Awesome work once again, thank you! Having you as the resident developer for our DAC is pretty cool and much appreciated.I was challenged by @Keysee to improve Tidal Connect on Android devices. I put in some time and finally I can say, I DID IT!
I tested on a tablet with Android 10.0 and a phone with the latest TIDAL Music: HiFi, Playlists 2.107.0 APK and it works without any problems.
Below is the link to the firmware.
R26_Gustarender_1v43_Tidal.MAC_fix.zip
As before, this is the original 1v43 firmware containing my 2 fixes: restoring a static MAC address and the ability to control the R26 with Tidal Connect on Android devices.
I hope it works for you too.
To restate it, the main and big benefit is to Tidal users without Roon (or other UPnP apps/subscription) to give them stable and direct connection to the R26 without them having to buy and use a Roon (etc) subscription.Thanks for your reply I guess my question should have been worded better. I already have Roon ( I built a Roon ROCK ) and a Tidal subscription. I just wondered if there was any advantages to using Tidal connect as opposed to Roon that I was not aware of. I use spotify to listen to the NY Times amplifier playlist that comes out twice a week and occasionally for other things but I mostly listen to Tidal and my own music collection thru Roon.
Putting aside sound quality for a mo, For Tidal users like you and I who already have Roon and wish to keep it for reasons other than stable, high quality R26 streaming connectivity (eg. Local file playback or its artist info and overall UI) then there is no particular benefit to us, other than another option should we ever wish to ditch Roon in future.
Re sound quality, this varies with the R26 by protocol/app, even where the same streaming service like Tidal is used for each. I actually use the HQplayer NAA as after some experimentation found sounds best out of the various R26 compatible streaming apps and protocols I’ve tried, even when set to no oversampling, let alone using its high quality oversampling filters and modulators with R26 in NOS mode, especially in v5.
Pecking order in my experience is NAA > Roon > JPLAY / Bubble UpnP. As to where Tidal Connect sits on that pecking order, not sure but suspect it has parity with or betters the latter two if not at HQP NAA level. Have a listen and see how it compares to Roon.