Are you still using Tidal?

Hi all, I'm a new member to the "Naim" club, just bought a ND5 XS and wow I'm loving it. I have also just started my 3 months trial of Tidal. So far I am very impressed with the sound quality, I'd never stream at lower quality again! I'm also impressed with the discover section and have already found some really good music I'd never discover for myself. My plan is to reduce my monthly subscriptions to other things so I can not worry about the 20 pound for Tidal. I'll let you know in 89 days time if I actually do start paying for it, but it seems likely right now :-)

Mr2Harvey posted:

Hi all, I'm a new member to the "Naim" club, just bought a ND5 XS and wow I'm loving it. I have also just started my 3 months trial of Tidal. So far I am very impressed with the sound quality, I'd never stream at lower quality again! I'm also impressed with the discover section and have already found some really good music I'd never discover for myself. My plan is to reduce my monthly subscriptions to other things so I can not worry about the 20 pound for Tidal. I'll let you know in 89 days time if I actually do start paying for it, but it seems likely right now :-)

Congrats and glad you are enjoying the ND5 XS. Welcome to the wonderful, and occasionally crazy, world of Naim ownership. 

Give it another 4 months and it'll go bust into oblivion along with your interested monthly payments.

....if not, I'll proudly eat my big black hat..

Lol well you might have to because it's really good :-)

I stream from tidal 99% !

I haven't yet bothered to rip all of my cd collection. 

IT is Great to explore new music and store favourites.  I agree that ripped cds sounds slightly better but the difference is not that substantial. 

I kept on with Tidal Hi Fi for as long as I could but in the end I found I wasn't using it enough through my Naim kit to justify the £19.99 per month, so I've just unsubscribed.

I use the streaming services in the main to listen to music to see if I want to buy it, and I do this a lot by listening offline (downloading to my device and listening in the car). I can do this with the Premium level with Tidal for £9.99 per month.

However as it is a miss not being able to listen through my hi-fi, I've switched Spotify Premium back on, as this allows me to do that as well as listen offline and all the other things it offers.

Yes, the SQ is not up to the same level as Tidal Hi fi, and some albums sound very flat and/ or bright. But on other recordings it really doesn't sound too bad.

But at £9.99 per month I am more comfortable with the cost and feel I can justify and afford it. I also have enough of my own music that I want to listen to.

I guess that's the beauty of competition, we have options. I can always switch Tidal Premium back on again if there is a special offer or if I can justify and afford it.

ChrisH posted:

However as it is a miss not being able to listen through my hi-fi, I've switched Spotify Premium back on, as this allows me to do that as well as listen offline and all the other things it offers.

I realise reading the other Tidal thread that I could have got the lower quality Tidal stream to play through the system, but I prefer the Spotify playlists and recommendations to the Tidal ones, and also I figure I stand a better chance of getting a special deal to entice me back to Tidal Hi-Fi if I'm not currently subscribed. Time will tell if this proves to be true!

Something that baffles me a bit is that this thread is full of people who have spent many thousands of pounds on Naim equipment, and apparently would happily spend a tenner a month on an inferior quality streaming service, but baulk at twenty quid for one that's decent quality. Like all other UK users, it irritates me that we have to pay more than those everywhere else, but even so the monthly sub is peanuts compared with our investment in the gear - surely?

On a less positive note re Tidal, I've now been told by their customer service people that they are not now going to make CD booklets available - a contradiction compared with previous advice. This is a real bummer for classical listeners in particular, and strengthens Qobuz's position as the best solution for us. If only, Naim, if only....

Well I've had a weekend with tidal and I'm blown away with it. Worth every penny, it's what I have been waiting for. I like all sorts of music and the fact that with the name app you can mix your own music with it in the queue is awesome. For me the sound quality is paramount, no other streaming service is worth listening to if it just serves I. Mp3 or other lossy formats. I agree why spend your money on really good hi-fi and feed it rubbish. I'm on the Tidal boat and loving it. 

Goon525 posted:

Something that baffles me a bit is that this thread is full of people who have spent many thousands of pounds on Naim equipment, and apparently would happily spend a tenner a month on an inferior quality streaming service, but baulk at twenty quid for one that's decent quality. Like all other UK users, it irritates me that we have to pay more than those everywhere else, but even so the monthly sub is peanuts compared with our investment in the gear - surely?

On a less positive note re Tidal, I've now been told by their customer service people that they are not now going to make CD booklets available - a contradiction compared with previous advice. This is a real bummer for classical listeners in particular, and strengthens Qobuz's position as the best solution for us. If only, Naim, if only....

Mr2Harvey posted:

Well I've had a weekend with tidal and I'm blown away with it. Worth every penny, it's what I have been waiting for. I like all sorts of music and the fact that with the name app you can mix your own music with it in the queue is awesome. For me the sound quality is paramount, no other streaming service is worth listening to if it just serves I. Mp3 or other lossy formats. I agree why spend your money on really good hi-fi and feed it rubbish. I'm on the Tidal boat and loving it. 

I agree with you entirely gents. A whole new, massive library in (almost) CD quality streaming for £20/month!

