Tidal introduces new service to TEST music streaming quality

[TAV]

This is interesting:

 

TIDAL · High Fidelity Test

 

I'm a TIDAL subscriber and have been satisfied with the quality of most recordings. I'm using the Mac desktop app on a dedicated Mac Mini music server piped through the AYRE QB9 DSD DAC.

 

Much prefer TIDAL to Deezer Elite as I've found many Deezer sound files are still in MP3. Unfortunately the Deezer catalog is much more extensive than Tidal's at the moment. Hope that changes soon or it will be hard to justify $20/month.

[esldude]

Thanks for posting this. Have been considering TIDAL and this would be a good way to decide, and get the 14 day free trial.

[bobbmd]

i just tried that TEST and couldn't tell the difference b/t A&B recordings and got them ALL wrong the first time only 1/5 second time-both recordings sounded the same (and poor)! yet when i went to my TIDAL app and played some of songs i selected they sounded PRISTINE

am listening with amarra sQ and usb to gungnir DAC and magni headphone amp to seinnheiser 598's- am listening to grateful dead-the complete road trips and just swtiched to hotel california and compared to the TEST its 100x+(or more) BETTER! what the... is TIDAL pulling my(our) chain(s)??? bobbmd

[frederick184]

I just took the test too. Got one out of five right the first time, with the only one right being the Eagles track, and strangely enough that was the only one I had a real hard time discerning which was which! I found the same as the previous poster that the same tracks on my Tidal app sounded way better.

 

Colin

[Jimmypowder]

Gotta em all

[bobbmd]

i did the same thing this time with amarra sQ to my gungnir to my avr in 2 channel pure direct using just my 'own' ears only got 2/5 correct this time dixie chicks and hotel california and they sounded way better on the TIDAL app AND my ripped cd's on itunes in aiff EVEN better ie the dead complete road trips and hotel california- so without any esoteric equipment to test for 16bit/44.1 lossless the ripped still are better but the conveinance of TIDAL out weighs the slight difference and if you 'play' with sQ parametrics it gets closer to ripped cd's/haven't done same comparison with Qobuz/my playlists i transferred from MOG to BM sound 'better' than bm's music,go figure bobbmd

[TAV]

i did the same thing this time with amarra sQ to my gungnir to my avr in 2 channel pure direct using just my 'own' ears only got 2/5 correct this time dixie chicks and hotel california and they sounded way better on the TIDAL app AND my ripped cd's on itunes in aiff EVEN better ie the dead complete road trips and hotel california- so without any esoteric equipment to test for 16bit/44.1 lossless the ripped still are better but the conveinance of TIDAL out weighs the slight difference and if you 'play' with sQ parametrics it gets closer to ripped cd's/haven't done same comparison with Qobuz/my playlists i transferred from MOG to BM sound 'better' than bm's music,go figure bobbmd

 

One of the difficulties in comparisons like this is the huge number of variables involved, I'm not sure of the usefulness of this test but commend TIDAL for developing it and making it widely available.

 

For what it's worth I correctly identified 2/5 and i agree with others that almost all sounded very poor with TIDAL direct tracks being much more "musical" : 0