I tried a trial of Tidal HI FI last year and was using the MusicLife app to stream to it. I actually wanted the trial to see what MQA sounded like. I was impressed but not £19.99 a month impressed so I cancelled the trial. I never had any issues myself using the MusicLife app. In fact for how I listen to music I don’t have issues with the app at all in fact I quite like it. I play albums complete though. I don’t do playlists.
Should actually be same as with MusicLife. Anyway I don’t like Mconnect 
Works in similar way to Spotify connect. Using their own protocol (probably based on UPNP) so Tidal Connect code has to be incorporated into streamer firmware.
Good thing is, that you’re using native tidal app, and stream by just selecting SA30 as endpoint. Now you can do that with Chromecast, but you’re losing MQA capabilities. With tidal connect it would use full potential.
Ok, that’s a steep price. In Poland it’s roughly 9 Euro per month, and that a good price.
End result is the same, technically delivered completely differently 
Yeah it feels a tad steep, with quobuz equivalent being £14.99 and recently a couple of quid cheaper than that. However, given my main other listening is vinyl I’m getting a lot more music potentially for my cash than 8 would with regular LP purchases so I’ve stuck with it for now. Good thing is though they keep doing different deals and you can cancel at any time and sign up with a different email address. The £4 for 4 months offer is on again now
I’m an album listener too TBF
Well, actually i would say is other way around - technically delivered same way (both use UPNP), but end result is different, as with Mconnect you cannot close app
Good to have a choice
In here Qobuz is not available at all. There are ways to work around this, but I’m not willing to do that. They don’t want my money, so they will not get it 
Vinyl…hmm, with 2 small kids at home, that would be a challenge 
AFAIK MusicLife (and the web client app which resides in the amp itself) does not use UPnP to cast to the amp, it builds the queue on the amp and the amp streams.
To be fair the MusicLife app does refer to SA30 audio output as a UPnP renderer…
…so I will stand corrected, but surely that means the amp never streams anything itself?
Whatever it must be sending the play queue in one go rather than casting, because you don’t need to keep MusicLife running once you’ve selected to play an album right?
That’s correct. But as far as I know one should be able to do that with other UPNP controllers/apps. UPNP basically points endpoint to the stream on the net, so that endpoint should be able to play it even when controller app is closed. Don’t really know if issue is on SA30 or Mconnect side.
To be fair I think you are right about one thing. After checking a bit it seems, that MusicLife might be using a mix of UPNP and Airable propriety code. If you add for example radio station in MusicLife to favorites, it is saved in SA30 and next time you can start streaming using remote, without having your phone even near. And this is beyond standard UPNP protocol…
Actually I think I just found some good news for us. Seems SA30 is not as flawed as some think, and someone at Harman/Samsung believes in it.
JBL just announced this:
In short new amp for 75th anniversary, which seems to be nothing else as dressed up SA30. Specs and features set are identical to those of Arcam, even display looks to be identical, except for color.
Launch date is April, so I guess Harman management will be pushing Arcam very hard, too get everything sorted by that time.
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Hi felix, yeah I did some tests of that this evening, so yes it’s the SA30 still streaming even if the protocol to tell it what to stream is UPnP. Not only does the SA30 carry on when you disconnect MusicLife or switch of your mobile device, but if you go over to the web client you can still see what is going on, the queue and the meta data etc from the stream.
Now MConnect, maybe I misread, but pretty sure that explained it as “casting” which is clearly not what MusicLife is doing…not in the airplay and chromecast sense anyway. I just re-read on the App Store and it describes it as sending files to a UPnP (or chromecast device), so I definitely think it is doing things a bit differently to MusicLife
The JBL looks interesting - like you say suspect it’s the sa30 inside and a different outside. I dig the vibe 
Anyway we digress 
How do you start your favorite radio stream with the Arcam remote control? I didn’t know this was possible.
Just tested for fun with BubbleUPNP. Seems this works the same way as MusicLife. Started streaming (although this time from my NAS, not tidal) and after closing the app it keeps playing and I can jump to next song using SA30 remote.
So issue seems to be in Mconnect or (unlikely) tidal API. With MusicLife it seems that not only app logs in to tidal, but also amp…
It does, doesn’t it? I think it’s exactly same device, and we should see major improvements in firmware before JBL is launched.
