TOPIC:

Since a few children ruined our previous thread, I suggest a new one to discuss the real-world use of Tidal Connect now that it has arrived…

Listen, @devteam, it’s great you finally delivered Tidal Connect, but one thing: please get my SHD master volume off the side rocker volume buttons on my iPhone. 

I do not want my phone to ever change my SHD master volume, especially on the rocker buttons in coarse 6.5db jumps. It’s not even consistently active. If I’m on my lock screen or using any other app, it’s my iPhone volume, but then when I’m in the Tidal app it’s my SHD master volume.

Maybe some people want that, but many do not. The option of having a fixed, full-strength volume out of Tidal Connect is a must-do. Then it’s simple to use our dedicated remotes in a consistent way.

Another thing: I do not want any guests connecting via Tidal Connect to be able to blow out my speakers. They should be able to play a song for me via Tidal Connect, but only me with my remote should be responsible for my equipment.

The WiiM Mini has had the option of fixed or variable volume on their implementation since the February 17, 2022 update. You guys couldn’t figure this out for launch in September?

@ notman

Glad to hear that you're enjoying your Tidal connect..  
We'd have to check with Volumio and Tidal how that would work and the technical implications behind the scenes.. Similar to Roon which has extremely stringent requirements as to what is showed on OLED front panel vs what is the volume of the device vs what is the volume inside the streaming app (Tidal connect or Spotify connect or Roon), it's not always as simple as it seems I'm afraid to pass these certifications as there are lots of stringent pass/fail rules to go through.. 

Spotify connect is similar behavior though.. i.e. when you're live with the app, you control volume of the device. That's a requirement from them too. 

I wonder if Wiim can maybe get away with that because they don't have volume control display on the GUI and output digital (ie. volume control maybe expected downstream).? 
Just a wild guess again as we don't know how they did it on their device..  will have to put it to the engineers/Tidal to ask. 

Last but not least, please note that Tidal took 3months to certify our platform so not sure at this time how simple/easy it is to modify that code and go back to certification..  

DevTeam

devteam wrote:

@ notman

Spotify connect is similar behavior though.. i.e. when you're live with the app, you control volume of the device. That's a requirement from them too. 



 

What? No! No.

My whole point is that Tidal Connect can and should behave like Spotify Connect already does. Spotify Connect has no control of the SHD volume at all when connected. It never has, and that includes the latest Volumio and Spotify Connect plugin versions that I’m currently using. Not only does Spotify Connect not have its own volume control like a headphone-out-to-RCA-in analog type connection (or some annoying Airplay implementations), it definitely doesn’t have control over SHD master volume.

Now I’m left wondering how you don’t even know what you’re talking about and are making excuses that don’t exist. If you’re saying that Spotify Connect has a stringent requirement that doesn’t exist, how can we trust you over all the constraints you say Tidal or Roon or whoever else puts on you? It’s either you don’t know how your own device behaves, or you like putting blame on other companies to explain your missing features and ultra slow rollouts. It can’t be both.

So, to answer your first comment, no, I’m not enjoying native Tidal Connect for SHD. I’m still using my Wiim Mini and I haven’t used the Pi side of my SHD in months, ever since I got the WiiM. Your streamer is years behind the competition at this point.  

Probably Spotify connect have different requirements for certification than Tidal connect. Personally I very much enjoying the phone's side button master volume control. On the other hand, as the OP states, I see that it can be problematic for someone, if a random user in the local area network can access to these functions.

Another topic.
The Tidal connect function on my network disappears after a while and I have to restart the SHD to get the function back. Anyone else have this problem?

 

Denesdr wrote:

Probably Spotify connect have different requirements for certification than Tidal connect. Personally I very much enjoying the phone's side button master volume control. On the other hand, as the OP states, I see that it can be problematic for someone, if a random user in the local area network can access to these functions.

Another topic.
The Tidal connect function on my network disappears after a while and I have to restart the SHD to get the function back. Anyone else have this problem?


 

@devteam specifically said Spotify Connect has the same requirement, and they said that’s why it functions the same as Tidal Connect on the SHD. Except that’s not true at all. They need to come back to explain and correct themselves.

Not too promising that you’re getting timeouts that require a hardware power cycle. 

Just testing it out now, and have some observations:
* The volume control on my android device controls the SHD Studio main volume. For me, I have set the volume at -3db because otherwise I sometimes get digital clipping on my DAC due to the corrections Dirac has done. So I'd very much prefer the volume to not be changed from the phone.
* When I *do* use the volume controls on my phone, the volume is adjusted in strange steps, like this: 0, -1.5, -2.5, -4.0, -5.0, -6.5, -7.5, -9.0 ... Seems pretty consistent with these numbers. When I use the remote control or the knob on the device, the steps are always 0.5.
* I tried to open volumio interface on my Mac while playing from Tidal on the phone, and when seeking in the track I got a message saying this is unsupported. This is fine I suppose, although a little annoying. But the first time I did it, I also got an error message regarding a flac file not found. Very odd, and I can't reproduce this again.

