Will the Topping E30 II support Tidal's FLAC streams?


I am thinking of buying this DAC.  I asked the manufacturer if it will decode Tidal's FLAC stream.  All they said is the DAC support PCM, but I am not sure if this is "yes" or "no' to my question!   Does anyone else know?  I am looking for a DAC that will give me the full 24/192kHz FLAC streams that some of Tidal's library is now offering (as they move from MQA to FLAC as recently announced).

 

Thx. Adrian.

adrian321

Who cares if it decodes Tidal’s myriad of confusing formats?  Just switch to Qobuz where everything just works and you have tons of hi-res recordings as well.  Put Tidal in your rear-view mirror and say good riddance.  

 FLAC can be encoded up to 32bit PMC so when they say it does PMC it does FLAC.  double check with others but that's my understanding. 

A streamer has to care about the format / service that it connects to. 

A DAC only cares about the sample rate, frequency and encoding (PCM or DSD).

Most streamers let you configure the maximum bits and sample rate.

Sample rate is number of points/second.  Say 44.1 kHz = 44,100 samples per second. Bit depth is how much resolution each of those points can be.

CDs were 44.1kHz at 16 bits /channel..  Common Hi-Rez is 96kHz or 192 kHz/24 bits. 32 Bits are also possible.

Erik & Glenn, thank you. That was very helpful.  The other comments are interesting but were not related to my question.

Be aware that while 32 bit resolution sounds attractive, in practice it doesn’t really matter beyond 24 bits. Even the best 24 bit DAC won’t have more than 20–21 bit effective resolution. This translates to about 126dB of dynamic range, meaning you would have to listen to your music at rock concert or jet engine levels in order to be able to hear any quantization error.

Personally, I would not choose a streaming service on the availability of 32 bit recordings. I do use Qobuz and am very happy with it. The Topping or any other DAC that handles PCM encoding will work with Qobuz just fine.