Roon streaming Tidal albums in lossy versions despite lossless availability (ref#UWPI5H)

[Robert_Borley]

What’s happening?

· Other

How can we help?

· None of the above

Other options

· Other

Describe the issue

Roon core running on M1 Mac Mini which is connected to my router by Ethernet via Netgear switches as are all my Roon endpoints except some Sonos speakers. When I stream albums from Tidal it plays lossy versions instead of lossless or hi-res. Apart from some where it plays lossless no problem. The lossy albums Roon plays have lossless FLAC versions on Tidal but Roon seemingly can’t access them. Anyone know what’s going on?

Describe your network setup

Roon core running on M1 Mac Mini which is connected to my router by Ethernet via Netgear switches, as are all my Roon endpoints except some Sonos speakers. Innuos endpoint Denafrips Aires II DAC

Same Tidal Album lossy on Roon, Lossless on Bluesound.

Different Tidal album lossless on
Roon

[mjw]

Ths second album is local as there’s no “TIDAL FLAC …” in the signal path.

Have you checked that your streaming preferences, i.e., streaming quality is set to Max?

[Robert_Borley]

Omg. That was it. I had no idea there was such a setting. I can’t understand why anyone would have the preference set low!

Thanks so much for your reply. Appreciated

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@Robert_Borley

I can’t understand why anyone would have the preference set low!

Poor or metered internet connection (maybe only temporarily) would be a reason.

[Jim_F]

I set Tidal and Qobuz on CD resolution when away from home using cellular data. This is on my Dell laptop Roon server and also on Roon ARC.

[Robert_Borley]

So, is low data the default setting because I don’t remember ever setting it low? I’ve always streamed Tidal MQA or lossless in the past and I haven’t had metered broadband for well over a decade.

I have had issues with Broadband though, but still don’t remember altering it.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@Robert_Borley

So, is low data the default setting because I don’t remember ever setting it low?

No. If you set it up before February 2024, it’s possible that this was caused by Tidal‘s change of subscription tiers, when they retired MQA. Roon added Tidal Max in this update and IIRC for pre-existing configurations it was (always? sometimes?) necessary to choose Max in the settings:

Roon 2.0.28 is live!

Hello Everyone, We’re excited to share the latest release of Roon - which now includes support for TIDAL Max and restores offline functionality in Roon! As many of you know, TIDAL introduced its new flagship Max quality tier in the summer of 2023. TIDAL rolled out support for up to 24bit/192 kHz high-quality FLAC streaming to their native apps first, with integration for third-party app partners, like Roon, projected for late 2023. Many of you have been quite excited to see TIDAL Max become a…

There were many cases on the the forum where people didn’t have Max, though IIRC they were usually left on the medium (44.1/16? I don’t know anymore) setting, not Low.