Let's hope Tidal keep going and Naim release this new firmware to abolish dropouts (I don't suffer these now by the way) and possibly move the SQ on even further.

I think if Tidal's catalog suites you then to ditch it is a bit like cutting your nose off to spite your face.

And if you use the right equipment Tidal is literally the same as CD/home streamer quality.. the media is the same for the same master... just bear in minds its encoded as FLAC and there is no plug and play consumer solution I am aware of to transcode to WAV for Naim renderers.

Goon525 posted:

Like all other UK users, it irritates me that we have to pay more than those everywhere else, but even so the monthly sub is peanuts compared with our investment in the gear - surely?

I agree to an extent but would add a couple of points.

If my circumstances were unchanged I probably wouldn't bat an eyelid at the monthly Hi Fi sub, but in my case, new job, less disposable income means I have to reassess a little what I'm spending my money on on a monthly basis and where I'm getting value for money. (I saved up enough for an upgrade to my system before I switched jobs so I'd rather spend my money on that - I've got a reasonable enough music collection to keep me entertained for a while!)

And then it depends on what people use the streaming services for and how they use them. In my case it is for discovery in the main, but then if I like what I hear I will buy the CD or download. For discovery I can do this on the lower bit streams offline downloaded to my device or online through my system.

Ive been using it for 5 months or so on the Hi Fi subscription and now I find I'm not really getting my money's worth, so something has to give. 

The perspective of VFM is will vary from person to person.

At this stage I am almost of the opposite thoughts that there is in this scenario, too much choice. As counter intuitive as that may seem to most having so much to choose from limits my chances of ever actually making any choice at all, odd but when in a sweet shop as an analogy and I have everything to choose I dilly and dally and end up making no decision at all.

Like ethernet cables :-)

It's a bit like cable telly - a hundred channels of crap, when three of four decent ones are all that's required. I had Tidal for three months and never really used it. I've got loads of albums and then there is FM and Internet radio.......

I got fed up with Tidal in the first few minutes of use and my cancellation confirmed email arrived before the welcome one. HH is right, enjoy the music you have and the benefits of FM radio.

Well obviously if you've had technical problems you can't really judge what it's capable of. And I can see if you use it only for tasting to determine purchases you might be happy with low quality. But my philosophy is different - a lot of the stuff I buy only ever gets listened to twice, then filed and largely forgotten about. Why not listen via streaming at virtually the same quality? Ownership isn't that important to me. Being able to listen to the majority of new releases as soon as I read Gramophone's review is. Just one example - last night I read in the current issue a 'Gramophone Collection' article comparing many versions of Chopin's Berceuse. As soon as I'd finished reading it, I found and played the 'winner', Murray Perahia, via Tidal. That's worth something to me.

Makes sense, Goon525, I can see why it works for you.

Same here. An artist name comes up in conversation or a website, an album gets a mention somewhere etc. Thirty seconds later I'm listening to it in full quality. Tidal costs me the equivalent of buying two new albums per month. Sure, I'd pay less if I could, but it's still good for me.

Still with TIDAL and as many above find it's selection for 'music finding' excellent. Haven't suffered any drop outs through the NAIM? 

Really like listening to it through the car too, really beats (no pun) the drab radio offerings.

I have dropped on with another free 3 month trail (which is nice) as OPPO have just added TIDAL capability to its Blu ray players..... so the BDP-103 I have in my AV system came in useful  

My usage and experience is much the same as Goon525's.  Tidal has a significant proportion of the classical recordings recommended by BBC Music Magazine, BBC Radio 3's Record Review and Gramophone (including this month's editor's choice - Vilda Fang's recording of the Korngold and Britten concertos).  Plus a lot of historic/historical albums.  I still like buying CDs and downloads, so the absence of the independents like Hyperion doesn't bother me too much.

Disappointing news about CD booklets, but not that much of a surprise.  Of all the things Tidal promised would be coming soon, when I emailed them after the launch (in pre-Jay Z days), I think gapless playback is the only thing that has appeared.

Yes, some very valid and varied attitudes as to the 'worth' of Tidal to us as individuals. I just hope we get the firmware soon and take the dropout issue out of the decision making process. Also an uplift in SQ might also persuade some others who are on a knife edge whether to continue subscribing or not.

You pays yer money and takes yer choice - or not as the case may be.

I was this evening also for the first time faced with dropout issues. Can be quite annoying as I started to switch to another mode of listening to and buying music. I have decided for myself that I will not that quickly push anymore the buy button on Qobuz. And I will use Tidal to have 1 or more good listens to an album before I eventually decide to buy. And I Ben saw that I could have access to difficult to buy music (example Espen Berg). 

But when faced with frequent drop outs - this becomes an issue. So far I have listened a lot in th mobile space to streaming services (mainly Qobuz) and didn't have drop out problems while I am also streaming at cd quality. So I am a bit puzzled why this ours happen with Tidal on Naim.

the integration is seem less and would already give it an advantage and would lead to serious consideration of continuing after the trial period has ended. Let's hope it improves and that Qobuz get's added soon.