Tidal sucks

[Cebolla]

On 3/3/2018 at 4:02 PM, wklie said:

 

The old API still works, so I redid the test using the same API, the same type of Tidal HiFi US account, the same Lumin product, and seemingly (*) the same album: 9 months ago I got MP3, now I get AAC.

 

(*) - I cannot be sure it is exactly the same album.  If a different encoding of the same album with the same cover art and tracks replaced the one I tested 9 months ago, I would not know.

 

So it looks like whether MP3 or AAC is provided, is determined by the TIDAL server doing something (or not) depending on the specific connecting client device, rather than it having anything to do with the API version being used by the client device.

 

In all cases that I've tried so far with the ickStream/LMS platform (for Squeezebox type streamers), the TIDAL server always provides MP3 streams instead of the AAC streams reported for all the other devices, including that album you mentioned testing 9 months ago. I too cannot find more than one current version of the same album on TIDAL.

[Cebolla]

On 3/3/2018 at 5:25 PM, jcn3 said:

 

@Cebolla, I tested the above. Using Roon Rock going to NUC with Win10 running Roon Bridge.

 

* all of the files listed as 320kbps played as AAC 16/44.1k

* all of the files listed as 96kbps played as AAC 16/22k

 

I think my math was off originally.

 

 

Ok, so it looks like Roon too streams AAC now instead of MP3 metioned 9 months ago.

[Cebolla]

On 3/5/2018 at 4:37 AM, rodrigaj said:

@wklie Thank you for clarifying. Having multiple versions of the same album is part of the frustration of dealing with Tidal, especially as the only way to tell which version you are dealing with is by playing it. At least with Masters, the little symbol is visible in the library.

If you look at the info povided by TIDAL, you do get the indication that the Robert Silverman | Starry, Starry Night albums don't all have the same release date, plus their individual track times & total running times are different:

https://listen.tidal.com/album/8936899 (96kbps 44.1kHz AAC+) - Released 2006-02-14, Length 2:10:53

https://listen.tidal.com/album/12686392 (16/44.1kHz FLAC) - Released 2006-02-14, Length 2:09:12

https://listen.tidal.com/album/61738233 (16/44.1kHz FLAC) - Released 2005-11-22, Length 2:10:11

I don't think it's a coincidence that the first album version being provided as lossy AAC audio track streams is only available also as a lossy (but for some reason, MP3) download for purchase in the TIDAL store and that the other two streaming versions are available for purchase as lossless FLAC downloads:
https://tidal.com/store/album/8936899
https://tidal.com/store/album/12686392
https://tidal.com/store/album/61738233

 

Agree, that it's a bit of a chore to check though - TIDAL certainly doesn't make it simple!

 

 

 

On 3/5/2018 at 4:37 AM, rodrigaj said:

Thank you also for clarifying the display on Lumin App. Interesting that my renderer (Bridge II) reports Apple Lossless / 16b /96Kbps to Lumin App and the DSD display reports UNK / PCM 44.1K / 24 b. Presumably both should be getting the same information. 

 

Perhaps the PSA Bridge II renderer doesn't support the (lossy) 96kbps AAC, or more precisely the 96kbps HE-AAC (v1) (aka AAC+, aka AACPlus), streamed version of the album. Hence, the UNK (for 'unknown', presumably) in the PSA Bridge II/DSDAC's display and is making a confused incorrect guess at it being Apple Lossless (ALAC), fed back to the Lumin app

 

ALAC & AAC encoded audio data, though totally different, are typically accommodated in the same type of container file, usually with the .m4a suffix.

[Cebolla]

On 3/5/2018 at 9:25 AM, wklie said:

 

For the 22kHz vs 44.1kHz sample rate of Tidal 96kbps AAC stream issue, does Audirvana support HE-AAC SBR?  @damien78

 

7 hours ago, wklie said:

On 3/5/2018 at 10:02 AM, Fridolin said:

I tested a typical AAC, 96 kbps, 16/22.0 khz example (Ottmar Liebert|La Semana|#3|Caballada) with the MusicScope app, that i normally use for testing HiRes files.

