Tidal music service is already a spectacular flop

+1 AKD!  Discovery of new music and great SQ as well. 

Not slamming Naim. Finally understanding what's behind the Naim passion as a new 5si owner, my biggest concern is I might have enough time left to upgrade to the 272/250

+1. Deezer via non modified SONOS Connect RCA/BNC/NDX smoked Spotify Connect. Spotify not too bad through my iPad A2 but no go for Naim kit. Radio Paridise 320 AAC sounds better than Spotify. However, we all hear different but I'm with Simon on this one big time.

... looks like most critique relate to showbiz around Tidal but not the SQ or music on offer?

do I sense some envy here? 

Mackb3 is right, we do all hear things differently. The thing is with lossy codecs, they work on tricking the brain to some extent.. and this will vary from person to person.. and one plays the probability game. that  it will sound right to most people. Therefore it's totally natural to expect people to not hear much between CD or MP3 or MP3 and Ogg Vorbis for example.

Now I would suspect those into hifi audio equipment and enjoying music through such systems might well be more sensitive in this area and probably fall to the side of the 'bell curve', and such differences are more acute or obvious. But for those where this sort of thing doesn't feature than mediocre sound quality and basic performance replay equipment will be fine.. It's just not relevant to how they hear their music.

Simon

Maybe I should give Tidal another shot?

This time I could do a long-term test instead of going back and forth every 30 minutes between Spotify and Tidal.

Long term (like a week or so) is how I started hearing big (to me) differences in different dacs.  So maybe that principle applies here as well?

Critique of the launch relates to the showbiz thing, choice of service for me though, is down to what is on offer, and how well it's served up SQ wise.  Yes, I like the Qobuz attitude and brand much more than Tidal, but I would use Tidal if it was the better service, but for me it isn't.

I would give it another chance, arguments about showbiz cringey stuff and other lossless rivals aside, it should still better Spotify based on my experiences.  I would definitely drop the continuous 30 second switch overs, just get used to it playing tracks over a week maybe, then switch back to Spotify and see what you think.  What do you use to access Tidal within your system?

TIDAL sounds great, and has replaced my CD collection. I started using it before Jay-Z (who I can't stand as an artist or as a person) bought it, so I hope he doesn't somehow ruin it. If he does, I hope someone else will offer a lossless streaming service. The bang for the buck is phenomenal, even at $20/month in the U.S.

Yeah, hah, yeah Roc-A-Fella
We invite you to, somethin epic y'all know?
Where we hustle out of a sense of hopelessness
Sort of a desperation
Through that desperation, we 'come addicted
Sorta like the fiends we accustomed to servin
But we feel we have nothin to lose
So we offer you, well, we offer our lives,
What do you bring to the table?

..

Lock my body can't trap my mind, easily
Explain why we adapt to crime
I'd rather die enormous than live dormant that's how we on it
Live at the main event,

...

True this, the streets school us to spend our money foolish
Bond with jewelers and, watch for intruders
I stepped it up another level, meditated like a buddhist
Recruited lieutenants with ludicrous, dreams of
Gettin cream let's do this, it gets te-di-ous
So I keep one eye open like, C-B-S, ya see me
Stressed right? Can I live?
Can I live?
Can I live?
Can I live?
Ha-hah, Roc-A-Fella y'all

- Jay-Z, "Can I Live"

Sorry but was the above in 320kbps mp3, Ogg Vorbis, or lossless?  My tin ears cannot discern.

I could easily hear the difference between Spotify and Tidal. Latter one does have superior sound quality. So there we do have a winner in Tidal. But still I didn't continue the subscription after the one month trial. Usability isn't even close to Spotify (yet?), you can't get bit perfect output in Windows (no ASIO or WASAPI support, yet?) and I had occasional dropouts while playing lossless material. I hope they keep developing the service and I will give it another try in future. 20 EUR / month is nothing if you have this massive amount of lossless material in your fingertips at home and mobile. 

Err...say wat?  I have hifi stereo, many musicals it sounds, is good for beat and can have tap footing value.  You make music too?  Lyrics yours makes the musics the best sound.  Please to bring more of good audio, for best in lossless avec Beyonce and not available to not music liking types.

Tidal upset the senses of the internet mob by saying you should pay more for your music. Their into came across over the news as 'pay the artists more' and get better audio quality. Usually the news outfit added some computer geek stating he could not hear any difference whatsoever between anything.

Deezer hides their lossless offering which is probably a better strategy.

Offering additional audio formats for minorities (like audiophiles) is not that expensive. Disk space and bandwidth mostly. If you make it openly available as a service in apps you will bring added support costs (people not having enough bandwidth complaining) and bad reviews (reviewers not hearing any difference).

I used Beats even before Apple bought it - the curators makes it so great for discovering new music. Rather than just being dropped in an ocean of 30 million songs. I then often buy the CD and rip. If the upcoming Apple update adds 44/16 lossless it will save me that last step.

Well, I've tried Tidal for 3 weeks as I do like the idea of a high quality music streaming service.

