I've emailed Tidal to see if they have any input, but I don't suspect that will do any good. I'm sure they'll blame either Apple, or Kenwood and I won't have any resolution. Hopefully though, they have some updates to the app coming that will help with some of this.

 

I'm a total neophyte at streaming services but someone mentioned this software the other day. I'm sure it is illegal or against the rules but my understanding is it can be used to convert tidal files into WAV, FLAC, etc files that you then own and can do whatever you want with. Let me know what you think as I"m thinking of trying Tidal as well to get my hands on some sweet MQA goodness.

AudFree - Music Converter for Spotify, Tidal, Apple | OFFICIAL

AudFree provides many music converters and downloaders for Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Audible, Deezer, Amazon Music to make the music world better and easier.

www.audfree.com

 

I for one will tell you TIDAL HIFI is the best streaming service period for SQ. As for it playing another song randomly after one ends, in settings i believe there is a setting that tidal has that it will play a song related to the current song so there is no times when music is not playing. You can turn this setting off but i believe the only times it does this is if u r searching and only playing one song at a time and not playing songs continuous on your playlist. Why it is doing this when you are using your playlist I have know idea. As for the shuffle feature it usually worx pretty good, of course the more songs u add the less likely for repeats. I also reccomend downloading your songs so u dont have to use your data. As for using it with a headunit I have never have as I use an ipad installed in my tacoma as my source that runs into a sony rsx-gs9. Tidal’s sound quality is better than spotify and way better than apple as I think you have already found out. Keep using it you and I believe u will end up really liking it as long as you dont keep having trouble with carplay, thats why I love my iPad as my source. GOOD LUCK!


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I for one will tell you TIDAL HIFI is the best streaming service period for SQ. As for it playing another song randomly after one ends, in settings i believe there is a setting that tidal has that it will play a song related to the current song so there is no times when music is not playing. You can turn this setting but i believe the only times it does that is if u r playing one song at a time and not on your playlist. As for the shuffle feature it usually worx pretty good, of course the more songs u add the less likely for repeats. I also reccomend downloadingthe songs so u dont have to use your data. As for using it with a headunit I have never have as I an ipad installed in my tacoma as my deck that run into a sony rsx-gs9. The sound quality is better than spotify and way better than apple. Keep using it you will end up really liking it!!


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The sound quality is great, I have no complaints there, it's the other things that are bugging me.

In the car I exclusively use playlists (I intentionally download the songs for the playlist so that I don't use data), even then it will go rogue and it will start playing songs that are similar to the previous song, but are not downloaded to my phone, or in anyway part of my playlist.

The shuffle issue isn't a huge problem, I just tap the button a couple of times and it will correct itself. Still annoying though.

Not being able to search for music is a bit of a problem though. From my phone I can explore whatever I want, but from the head unit the explore button won't let you do a search. Again, it's not something that I would do while driving, but while parked, or when I have a passenger it would really be helpful. I could pull out the phone, but that sort of defeats the whole purpose of the wireless Carplay thing where my phone stays in my pocket.

Luckily I will get a 40% military discount, so I won't have to pay the full $20 per month, if I had to pay full price I don't think it would be worth it until the app and Carplay worked better together.

 

Yeah it looks like its more of a carplay software issue to me more than anything i cant imagine having to search while driving that would suck. Yeah I agree whats the purpose of wireless carplay then


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It may be your carplay. I've been using Tidal for years, like before they marketed in the US. Never had issues. I've used carplay/AA in rentals with no issues. In fact I can do all those things via headunit on my Pioneer over Bluetooth. Don't even need carplay to shuffle, play my collection or search.

Do you have another HU you can try it on? Or have you already?

 

FYI you are degrading the quality of the streaming service by using BT. Even with Aptx, the best BT out right now, you are looking at 352kbps. Tidal HiFi is 1411kbps. Not that you were saying you were using Tidal HiFi, but in case you are, it is a waste of money with a BT setup.

 

I know when I get to the end of a Tidal playlist it will play something I don't have downloaded or even on a playlist. Haven't had it do it randomly in the middle of a playlist though. I have the DNX995 and use android but I have some similar issues to the OP, my guess is it's more of a Kenwood software issue.

 

Thanks for all of the input. It's really starting to sound like a problem with Kenwood's Carplay. It also seems like giving Amazon a shot would be beneficial.



You could be on to something here, I'll test it by making a couple of short playlists and see what happens after each song has played. If this is what it's doing, it much pick up the playlist where is left off, because the playlist I use for driving has about 30 songs, and I can't get through more than 5-6 on my way to work and it'll sometime go rogue.

Overall, it does work pretty well, album art shows up in the Carplay screen, and home screen, tracks skip quickly, the sound quality is good, and I've found every song that I've searched for so far. If a firmware update were to improve things a bit, I'd have no complaints.

 

So the songs stream with WiFi or Bluetooth? You can choose?

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No basically bluetooth just makes the connection between phone and deck then the audio and video streams over wifi after that...


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Wow! Cool, thanks

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No prob


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Gijoe,
Tidal has similar issues with AA on my Kenwood DDX9905s. For me it would never auto resume. The few times it would actually start a playlist back up, it would start at the beginning of the song. Instead I always had to open the tidal app on my phone and hit resume. Otherwise I'd always be re-starting at the beginning of the playlist.

