The Definitive Guide on how to listen to Tidal at the highest possible quality without popping, distortion or interruptions

This article has been updated recently. I finally found a solution/ workaround which works for me. But I recommend you read through the entire article so that you won’t do the mistakes I did while trying to figure this out.

During the COVID-19 period, I have been listening to Tidal Masters for discovering new music. It is very frustrating to spend all the $$$ on the streaming plan, get an MQA capable DAC and then when you sit down to listen to great music and get in the zone, you can’t:

• Popping
• Massive distortion
• Interruptions

Basically, it is unusable, even with a hardwired mesh routers on a gigabit Comcast plan. I have network cables in almost all rooms of my house, and everything is either Nest Wifi Router, Google Wifi Router (hardwired) or two Nest Wifi Points.

Sonos works OK most of the time — I think because it down samples everything to 24-bit, 48 KHz. But Tidal Masters with 24-bit, 192 KHz wreaks havoc over streaming, especially when we switch…