Hello @danny,
Hello @dylan,
as promised I’ll try to deliver the expected facts - hopefully I’ll get everything together.
Test trial at May, 5th 2021 from 20:39 till 22:00 between the Tidal connect and the Roon App on the same computer with the same output (Optical System (Core PC) output directly to Devialet 200).
I’ve chosen London Grammar and the album " Californian Soil" from Tidal (not local streaming).
The album is shown as a 24bit, 44.1kHz, MQA 44.1 quality album.
Of course it is a green apple to red apple comparison because I was not able to run both applications at the exactly same time. If you have a better suggestion, please don’t hesitate (one PC, no family account).
I looked at the Tidal server outages web page (Germany) and saw already issues reported from users. Thank god - this went on for the whole time.
First I tryed Roon App at 20:39 and it was unusable from my point of view.
Internet speed connection as stated from my cable provider 940Mbit/s to the PC or 1150 Mbit/s to the Fritzbox 6591 router (Standard setting - cannot switch cable router DNS because the router is from the cable company vodafone, but I used DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 at the WIN 10 PC).
Roon test started at 20:39 o’clock and I got skips at 20:42 “Californian soil”, 20:45 “Lose your head” and 20:49 “How do I feel”.
Then I broke up, because I got already enough skips, interrupts and started the Tidal connect trial at 20:53 o’clock. Untill about 21:19 o’clock I ran the same album with the same quality from Tidal and what shall I say I got no skips at all at the whole test trial (8 titles).
At 21:20 I started the 2.test with the roon application. I got skips at 21:27 “All my love” and 21:31 “I need the night”.
At 21:40 o’clock I started again a Tidal connect trial and till 22:00 o’clock I got NO skips again (title 8-12) and a flawless music stream in the same quality.
No other programs besides the programs in the screenshots were active (besides some standard Windows backround programms). No special antivirus, I’ve never used VPN,…
Here are the screenshots I made:
Signal path from roon
Overview at some skips
Tidal outages overview at that time - in the diagram is always a delay of about 20 Minutes (screenshot time 20:49 o’clock)
Screenshot during the Tidal connect test with some graphs.
Tidal connect peaks in network activity are by far lower than roon activity numbers.
The highest numbers I recognized have been 11Mbit/s in a peak and less than 9Mbit/s at most other peaks at that time.
Screenshot at 21:29 o’clock at the roon app test
Network activity have been much, much higher in peaks (at other test I saw peaks up to 390Mbit/s)
This time I didn’t see that high numbers, but figures >80Mbit/s.
Network activity during roon test (21:33) have been high again.
Next graphs at the 2nd Tidal connect test - at the top with Tidal outages graphs (22:01 o’clock).
Highest numbers from network activity 11Mbit/s (peaks) and average numbers are below 9Mbit/s.
Tidal connect settings - same Master quality as used at roon, same System output.
Tidal outages within the last 24 hours with the complete test time frame.
My own conclusion - Tidal connect used much lower network activity numbers and with that they can handle the Tidal server stability issues.
Roon takes much higher peaks and does not get the streaming quality they need.
Maybe I’m wrong, but so far my explanation.
Log file will follow. Did I forget something?
@danny, please give me a feedback about that test and the issues you see.
I’m just a stupid Engineer without a lot of detailed computer, network und server knowlege.
Thanks.