Have something streaming on the Arcam with its own services
Switch to digital coaxial source AV for example where another device is playing
Is there any way to switch back to the streaming source without resetting the song(pressing on a song from the Queue)?
I found out yesterday that the Arcam becomes “soft” bricked when you just press play/pause on the MusicLife app in attempt to switch to the streamer again.
The device will become totally unresponsive and you can’t play music anymore from the streaming or from the digital inputs. You can switch to them but music is no longer played. You can change the volume but again - absolutely no sound is coming from the device.
Pressing again anything in the MusicLife will have no effect at all.
You can switch to an Analogue input and sound will be played which seems to be the only indication that something is actually working.
The only way to fix this problem is to turn off the device from the button(turn off/on from the remote doesn’t fix it).
What firmware are you on? I am on 1458 and I experience the same thing when I switch to Tidal Direct from Roon. It will make the switch to Tidal Direct, but when trying to switch back to Roon, Roon reports the Arcam SA 30 refuses to switch to Roon. I have found that only switching the unit off and back on via the power supply button ( hard reboot ) fixes the problem. Of course 1458 is beta and I am guess they are aware of the problem.
Well I was on the latest official version yesterday when I tested. Today I did update to the v1473 but I didn’t try it anymore since I am generally streaming from a Bluesound Node.
I was trying yesterday to compare the sound between the Node and the integrated streamer hence I got that problem. Right now I am in no mood to try and mess up the device again.
What I did notice however is that after updating to the latest beta, it is better to NOT reset anything and just continue your normal operation as if no update was done.
Tidal Connect will begin working and some of the problems I experienced the last time I did try this update(and later reverted back to the official one) are now not present.
The last time after installing that same beta and resetting everything - the radio stopped working and Tidal wouldn’t remember its credentials and would ask constantly to re-enter them.
I did try to switch multiple times from Tidal Connect to the AV coaxial input(where the Node is connected) and that worked flawlessly! I didn’t experience any problems at all. Tidal would connect instantly every time and would work as expected. Switching back to the AV input would also work as expected. There is something wrong with the integrated streamer of the Arcam when used with the MusicLife app though!
To clarify everything: I was trying to compare the sound of the Node as a pure transport using Arcam’s internal DAC for the processing. I wanted to see if using the Node would degrade the sound compared to the internal. My conclusion: it depends on your digital coaxial cable! The cable will make all the difference!
I used v521 with a steamer then added an external DAC. I’ve never had any issues with my Arcam playing back distorted music as a result of those setups. I’ve been happy with it. It’s also nice to be able to switch between options. I found airplay to the SA30 sounded better than through the node. Coaxial on the node sounded fuller than the optical. My room impacts the sound significantly as it’s stud walls with a mixture of cavities and insulation. I’ve taken the SA30 out of the HT setup as have an Emotiva XPA-DR3 running the front three. I haven’t tried hooking up the emotiva to the SA30 yet as I may sell it. I’m afraid if I do then it might sound so good I wouldn’t want to.
I’ve hesitated to join up the emotiva to the sa30 pre outs and have that connected to the avr whilst the centre channel goes straight from emotiva to avr in case that setup causing some unwanted issues or worse yet, damage.
There was for me. Definitely airplay sounded better direct to Arcam. I put an external DAC in as well though so that adds another layer. Always used Arcam without Dirac