I didn’t know either, but few days ago was playing a little bit with remote, and found this.
Press Net button on remote, and it should take you to “Root” of net functions. Browse using up and down arrows. You choose airable, where you can access net radio and services you logged on to with MusicLife, in my case tidal.
You can browse them same way as in the app or web client. Not very convenient using this small screen, but doable. You can not only choose favorites, but also browse other stations or albums in tidal.
There’s also UPNP section, where you can see DLNA servers in your network and browse them same way.
And lastly the same is there for USB.
Again - not convenient, but at least doable.
Knowing that, would be actually good to send a feature request to Arcam, so that one could use teletext (color) buttons to choose favorite net radio. Either by assigning buttons somehow (long press, web client, whatever) or at least so that those 4 buttons would start up one of the first 4 favorite stations.
This way one (my wife my case ) could start streaming favorite station with just one button press.
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Thanks for sharing, I didn’t know Arcam extended the remote control functionality. This new functionality is introduced with build 867. It would help if they announced this new functionality e.g. in the release note. Maybe I’ll spend a how to topic on it because in my opinion this is real customer added value.
Some time ago I submitted a similar feature request. Nice to see that Arcam implemented (parts of) it. I agree there are still a lot of button presses required, it would be a further usability improvement if it was possible to assign favourite radio streams to a single button on the remote control, e.g. the coloured teletext or number buttons.
Only differences I noticed are six pairs of RCA inputs, and no mention of eARC. I also noticed no mention of ARCAM in their list of leading brands - perhaps deliberate?!
Ok, I have missed that. In that case Thanks for requesting that. Already a useful feature. If they will deliver rest (assigning buttons to favorites) it will be perfect.
Noticed lack of eARC later. However came across into on Darko Audio, that seemingly full feature set will be shown later, so it still might change. Anyway looking at the whole thing it really looks like dressed up SA30, so unless they changed streaming and DSP platform, which is highly unlikely, it should be based on same firmware, which is good for us.
As for Arcam missing from the site now checked and you’re right. Interesting. Although I don’t think it means anything, as seemingly they are still investing in the brand (they seems to be designing HW for others in Harman, but also they started to use the brand in car audio).
Hi Max, welcome to the forum!
Are you aware of the following settings? I think they were introduced somewhere after build 521. Please toggle the TV power setting and retest your finding.
On the SA30 front console:
- Menu → audio settings → TV audio
- Menu → audio settings → TV power
Hi Max, all !
I use the amplifier with HDMI as well and can confirm that since v867 it does not power on with arc anymore. It was functionnal on on v705 and v521. Settings of Jvs1 are correct.
I face the supplementary following issues:
-
I when I turn the amplifier on, I have to select another source (like BD) and then go to my TV settings to re-enable arc. Otherwise I have no sound. Most of the time I have to repeat this step several times to eventually have sound via arc… super annoying.
-
I have regular audio cuts via hdmi (very short cuts, something like 3 to 5 times per 5 minutes)
My TV is a q90t from Samsung.
Do you face issues 1 & 2 as well ?
Do any other SA30 owner face the same issue with HDMI input ?
There are a lot of ARC peculiarities, I think it resembles the most with the next issue. Have a look at it, if you think it is different then please create a new issue in the issue section.
This is definitely the remainder of the issue below. In build 705 is was worse, in build 867 it is much better. Now and then you hear some audio drop outs. I has to be the following issue.
Both issues are known at Arcam and are being worked on.
Since the sound issue has been declared in Augustus, they don’t seem to be working hard on it 
Issue with ARC is, that it relies on CEC protocol, which is not very well standardized.
Each manufacturer has own marketing name and tweaks.
I’m using Panasonic CX700 series TV, and for me ARC was very problematic on 705 (had to usually reboot the amp to get sound), yet on new software it seems nearly perfect. Seemingly in case of Samsung it’s other way around. Now question: is it Arcam’s fault, or…? 
I’m guessing the sound drops issue might also be related to DSP, similar to distortion. This will take while to get fixed.
Edit: actually I just realized, that I’m using ARC, and I think majority of problems seems to be w eARC. Wonder if this might be the issue.