Cambridge Audio has announced a firmware update to bring Tidal Connect support to its music streamer line-up.

The update is already available for the Edge NQ, CXN (V2), 851N, CXN (V1) and StreamMagic 6 (V2), and will arrive for the CXR120 and CXR200 from 7th April.

Given that the oldest model receiving the upgrade came out in 2014 (that makes it well into middle-aged in tech-years), it’s a nice touch that Cambridge is rolling out the new feature to their entire current offering.

Tidal Connect (like Spotify Connect but for, er, Tidal) lets subscribers stream music to compatible products directly within the service’s app. Unlike it’s Spotify alter-ego, however, this lets you stream music at higher quality if you’re a Tidal HiFi subscriber. Simply select your Tidal Connect-enabled product in the device selector at the bottom of the ‘Now Playing’ screen.

To this end, Tidal integration will be removed from the Cambridge Connect app and the front panel of the streamers (although will continue to work through the StreamMagic app). 

While one of the benefits of Tidal Connect is passthrough of hi-res (MQA-powered) Tidal Masters, this won’t be available with Cambridge streamers as MQA implementation requires a hardware modification. You can, however, workaround this incompatibility by connecting a USB-A-to-USB-B cable between a PC/laptop and the network player to enjoy MQA content through the Tidal desktop app.

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