NAS vs TIDAL

I find the sound quality of Tidal to be inferior to a  ripped CD stored on a NAS, and the Tidal catalogue is limited in some areas, and often badly organised. I much prefer the functionality of a NAS/streamer over CD, and the uncluttered listening room. I buy music downloads as well as CDs, including Hi-Res downloads that can sometimes sound better than CD, ripped or not., and these require NAS storage. 

So if any of the above issues resonate with you, a NAS could be worthwhile. 

100% agree with Chris.  In SQ terms, starting with Tidal a CD played on a CDP is easily better & arguably a CD ripped to NAS might be half a notch better,  a 24bit HD download is so much better & the higher sample rates are as good as it gets - & DSD can be even better.   So a NAS is where quality replay begins.

with a good network, optimized, nas vs tidal for 16/44 is very near... as for my system and my ears. but nas with high rez is better.

Mike-B posted:

100% agree with Chris.  In SQ terms, starting with Tidal a CD played on a CDP is easily better & arguably a CD ripped to NAS might be half a notch better,  a 24bit HD download is so much better & the higher sample rates are as good as it gets - & DSD can be even better.   So a NAS is where quality replay begins.

also agree with Chris and Mike B - NAS is the way to go

my NAS cost under £500 so the investment vs musical return is pretty good, ripping CD's took a little time but working on "RIP ONCE RIP RIGHT"

i would go NAS

I tried Tidal for a couple of the free three month trials, and really wanted to like it. But the sound was vastly inferior to playing the same album ripped from a CD. And I do mean vastly. Yet others seem to find Tidal virtually as good, so maybe it's a network thing, though I do have a very good network in place. 

Setting SQ aside, whether Tidal can satisfy your musical needs depends on what you like. I listen to a lot of jazz and classical and found Tidal to be pretty hopeless. 

Tidal seems ok for trying before buying, but Spotify can do that too, at half the price. And if you just want someone to choose the music for you, there are thousands of internet radio stations, which often sound better than Tidal and are completely free. 

A very interesting perspective, I will bring down my trusty BlueRay player (Denon BD3800) that is a remarkably good transport (I tried hard to replace it when listening to music in the room that I used for CD replay as it has noisy fans, took me a while to realise  that spinning discs isn't straight forward either). I actually use a modified DAC Magic with the BR player and liked it very much driving 32.5/Supercap/4 naim 135's and Sonus Faber Extrema's. Every time I looked to replace the weak link in this set up, Transport, DAC, pre, I realised they were not so weak !

Hi, about 12 months I spent quite a lot of time of looking into this and took some measurements with my test equipment. The things I noted were in certain circumstances the Tidal stream was indistinguishable from a local FLAC stream... but not on my Naim streamer. My Naim streamer sounded always inferior to locally sourced FLAC file.. I tried to find out why.

Looking at the network I could see at a Protocol level Tidal streaming and local streaming used the same methods of TCP bulk data transfer ... however the behaviours of the TCP flow control mechanism were very different... because of the increased latency of Tidal compared to local streaming I could see typically the TCP  activity for a second of sound was a lot more involved  with Tidal, the Naim TCP Protocol machine was having to do a lot of processing.

I then tried to emulate to my best extent a local server to force a the Naim streamer to behave more like Tidal.. I couldn't get it exactly the same, but as I used a server with a slower response and streamed FLAC I could get a deteriation to the quality of the local stream and so started to sound more like Tidal, and underneath the covers the TCP transfer of the local stream looked more like Tidal

I then went the other way and used a server with the quickest TCP data flow response I could find.. impressive I found the SQ improved and the TCP behaviour of the streamer becomes quite different... it uses semaphoring system of zero window sizing to signify buffer is full rather than the more ebb and flow of regular TCP transfer. Now I did also see this behaviour occasionally on Tidal and perhaps reflect the varying SQ I can hear from time to time on Tidal... in essence it depends how busy the internet route is and the cloud servers that Tidal uses.

But even with the occasionally similar TCP behaviours between local and Tidal streamers, I found  another variable that prompted differences in SQ; that was layer 2 frame spacing or timing consistency. With frames derived from the internet the spacing (inter timing between frames) is all over the place, however on certain servers I could locally stream a very consistently spaced set of frames and that produced on my NDX the far better sounding audio and seemed to have more impact over WAV or FLAC, although this was firmware dependent.