Otherwise it appears to work fine, and I am very happy that the syncing from the device to the phone seems much better than with my Bluesound Node, where it updates only every 5 seconds, and very often loses sync completely. With the SHD the time ticks by in 1s intervals, and so far it seems solid!

toman wrote:

* When I *do* use the volume controls on my phone, the volume is adjusted in strange steps, like this: 0, -1.5, -2.5, -4.0, -5.0, -6.5, -7.5, -9.0 ... Seems pretty consistent with these numbers. 

For info. you'll find the same if you adjust the volume using Volumio and I believe it relates to mapping a 100 point scale across the 127.5 dB range of the SHD volume control. It would be preferable if the adjustments could mirror the 0.5 dB steps of the miniDSP remote control but I think this was dictated by the requirements for Roon certification and so I don't think this will be changed.

notman wrote:

devteam wrote:

@ notman

Spotify connect is similar behavior though.. i.e. when you're live with the app, you control volume of the device. That's a requirement from them too. 




 

What? No! No.

My whole point is that Tidal Connect can and should behave like Spotify Connect already does. Spotify Connect has no control of the SHD volume at all when connected. It never has, and that includes the latest Volumio and Spotify Connect plugin versions that I’m currently using. Not only does Spotify Connect not have its own volume control like a headphone-out-to-RCA-in analog type connection (or some annoying Airplay implementations), it definitely doesn’t have control over SHD master volume.

Now I’m left wondering how you don’t even know what you’re talking about and are making excuses that don’t exist. If you’re saying that Spotify Connect has a stringent requirement that doesn’t exist, how can we trust you over all the constraints you say Tidal or Roon or whoever else puts on you? It’s either you don’t know how your own device behaves, or you like putting blame on other companies to explain your missing features and ultra slow rollouts. It can’t be both.

So, to answer your first comment, no, I’m not enjoying native Tidal Connect for SHD. I’m still using my Wiim Mini and I haven’t used the Pi side of my SHD in months, ever since I got the WiiM. Your streamer is years behind the competition at this point.  

@Notman

We're always happy to receive feedback and discuss any issues but to be honest, the way you communicate and directly attack us (or our integrity) doesn't help..  
How about we just discuss an issue instead of making personal attack on us or our team? We don't see how that will change/improve a specific question/issue you will have. You may have external knowledge to the certification process by stating that we're somehow making thing up and we'd be happy to hear of this. Once again, we're here to discuss and listen.. Personal attacks to our team won't solve a request I'm afraid..

Spotify connect indeed does have bidirectional control of volume from the SHD front panel to Spotify, From the spotify app to SHD. We've tested it with few units and few phones now. If you can't see this behavior, maybe you're running a very old version of firmware on your unit? That would be the most likely reason here. 

Feel free to start a support ticket with our team if you can't see that behavior? 

Roon and Tidal connect also behave this way. It is indeed a requirement of that certification process to have the bidirectional aspect (Front panel, Volumio Web GUI, IR remote, Roon/Tidal/Spotify app all relaying the information bidirectionally). It's another reason why it's complex because they all use some different scaling. 

We tried on few other tidal connect and that was the behavior as well. We don't know unfortunately how Wiim passed certification process differently. We just don't know the process on Tidal side much more than the API/Requirements we're being asked to go through as a pass/fail process. 

DevTeam 

Ultrasonic wrote:

toman wrote:

* When I *do* use the volume controls on my phone, the volume is adjusted in strange steps, like this: 0, -1.5, -2.5, -4.0, -5.0, -6.5, -7.5, -9.0 ... Seems pretty consistent with these numbers. 

For info. you'll find the same if you adjust the volume using Volumio and I believe it relates to mapping a 100 point scale across the 127.5 dB range of the SHD volume control. It would be preferable if the adjustments could mirror the 0.5 dB steps of the miniDSP remote control but I think this was dictated by the requirements for Roon certification and so I don't think this will be changed.

That scaling is indeed shared from the Roon World. The most stringent requirements ever... We are sharing the same scaling accross others to keep similar behavior/computation process. 

DevTeam

Personally, I don't think you've earned the benefit of the doubt, but alright, I'll try to go easier on you since you're so sensitive.

