, to be able to address several different use cases;
Unfortunately many new owners are not aware of the various use-cases, and so can struggle at first, but there are plenty of owners on the Poly thread, who are happy to help with advice.
I am sure that there used to be a diagram explaining the different Poly use cases, but I cannot find it again.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Do you have an Android device? I have had good luck with BubbleUPnP.
I need an iOS player too, all I know about is the two you're trying so I'm following your journey.

I don't have an android device. But, I would highly recommend mconnect as it worked pretty quickly once I figured out how it was supposed to work