I posted these results to Naim and in subsequent discussion I understand the architectures of the new Uniti products are quite different in this regard and is expected to minimise / eliminate these network dynamic performance variables to SQ... I look forward to hearing whether indeed this has been accomplished.. from what I understand on paper it should.

But in short on the current Naim streamers there are several  reasons why Tidal sounds different to locallly streamed FLAC files ...

Nice work Simon 

Very helpful, I think !  

Interesting analysis Simon - thank you for the effort!

As I use Tidal to listen to music I don't own, I only rarely compare its sound quality to my CD rips. When I have, the differences seemed very small, and besides, I could never be 100% sure that I was listening to the exact same version of an album. Overall, I am very pleased with the service.

In any case, I think the main question for Tidal subscribers is whether or not CD or download purchases can still be be justified (based on sound quality, service interruptions, or whatever). I still buy ECM CDs because they are not available for streaming, but my purchase of popular digital music has dropped off considerably. Am still keeping a list of "must haves", should I ever stop subscribing.

ATB.

Hook

If you want good sound quality you'll be wanting CDs ripped to a NAS. But there is no need to stop there. There is some magnificent 24Bit stuff out there. 

I listen to Tidal for the purposes of sampling/discovery of music new to me or to listen to albums I like, but not enough to buy. Over the time I have been using Tidal I belive SQ has improved but I have also improved my system and network so am not sure what has contributed to the SQ enhancement. Anyway Tidal (HiFi version) is very listenable.

But I do agree locally streamed music (from a NAS or dedicated server) SQ is better, particularly hi res downloads. Having said this I would not be without Tidal. I have discovered so much wonderful music via Tidal and the ability to listen before buying has had three benefits: Saving money on those 'what was I thinking' CD purchases; and (therefore) a great improvement in the quality of the collection of music I have purchased; another decent source of a huge amount of music. So for me Tidal and locally streamed music complement each other beautifully and I wouldn't be without either.

A bit more progress. I set up my trustee battleship BR player as a transport and connected via spdf. I didn't have an optical cable to hand but had preferred spdf before with this transport so hopefully it was a fair comparison 

anyhow.... The results were quite clear and repeatable with different albums

TIDAL was better in the following areas

slightly more insight into the recording in a musical interesting way and not an unecessary analytical way, greater low frequency resolution and texture, alittle more poise, projection and timing 

The CD was better in the following areas

a little smoother and perhaps more natural in some tonal areas, better bass control (but less bass). A slightly more analogue feel

I definitely preferred TIDAL in this set up, it was louder too which I know can confide in A-B so I compensated and still felt streamed music had a bit more dynamics even when quieter than the CD

i suspect the results mighT be different on an alternative set up?

I have a 272 and a Sony Blu-Ray which connects via S/PDif to the 272.  Comparing the two, with the disk in the BR and the 272 playing the ripped file off the NAS, the 272 is considerably better.  it's so much better it's no contest,  Even before when I used a ND5 XS in the same way playing from the NAS was still very much better.

One  of my more pointless exercises recently, apart from being very naughty in the Padded Cell, has been trying to extract a better sound from Neil Young's Harvest, which I do like and was the first album I bought after getting married. I have listened to the remastered versions and the latest MQA offering on Tidal.

For a man who professes to be infatuated with music recording and production, Harvest is, in my opinion, a pretty poor offering. After the Goldrush isn't any better. When you consider how earlier Led Zeppelin or even Jimi Hendrix recordings have polished up, Young's seem to be a bad joke. 

Not quiet on topic, but not so far off either. Posted this elsewhere (edited):

I think there are many variations to get the best from streaming or from Nas. Over the past couple of years, with thanks to the forum (especially Simon in Suffolk) I have now achieved incredible nas playback, I think I have gone as far as currently possible to get the maximum, and the big "secret" is the switch at the component end. I have Paul pang ocxo with hi cap equivalent power supply, powering the clock and switch. The results for streaming ( via qobuz) and nas are superb with nas generally sounding slightly better, although it is great to compare versions of albums and buy the version that sounds best.