However, Tidal isn't the only HiFi streaming on the market now. Amazon also has HiFi and its app works way better for me on AA. Music always auto resumes where it stopped. Only issue I have is it won't list saved playlists. It will list recently played playlists and you can start any saved playlist from the phone app. But carplay app could be different. Worth a shot to try. Every song I had on Tidal playlists existed on Amazon HD and more on Amazon were mastered than on Tidal.

 

I've noticed the same thing. Before I set up Android Auto and was just using BT and starting the app on my phone it was fine and started on the song I was on. With AA it sometimes starts on the same song and sometimes doesn't. I do have to go back to the Kenwood and navigate through tidal to the playlist every time I start my truck. That really annoys me. I haven't had time to try and dig into menus to see of I can find a trick.

 

I just want to make sure since I'm head unit shopping and I have an android phone (Samsung S9+), but will Amazon HD or Tidal play through the USB of the kenwood head units? I'm only asking after seeing this (the attachment) on the kenwood site stating android connects over bluetooth, is that just for spotify and pandora? (They were mentioned where it talked about this).

 

As long as the headunit supports android auto then it will run audio over usb up to 48khz 24bit.

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My thoughts... I bought a pioneer sph-230 to use with my iPhone 7 with CarPlay, was seamless and worked exceptionally well, moved onto an XR, while swapping to an alpine 178bt, didn’t really flick my switch, poor frequency response and wasn’t impressed, swapped to a clarion 807e for optical output with CarPlay, the CarPlay interface was god awful, if I hadn’t used the pioneer I wouldn’t have known, but as I had the clarion had to leave the car, needless to say I swapped back to a pioneer once more, as has another guy in our competition sq team, we both find the pioneer the best interface for CarPlay (he had a kenwood 8017 previously from memory), works seamlessly and just functions how CarPlay should

needless to say pioneer will be in my car for a long time as I don’t intend swapping...

I will add for an iPhone I prefer the superior sound quality of a topping D10 digital straight into my helix dsp ultra With a cck3, more detail, more separation, just a next level of sound quality vs a stereo with usb into it and analogue out

 

It's funny that you mention this. My Kenwood has been having issues with Tidal via CarPlay over the last few days. Oftentimes it doesn't want to find any of my music, or connect to Tidal at all. I'll click on Albums, Playlists, Tracks, etc. and it searches for much longer than it should (I have the songs downloaded to my phone), and comes back with no results. I'd say this is suddenly happening about 50% of the time.

The Tidal app works fine on my phone, and on my computer, it's only when connecting to CarPlay that I have issues. These problems just started, so I don't know yet if the problem is with the Kenwood, or the Tidal app. I've never been too thrilled with how the app works via CarPlay, I've sent several emails to Tidal (they do respond quickly), but it may be time to cancel my subscription already.

 

For listening to Tidal music on CarPlay, you need to be the premium or HiFi subscriber of Tidal and need to connect to the data. If you want to play the music offline, there are some tools like Mac Tidal Music Converter, online music converter, etc. can help you make it. You could give it a try and listen to your Tidal music via CarPlay.

 

Not at all… Spotify is p*ss poor quality compared to tidal, stick to spamming sites that don’t care about sound quality!

 

I’ve been trying out Tidal for a few days to see if it will fit my needs, but I’m having some issues and I’m curious if anyone else has these problems.

I have been using playlists, and I download about 20-30 songs at a time so that I don’t blow through data. I’m using a Kenwood DMX906S with wireless Carplay and my issues are:

1. The shuffle mode sucks. Most of the time it doesn’t shuffle, I can get it to shuffle if I toggle it off and on, sometimes once fixes it, other times it takes 2 or 3 times.
2. Even when set to a playlist, it will randomly go rogue and start streaming songs that I haven’t downloaded, and aren’t even in the playlist. The display still shows that it’s in my playlist, but it plays whatever it wants.
3. There’s really no way to search for music using the headunit. I’m don’t want to do this while driving, but it would be nice to do while parked, or have the passenger find some music.
4. Sometimes when I get a text, phone call, or turn off the car playback will restart upon finishing the task, or starting the car, other times playback does not restart and I have to open Tidal, navigate to a playlist in order to get the “now playing” icon, click that, then hit play.

These are the issues I’ve had so far. I’ve found all of the music I’ve searched for, and the sound quality is solid, but the issues with the app and Carplay are starting to become annoying enough that I definitely won’t pay for a subscription.

Any similar experiences, or possible fixes?

Only the fix that I can think of is to change streaming service to Apple . I experienced all the above mention, I using Kenwood as well.

 

Ever since Apple Music went lossless, I've been using wired CarPlay on my DMX907S and it's been great. Between that and a 2TB SSD drive with all my FLAC albums, I'm pretty well set.

 

One possible fix is that you can use a third-party tool like AudBite Tidal Music Converter to download Tidal tracks as a local file. Then you can control the music playing as you want.

 

Tidal just isn’t worth it, in my opinion. Eveb with my military discount it wasn’t worth the trouble. I’m definitely not paying them only to use a different converter to make it work.

 

I just hated the atmos content and could never figure out how to turn it off!