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Ifi Zen Stream with Tidal Connect Frustration

I’ve been streaming with my modest systems for a few years using Tidal and others. I have 2 systems in different homes using LS50 Wireless and Cambridge/Dynaudio systems. My previous streamers were Sonos Connect and Bluesound Node 2i. The KEF system has a built in Dac accepting Toslink and the other system is using a Schiit Multibit Dac. In an effort to upgrade sound quality I picked up a used Ifi Zen Stream. I also have a LPS on order but already hear a noticeable improvement in sound quality with fuller sound and less sibilance. 
 

My problem is the frustrating process of using the Zen Stream to stream via the Tidal Connect interface. My process started out with numerous resets of the ZS and an eventual Windows OS reset on the ZS. After that I believe the ZS is working as designed. Unfortunately playing music for an evening is an unpleasant experience due to the buggy Tidal Connect/ZS interface. Every time I try to skip a track or start a new piece of music the ZS stops sending a signal to my Dac (the speed color light goes out). If I go into the Tidal app output selection I see the ZS selected and the eq activity indicator showing it’s playing. This happens almost every time I try to navigate to different music. I can sometimes get it to start playing again by stopping play in Tidal and jumping back and forth between the iPad and ZS outputs. I can spend more time trying to restart music than listening.  Not how I want to spend my evenings. 
 

Can anyone explain to me what I may be doing to cause this, or is this just inherent in the poorly integrated Tidal/ZS interface and lack of full native support of Tidal in the ZS?  I’d really like to understand how to get this working since I like the sound quality. I have tickets open with Ifi but no clear explanation so far. 
 

Please do not respond with recommendations of other streamers. I’m not able to spend thousands on this and will live with my BS Node if the ZS isn’t workable. 
 

Hoping someone out there has the simple solution…..

buckycyo

Showing 2 responses by soix

soix
8,763 posts
 

I have tickets open with Ifi but no clear explanation so far. 

Yeah, iFi customer support is basically non existent so don’t hold your breath.  I had a similar experience using Qobuz with mConnect+, and while it worked initially it went south in a similar way you describe (I was using Wi-Fi BTW, which was the source of the problem).  I was a reviewer at the time and was in contact with the iFi US distributor on another matter and ended up asking him for help after their woeful and archaic ticket system yielded absolutely no help whatsoever.  To his credit the distributor went to bat for me, but even he couldn’t get access to any further help!  Sad and completely inexcusable for a company of this size.  I eventually just gave up after trying several bandaids and have decided to just go hardwired using a Wi-Fi extender that I understand will get around all the hassles. Haven’t gotten to try it yet, but by all accounts this works.  Are you using Wi-Fi over the air or are you using an Ethernet cable?  If the former you might try what I described to avoid all the frustration.  It’s a shame, because like you I was very happy with the performance while it worked.  Argh.  Hope this helps, and best of luck going forward. 

soix
8,763 posts
 

Thanks so much for the follow up, and I’ll have to revisit this now myself. Did iFi actually figure this out or did you figure it out some other way? Just curious cause they didn’t do squat for my very similar problem with Qobuz and mConnect+. Anyway, congrats on getting this very annoying problem sorted, and a pox upon Tidal for releasing an app that doesn’t work properly with an iPad — like I needed yet another reason to dislike Tidal!

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