I do have one question for Simon in Suffolk please, would streaming benefit for a lps on the router?

Thanks 

Rich

Where do you get the Paul Pang gear in the UK. [@mention:1566878603916814]? 

Rich - I really don't thinks so - unless the router power supply is somehow so electrically noisy its unduly adding noise to your mains and radiating unduly via connected wires which I think is really unlikely - HOWEVER if it were this bad - then I would expect its broadband performance (assuming its ADSL or VDSL) would be compromised as the modem elements which  need relatively low noise power supplies if to work their best... ADSL and VDSL use radio frequencies in their modulation and demodulation of the copper wires - and undue noise here would reduce the SNR and therefore compromise performance... perhaps quite significantly so on a long line.

So a test would be  - if a linear power supply on your broadband router boosts the ADSL/VDSL synchronisation speed or makes it more stable between the hours of daylight and darkness then it will be doing some good.

Hi finkfan.

I think the only way is direct from Paul pang, through PayPal. I have bought a dozen things without any issues.

Also his 60cm Ethernet cable is the best I have tried, including very high end stuff from chord etc. Its £130.

Cheers

Rich

Hi Rich 

thanks for the info mate 

Also, I remebered, that if you are going to buy the switch go for the zyxel as the d-link is not as good although he thinks its better, also his power supplies can be improved on with a high end UK version about £500 or so. The standard txco switch with a top power supply is better than the ocxo switch with his power supply. But both are a big upgrade.

I considsor a certain bespoke, yorkshire power supply to be the best available but think I cannot mention them here.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Rich - I really don't thinks so - unless the router power supply is somehow so electrically noisy its unduly adding noise to your mains and radiating unduly via connected wires which I think is really unlikely - HOWEVER if it were this bad - then I would expect its broadband performance (assuming its ADSL or VDSL) would be compromised as the modem elements which  need relatively low noise power supplies if to work their best... ADSL and VDSL use radio frequencies in their modulation and demodulation of the copper wires - and undue noise here would reduce the SNR and therefore compromise performance... perhaps quite significantly so on a long line.

So a test would be  - if a linear power supply on your broadband router boosts the ADSL/VDSL synchronisation speed or makes it more stable between the hours of daylight and darkness then it will be doing some good.

 

Thanks Simon. That was quick!!

Cheers

I agree with Simon,  I had a new BT wireless hub a few weeks ago & after trying it with the supplied SMPS for a while,  I swapped it with an iFi iPower I have spare (iFi claim they are much quieter than 'an audiophile LPS'  (1uV -vs- 20uV) & I really cannot detect any change in SQ when web or local streaming or iRadio.     However my phone, wireless hub, Cisco switch & Synology NAS SMPS's are all powered via my UPS with its integral isolation & C&D mode transformers,  plus all the SMPS's DC tails are loaded with ferrite & I suspect all this might be helping suppress some of the noise.

Mike-B posted:

I agree with Simon,  I had a new BT wireless hub a few weeks ago & after trying it with the supplied SMPS for a while,  I swapped it with an iFi iPower I have spare (iFi claim they are much quieter than 'an audiophile LPS'  (1uV -vs- 20uV) & I really cannot detect any change in SQ when web or local streaming or iRadio.     However my phone, wireless hub, Cisco switch & Synology NAS SMPS's are all powered via my UPS with its integral isolation & C&D mode transformers,  plus all the SMPS's DC tails are loaded with ferrite & I suspect all this might be helping suppress some of the noise.

Mike, did you by any chance have the spare iFi iPower from your old  (Netgear?) switch, which I assume has become redundant from the move to a Cisco switch? And if so is this iFi iPower the correct rating for your BT Home Hub (6?).

I only ask because I have a spare iFi iPower for this reason and I was thinking of putting on my BT HH5. I realise you have not detected any improvement in SQ from the iPower on the BT Home Hub, but I thought I might give it a go. Also I do have some ferrite chokes installed but do not have the benefit of a UPS to suppress noise so the iPower on my HH5 might be of more benefit to me.

Reading Simon's views, it doesn't look hopeful for any kind of improvement though.