[thefallenangelx]

Yea, it's a very good detailed EQ which is far better than anything I can find on the playstore for unrooted phones.

How about wavelet on the store?

 

[ejswa51]

Found it. When I disabled the Audio Modification Library in Magisk manager and rebooted, the toggle works again and the filters and presets actually change the sound again! Running rooted Oreo, with Viper4Android 2.3.4.0, Audio Compatibility Patch and Tidal. Lovely!

 

[vanhalen26]

Thank you for reporting this to Tidal and updating us!

It's great that Tidal acknowledges this as an issue that needs to be addressed. But it's not recent LG updates that's causing the problem, since it's also broken on Oreo. That said, I can imagine that Tidal changed their code in response to the changes LG made in Pie and Android 10 -- and this is where it broke. UAPP struggled with that too, but fixed it eventually.

While Tidal is at it fixing their LG specific code, it would be amazing if they could fix 16/44 as well -- ie add 8 zero bits to each sample and then play it the same way they play Master tracks (Direct path et al).

Interesting - I have the LG G7 with the quad DAC and maybe a month or two ago I started to think the difference was pretty minimal on MQA vs hifi.

I do have USBAPP so I’ll use that in the interim, and try to check this thread occasionally to see when the problem gets fixed.

I really enjoy Tidal and got the LG phone as my dedicated player (no SIM in it), but my daily phone is an iPhone. I do have to say that the iPhone app is way smoother. With the LG, the volume up/down only works in step increments (a long press does only one increment), the navigating is just smoother overall), and downloaded content will only play when I have a wifi connection. Now they have this MQA DAC issue which was the overall benefit for me to get the LG phone as a player. Not a big deal overall, but a little sloppy on the programming side.

Thanks for the testing and bringing this to light!

 

[vanhalen26]

One follow up - I decided to downgrade tidal to 2.21.0. I toggled the hifi quad DAC off and on while playing an MQA in tidal and hear no change as I toggle. Shouldn’t I?

When I do the same in USBAPP I hear the sound profile change and a quick pause/break.

I just wonder if I’m missing a setting for proper MQA playback within Tidal.

Thank you again.

 

[Dannemand]

One follow up - I decided to downgrade tidal to 2.21.0. I toggled the hifi quad DAC off and on while playing an MQA in tidal and hear no change as I toggle. Shouldn’t I?

When I do the same in USBAPP I hear the sound profile change and a quick pause/break.

I just wonder if I’m missing a setting for proper MQA playback within Tidal.

Thank you again.

Make sure it's a 24-bit MQA. I don't think the Tidal app can play those 16-bit MQA tracks correctly on Quad DAC, not even the old version, since it would have to convert them to 24-bit.

Still, I would always expect you to hear a difference when toggling the Quad DAC on/off. Try restarting the phone. Sometimes jumping back and forth between UAPP and Tidal app gets Android confused.

 

[vanhalen26]

Thanks for the tips. I just play the files and not sure if 16 bit or 24 bit.

Seems downgrading and restarting helped, I can toggle the DAC off and on now and do hear a difference. It does sound improved to me with the DAC.

It is buggy software. A new problem came up. There are some albums I downloaded that Tidal has replaced with newer versions, the old ones were not MQA and new versions are. If I delete the old and play the new, the new won’t play.

So far I found two I can no longer play. As a workaround, I’ll reload all my downloaded albums (300 so it takes a few hours) and see if that fixes it for ones I’ve updated already (just the 2 so far).

 

[Dannemand]

Thanks for the tips. I just play the files and not sure if 16 bit or 24 bit.

Seems downgrading and restarting helped, I can toggle the DAC off and on now and do hear a difference. It does sound improved to me with the DAC.

It is buggy software. A new problem came up. There are some albums I downloaded that Tidal has replaced with newer versions, the old ones were not MQA and new versions are. If I delete the old and play the new, the new won’t play.

So far I found two I can no longer play. As a workaround, I’ll reload all my downloaded albums (300 so it takes a few hours) and see if that fixes it for ones I’ve updated already (just the 2 so far).

Glad to hear you got it working. Restarting is a good thing!

I always recommend UAPP over Tidal app, since it works consistently with regards to quality and delivering the proper stream to the DAC. It also shows the sample rate and bit-depth on the Now Playing screen.

But UAPP doesn't have that handy download feature of the Tidal app, which I can see you use a lot.

Let's hope Tidal fixes their app soon. I haven't tested the latest version 2.35.0 yet (from Dec 16). It's easy enough to install (just update in Play Store) but a hassle to go back to 2.21.0 if they haven't fixed it yet.

