Astell & Kern – Problems with TIDAL App on many DAP models

The online streaming service TIDAL has changed the authentication for logging in, therefore users of some portable hi-res audio players of the Astell & Kern brand cannot use this service in the usual way.

The portable hi-res audio players of the Astell & Kern brand of the iRiver Limited brand are based on the Google Android operating system, but the user is not aware of this at all. Instead, they are presented with a special user interface that is optimised for music playback in the most comfortable way.

Astell & Kern Open APP Service

With other devices of this kind, where Google Android represents the user interface in the conventional way, you can in principle install any app, such as the various apps from streaming providers, but with the solutions from Astell & Kern you have to rely on the so-called Astell & Kern Open APP Service.

Under this heading, the company includes those apps that are optimised for use on the portable player, which have been released by the developers for smooth operation.

Normally, this is not a problem, but in concrete terms it is probably causing trouble for some users of some of the players from Astell & Kern.

Problems around TIDAL

The company iRiver Ltd. has now announced that the embedded TIDAL app is causing problems. TIDAL has changed the authentication method used by third parties to log in to the TIDAL app. As a result, users are now unable to log in and use the service in the usual way.

A large number of DAPs affected

Unfortunately, this problem probably affects a large number of players of the Astell & Kern brand, as the company has to admit.

For example, the company plans to release firmware updates for the Astell & Kern SP2000, Astell & Kern SP1000, Astell & Kern SP1000M, Astell & Kern SE200, Astell & Kern SE100, Astell & Kern SR25 and Astell & Kern KANN ALPHA solutions in May 2021, which will feature an updated embedded TIDAL app and are supposed to fix the authentication problems.

In addition, there would be an issue with the new TIDAL authentication policies on the following players Astell & Kern KANN CUBE, Astell & Kern SA700, Astell & Kern SR15, Astell & Kern CT15 and Astell & Kern CT10. They are looking at how to continue to support the TIDAL app on these players. More information will also be available in May 2021.

Not stopping there, Tidal is discontinuing support for older Android device models. Unfortunately, according to iRiver Ltd, this means that TIDAL can no longer be supported on the following players due to the new authentication requirements – Astell & Kern AK380, Astell & Kern AK320, Astell & Kern AK300, Astell & Kern AK70 MKII, Astell & Kern AK70, Astell & Kern AK240, Astell & Kern AK120II and Astell & Kern AK100II.

Getting to the point

It is not good news for many users of a portable hi-res audio player of the Astell & Kern brand if they rely on the online streaming service TIDAL. Almost all DAP models of this brand are experiencing problems with dialling into this service. At least for a large number of them, iRiver Ltd. plans to offer updates in May 2021. For others, the company is still looking for a solution, but for many older models, it will no longer be possible to use TIDAL at all.