However, I've just unsubscribed for 2 reasons:

1. The sound quality was only mid way between "MP3 standard" and my own ripped CDs, so not as good as I would have liked.
2. The "in yer face", bling, over-confident style of self promotion in all of Tidal's spam emails and the website doesn't sit comfortably.  It's irritating.

So at least I've given it a try and learned a few things.  A Tidal type app seems to be pointing towards the way ahead and I do like the idea of a streaming app that is owned by the artists but Tidal's not the one for me.

Best regards, FT

FT, your comment about the SQ interests me.  I tried Tidal shortly after they introduced lossless. and had been using Qobuz lossless for many months by then.  I found the sound quality, not terrible, but as you say, more a half way house perhaps between a ripped CD and 320k streaming.  I had put this down to the Windows desktop player not offering bit-perfect output, because I don't find the same to be true with Qobuz, in fact I can tell no difference between rips and Qobuz lossless.  

Have you been able to try Qobuz, and if so, did you find the same to be true? 

Compared Tidal to Qobuz and ripped CDs sound quality was identical, as you would expect as they are all 16/44 , you have ticked the lossless option in 'settings'?

H

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the best sound quality with Tidal was through using their website through Chrome.  I set up that way over a toslink from my PC, and really have no complaints. 

For me, it is definitely better than MP3-320k played in Media Monkey or iTunes over the same cable.  It isn't as good as CD rips via my Unitiserve, but it's a good deal closer to that than 320k.  Its up there with my CD5, before I replaced it with the DAC.

When the reclocker I ordered finally arrives I'm really hoping that that will close the gap right up.

As an aside - being a Tidal subscriber has gone from being what I liked to imagine as being quietly cool and ahead of the game to downright embarrassing!   I do hope the new owners calm down and let Tidal get on with running the business for the benefit of the customers and don't turn it into a platform for their egos.

What I still really like about the Tidal service is that I can randomly explore more or less whatever music catches my interest with more or less CD quality.  I can put up with a lot for that.

Hi SongStream

I tried the more expensive Tidal subscription (Hifi, I think) and ran it using google chrome on the mac mini.

The mac mini has has the Bitperfect app on it for when I play ripped CDs via itunes into the DAC-V1, NAP140 & PMC DB1i speakers.

Ripped CDs sound staggeringly good to everyone who has heard this little office system.

Tidal sounded okayish by comparison but nothing to write home about.  The real musical magic that the ripped CDs have is certainly not present with the posh version of Tidal.

We are on the Virgin Media huger than huge, faster than greased lightning broadband - nominally (and never in reality) 150MB, so it's not exactly a slow internet connection.

As yet, I haven't tried Qobuz.

Hope this helps or clarifies.

Best regards, FT

The fact that a few people you know struggle to hear differences doesn't mean that for all of humanity, including all of the Naim equipment owners, Spotify is more than enough. That kind of generalisations are silly.

personally, I do hear night and day differences between Spotify and my own ripped cd's, I even hear a lot of differences between 24bit FLAC or ALAC being played back and so does a pair of ears in my household that is not trained as a musician as I am.

Some people hear the difference, other people don't. For those people who do, it would be very nice if a service would offer the listening experience they seek for. It is up to providers, like Tidal, to offer those.

Personally, I would be sad if they fail. The cd was a compromise to begin with. With the Internet and the continuous development in electronics and speakers, it would be great if we could leverage that infrastructure to bring music to people in a low cost way, sounding with the love and the vibe with which it was recorded.

I also think saying Spotify for Naim users on most occasions is everything they'll need is false, patronising as well as ridiculous.. to me such a comment looks so out of touch.

Simon

Utter tripe in my view.  Spotify is fine for testing new music but I can't lsten to it as a main source of music because it sounds much worse than local rips.  If you can't hear the difference between Spotify or 320 and full fat rips perhaps Naim or equivalent is a bit of a waste?

Alonso had it right on the last page.  Statistically valid blind testing is the only way to determine whether or not one source is better than another. Without that, it's you say "tomato and I say tomayto" and we call the whole thing off

If you think Tidal offers you value for £20pm then buy it; I don't so won't. That's consumer choice

There have been numerous and numerous valid blind tests. And every test points to the same conclusion: it depends on the person listening. There is no such thing as better or worse, but at certain levels of compression or equalisation the statistical majority reports to hear no difference, which means whomever is interested to offer the music or equipment can get away with it without financial loss. That doesn't mean that individual people will or won't hear a difference, and that doesn't mean there is no money to be made from that portion of the population that sits on the wrong side of the statistical insignificant difference.

There is even a whole industry around that population we tend to call "audiophiles".

I got extremely annoyed when I received an email from Tidal telling me that they were going to stream a boxing match live. I signed up for the Music, if i want to watch a boxing match I will find another means.

This sort of marketing is a sign that Tidal is clutching at straws and is willing to stream anything to get the numbers up. I am going to stick to spotify for the time being.