 

[vanhalen26]

Glad to hear you got it working. Restarting is a good thing!

I always recommend UAPP over Tidal app, since it works consistently with regards to quality and delivering the proper stream to the DAC. It also shows the sample rate and bit-depth on the Now Playing screen.

But UAPP doesn't have that handy download feature of the Tidal app, which I can see you use a lot.

Let's hope Tidal fixes their app soon. I haven't tested the latest version 2.35.0 yet (from Dec 16). It's easy enough to install (just update in Play Store) but a hassle to go back to 2.21.0 if they haven't fixed it yet.

Thanks. I agree, UAPP is a great alternative. The android app is so buggy compared to the iPhone, but the android is a much better quality player and has a headphone Jack. East enough to workaround the issues on Android but I’ll bet the bugs I keep finding are costing them a few subscribers. I do really really enjoy the service, but agree it would be nice if they fix the bugs.

I share a group plan with a couple friends so I’m not going to bother changing but I wonder if Qobuz is smoother.

 

[Dannemand]

Thanks. I agree, UAPP is a great alternative. The android app is so buggy compared to the iPhone, but the android is a much better quality player and has a headphone Jack. East enough to workaround the issues on Android but I’ll bet the bugs I keep finding are costing them a few subscribers. I do really really enjoy the service, but agree it would be nice if they fix the bugs.

I share a group plan with a couple friends so I’m not going to bother changing but I wonder if Qobuz is smoother.

Last I checked, Qobuz app sends everything through the mixer: All that pristine HiRes reduced to 16/48. Amazon HD does the same. Of course you can use UAPP with Qobuz -- you have to.

 

[vanhalen26]

Well - I played around a little more (benefit of having listening time under lockdown), and it seems I couldn’t access some newer MQA albums with older 2.21 version of the app.

With the newest version of the app I couldn’t toggle the DAC off and on and hear a difference, but I could access the albums. I saw on Reddit someone talked about the LG issues with the DAC and said version 2.31 was the last functioning one. I just tried that and it fixes the issue with albums being inaccessible, and I can also toggle the DAC off and hear a difference - so it’s possible it might be working ok as late as 2.31.

 

[Dannemand]

Well - I played around a little more (benefit of having listening time under lockdown), and it seems I couldn’t access some newer MQA albums with older 2.21 version of the app.

With the newest version of the app I couldn’t toggle the DAC off and on and hear a difference, but I could access the albums. I saw on Reddit someone talked about the LG issues with the DAC and said version 2.31 was the last functioning one. I just tried that and it fixes the issue with albums being inaccessible, and I can also toggle the DAC off and hear a difference - so it’s possible it might be working ok as late as 2.31.

Interesting. Thank you for sharing.

It is possible, of course, that changes after version 2.21.0 made some new functionality available. But it doesn't matter if these newer versions can access MQA albums that 2.21.0 can not, if the newer versions then send them through the Mixer -- which loses half the stream, MQA along with it.

Could you please link some MQA albums where this is an issue?

I am falling behind in other obligations, so I am afraid I won't have time to dig deeply into this for a while.

 

[iJay]

Does anyone use the Foobar2k app with v30?

 

[vanhalen26]

Here’s a couple that wouldn’t play in 2.21 but do play in 2.31. I do wonder if 2.31 is playing MQA properly given I can toggle the DAC and hear a difference in that version but cannot in the current version.

Anyways, here they are.

https://tidal.com/album/77648209
https://tidal.com/album/145434532

 

[Dannemand]

Here’s a couple that wouldn’t play in 2.21 but do play in 2.31. I do wonder if 2.31 is playing MQA properly given I can toggle the DAC and hear a difference in that version but cannot in the current version.

Anyways, here they are.

https://tidal.com/album/77648209
https://tidal.com/album/145434532

Thank you. I'll take a look at those when I get the time.

As far as Tidal app versions, I tried many between 2.34.0 and 2.21.0, and all of them played through the mixer.

You should always hear a difference or a small lag when toggling the Quad DAC, unless something got messed up -- such as when jumping between different player apps. I don't believe there is any way Tidal or any other player app can avoid using the Quad DAC once it's been enabled. Anytime you suspect the DAC isn't working, you should restart the phone and try again before concluding anything.

 

[vanhalen26]

It’s too bad I didn’t restart the phone before removing the current app, I’ll reinstall and check that, and than go backwards again. I’ll report back later.