Dear all
I recently added the bridge to my Vivaldi DAC. When playing Tidal or Spotify from the Mosaic app, everything works perfect but when playing Tidal on my PC, Tidal does not recognize the bridge in the sound output options [Spotifiy connects to the bridge from the PC as well].
Any ideas ? Thanks in advance to all repliers. Itay
Hi Itay, welcome to the dCS community 
While the Network Bridge supports the Spotify Connect protocol, which is how the Spotify App on your PC is able to work directly with the Network Bridge, dCS does not currently support Tidal Connect, so, you can’t directly stream from the Tidal App to your Network Bridge.
There are a couple of possible work-arounds;
-
Install an Airplay client for PC/Windows; you’ll be able to stream from your Tidal App to the Network Bridge via Airplay (limited to 44.1k/16bits only). There are multiple such Windows Airplay clients available such as AirParrot. Apple Macs support Airplay natively of course.
-
Install a UPnP casting bridge software like Jamcast; it’ll turn your PC into a UPnP casting server to your dCS Bridge as the UPnP renderer.
That’s where things stand today. You can search the forum for multiple discussions on support for Tidal Connect as a feature request.
Anup although what you say is correct I am not sure that streaming using Tidal Connect is what Itay is talking about.
" Sound output options". I read that as that the Tidal app installed on the PC is not recognising the NB in its options for “Speaker” or “Sound Device” ( or whatever phrase Tidal uses). This is where the device can be selected and , importantly if similar to Qobuz , a WASAPI or ASIO session can be opened to avoid the upsampling/downsampling of the Windows 10 (11?) sound mixer so that a bit perfect stream is delivered to the DAC via the NB.
Maybe Itay would care to clarify the nature of the issue and let us know what connection he is using from PC to NB and what Windows has set as the default “speaker” or output device ( Settings/System/Sound/Output Device)?
Pete, since the Network bridge only supports a network connection upstream (no USB to PC), I’m guessing he’s talking about the “Sound Output” icon on the Tidal PC App. The dCS Network Bridge won’t show-up on it (unlike with the Spotify PC App where it does shows up as a selectable device).
Yes Anupc , you are correct (I’m also trying to help him)
So we understand that there is no simple way to connect to the bridge via the Tidal app like Spotify does, right? BTW , any reason why ?
Will it help if we will install the Mosaic sw on the pc?
We will try the options suggested or will buy an iPad, which seems easier and more practical;)
Regards
Eyal
Thanks all so far. The problem is indeed exactly where Anup showed. The only reason why I am trying to control Tidal from my PC is for the big screen display but if that won’t work - I will go with a tablet…
Well, Spotify Connect, the protocol that enables the Bridge to stream directly from Spotify’s servers but be controlled by the App, has been around since 2013; meaning, it’s had plenty of time to mature and get implemented by most HiFi manufacturers, dCS included. Tidal Connect on the other hand, was only introduced into the market at the end of 2020.
I understand the attraction; the native apps from Tidal and Qobuz make it very easy to quickly explore music. I would recommend Roon as the next best tool if you like using a large screen to explore music quickly; it’s a little more sluggish than the native streaming services apps, but it provides a wealth of information about any artist or album you select.
2 Likes
+1 for Roon, but Roon
?
I think that greatly depends on the hardware you use to run it. In my setup (PC) it is very responsive and fast.
Thats true.
Albeit, even on my Roon dedicated 6-Core i7 machine, when I rapidly scroll through Roon’s view of Tidal’s new albums list (or Qobuz’s), Roon takes much more time to populate album cover art then when I do the same with the native apps, on the same machine. This is despite Roon’s CPU utilisation being very low.
Roon is just not as efficient as the native streaming services Apps when exploring albums online 
1 Like
Could this be the reason?
Nothing like that, it’s not a bug, it’s just not as fast as the native Tidal/Qobuz apps thats all.
Try it for yourself, you’ll see that the native Apps load album covers much faster than Roon can (especially for new albums that aren’t already cached).
On my PC album covers load instantly, also new ones. As fast as it looks like they are directly there, also while scrolling fast. Even when I clear the image cache, no loading time noticeable.
1 Like