I was running FW1.29 when I first posted about this master volume control situation. Now, since you suggest the blame might be on "very old" firmware, I have just begrudgingly updated to FW1.32. Not to sidetrack the conversation here, but I didn't want to update because of the Dirac logo change and issue with OLED burn-in that was reported in this forum and that you never really addressed. Sure enough, I can see the old and new Dirac logo stacked on top of each other. And that's on a unit that out-of-the-box I have run auto-dim on the fastest 3 second setting, and use the lowest 0  brightness dim setting, and this device has always had at least FW1.25 running which changed the refresh rate to protect the OLED, and even with all that I still get burn-in on the logo. Great. Just great. 

Spotify Connect still behaves exactly the same way as it has for years on my SHD. To repeat, I am on latest SHD FW, latest Volumio, and latest plugin. Mine is a Neo3 unit, but I had the Neo2 before that. I've done a full power cycle on the SHD, and I restarted my iOS Spotify app. No other app is running on my phone. Spotify does not have control of my master volume. There is no control of volume whatsoever between my app and the SHD, whether by physical buttons or on-screen slider.

Can anyone else weigh in on their Spotify Connect user experience? When using Spotify Connect, does your phone/app have control of your SHD master volume? If you can, please list your FW, Volumio version, and I would suggest having only the "Volumio Spotify Connect2" plugin installed. Make sure you're not using Airplay and instead selecting off the list of native devices within the app.

It just never ends, does it...
I think it's time for you to take a timeout and/or move to another platform.
Your continued bad-mouthing of the product is juvenile.

Dave.

@notman it sounds like you're using an out of date version of the Spotify plugin, which may explain the different behaviour you're seeing. 

www.minidsp.com/forum/announcements/20490-new-spotify-plugin

dreite wrote:

It just never ends, does it...
I think it's time for you to take a timeout and/or move to another platform.
Your continued bad-mouthing of the product is juvenile.

Dave.

Sorry it hurts your feelings that people are frustrated with a company.

I suggest you should take a timeout if hearing negative things is such a problem, because if there’s one thing this forum and ASR has proven, it’s that even if I go away there’s plenty of other reasonable people who will be step up to complain to miniDSP about OLED burn-in, cryptic-nearing-on-hostile customer service, and poorly functioning, convoluted, insanely behind schedule software.

I’m being tough but I’m not emotionally unhinged or impolite like the members who got the last thread canceled. I’ll carry on, thanks, and you’re free to ignore.

Ultrasonic wrote:

@notman it sounds like you're using an out of date version of the Spotify plugin, which may explain the different behaviour you're seeing. 

www.minidsp.com/forum/announcements/20490-new-spotify-plugin

So we went from having separate Spotify and Spotify Connect plugins, to being instructed in the August 2022 newsletter that there will now be only one Spotify plugin that handles both, but in practice it won’t be labeled as such inside Volumio, and an older, apparently out-of-date Spotify Connect plugin will be left available to ensure people are properly confused over whether they have the latest version.

I’ll tell you one thing I won’t be installing: the new all-in-one Spotify Connect plugin that takes control of my SHD master volume. I’d be an idiot to try it. 

The Volumio guys seem nice so it makes me feel bad to say, but they are wasting their time trying to play catch-up to the bigger players in streaming. There’s no bringing a system based on manually-installed plugins and a UI from 1997 into competition with what companies like Wiim are easily delivering.

As previously said, I was genuinely hoping that Tidal Connect for SHD would bring me back to the streaming side of the device and reduce my hardware footprint, but the actual implementations of Tidal and Spotify Connect guarantees I couldn’t be less interested in anything miniDSP and Volumio plan on delivering together. You certainly deserve each other, I can say that much.

notman wrote:

As previously said, I was genuinely hoping that Tidal Connect for SHD would bring me back to the streaming side of the device and reduce my hardware footprint, but the actual implementations of Tidal and Spotify Connect guarantees I couldn’t be less interested in anything miniDSP and Volumio plan on delivering together. You certainly deserve each other, I can say that much.

Based from the above, it does sound like you were simply running an outdated plugin and not firmware. It could have been either. Fw v1.99 is fine if you'd like to go back to your old rev. We're not sure why the plugin was actually still working but knowing that you're looking for a solution with zero volume control, it does sound indeed that it's better for you to not upgrade then since you don't want volume control from Spotify. 

You mentioned few times, few threads, few forums that you've got everything you need under your Wiim streamer so I believe that you're all set and maybe we should just move on? 
Let's also please go back to the first reply to this thread where we stated that we would indeed talk to Tidal certification team (i.e. the one in charge here, not miniDSP) if removing volume control is possible. We intend to do that. We simply don't want to start modifying aspects of the certification on our own, that's unfortunately not how these certifications/agreement work..  

DevTeam