John
MOON Intelligent Network Device v2 – or MiND2 for short – is the name lent by Moon (by Simaudio) to its in-house developed streaming platform; one that supports Spotify Connect, Roon and Apple AirpPlay 2. MiND2 can be found in the Canadian manufacturer’s network players, pre-amplifiers, DACs and integrated amplifiers. Phil Wright covered the 280D streaming DAC here and the 390 streaming pre-amplifier here. The news today is that the latest over-the-air firmware update will add support for Tidal Connect to MiND2-enabled products.
We’ve covered the ins and outs of Tidal Connect before – here and here – but the TL;DR is that it functions almost identically to Spotify Connect. The user simply selects their chosen Tidal Connect-endpoint from a dropdown list activated on the ‘now playing’ screen. The advantage: no need to leave the Tidal app for a third-party offering. Not Roon and not Moon’s superbly named Moon Mind Controller that still integrates Tidal the old-fashioned way — via a UPnP-based app. That app is where you’ll still find Deezer and Qobuz.
Tidal Connect also supports Tidal Masters, in Moon products handing off any incoming MQA-encapsulated hi-res audio stream to the internal (streaming) DAC for it to perform any decoding and rendering.
Further information: Moon by Simaudio