Please check Tidal desktop app instead of Audirvana.  Set Quality to Master.  Use Exclusive Mode if possible.

 

HE-AAC v1 has two sampling frequencies, one is for the HE-AAC SBR profile, the other is for the AAC-LC core profile and is typically at half the frequency of the HE-AAC SBR profile. This allows HE-AAC to be backwards compatible with decoders that only support AAC-LC and would explain why Audirvana may be decoding 96kbps 44.1kHz HE-AAC v1 at 22.0(5) kHz.

[Fridolin]

I'm not versed in the different formats that are described here.

For me it is a real mess.

 

Tried to get order to my playlist chaos and sorted out all the AAC 96kbps 22.0 kHz albums with the help of Audirvana. I put them in separate playlists in order to investigate further.

 

The small rest of albums that play with AAC 320 kbps 44.1 kHz in Audirvana stay in another playlist.

 

But to complete the confusion, my Auralic Aries Mini doesn't play them all in AAC 320 kbps 44.1 kHz. A bunch of them are displayed as AAC 96kbps 22.0 kHz again. In Audirvana the same albums all are displayed as AAC 320 kbps 44.1 kHz.

[rodrigaj]

@Cebolla Thank you for your input. I feel that it is important as consumers of these products and services that we understand their behavior. The time you take to explain these formats and the detail you provide are very much appreciated.

 

 

[Cebolla]

6 hours ago, Fridolin said:

I'm not versed in the different formats that are described here.

For me it is a real mess.

 

Sorry, I'll try to simplify the description of the TIDAL AAC stream formats wrt Audirvana:

• AAC+ 96kbps 44.1kHz - Audirvana appears not to support AAC+. However, Audirvana does support (regular) AAC, so it is able to decode the AAC 96kbps 22.05kHz core part of the AAC+ 96kbps 44.1kHz stream;

• AAC 320kbs 44.1kHz - Audirvana supports this, so decodes it as normal;

Have you tried Musicscope on the TIDAL Desktop app streaming the AAC+ 96kbps 44.1kHz albums, as @wklie suggested in his last post? You should see activity beyond 10-11kHz (22 kHz /2), unlike with Audirvana.

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Fridolin said:

Tried to get order to my playlist chaos and sorted out all the AAC 96kbps 22.0 kHz albums with the help of Audirvana. I put them in separate playlists in order to investigate further.

 

The small rest of albums that play with AAC 320 kbps 44.1 kHz in Audirvana stay in another playlist.

 

But to complete the confusion, my Auralic Aries Mini doesn't play them all in AAC 320 kbps 44.1 kHz. A bunch of them are displayed as AAC 96kbps 22.0 kHz again. In Audirvana the same albums all are displayed as AAC 320 kbps 44.1 kHz.

 

That's very interesting. Until now, the same AAC albums have been reported as having the same bitrates, regardless of the streaming device. Could you mention some, if not the whole list of those albums streaming as AAC 320kbps in Audirvana that are streaming as 96kbps in the Aries Mini?

[Fridolin]

@Cebolla I will do both tomorrow.

[Fridolin]

Here is an example of the different behaviors (44 kHz vs. 22 kHz) of Audirvana and Aries Mini with the same title when playing "LoFi" streams.

 

By the way, the first title of the album plays with 320 kbps, the rest with 96 kbps only. Strange.

 

 

[wklie]

For this album, I found an additional version that is lossless FLAC for all tracks using a Tidal HiFi US account.

[Fridolin]

Here in Germany the FLAC version is missing. The LoFi version is the only one.

 

While cleaning up my playlists i found a number of FLAC albums, too, where there were only LoFi versions before.

It will take a while until i have cleaned up all my many playlists.

And i think, this will be a never ending game.

 

But the transition of the LoFi albums from 320 kbps to 96 kbps has happened only recently.

I don't know what they did to these albums. Never saw these 96 kbps before.

[Fridolin]

19 hours ago, Cebolla said:

Have you tried Musicscope on the TIDAL Desktop app streaming the AAC+ 96kbps 44.1kHz albums, as @wklie suggested in his last post? You should see activity beyond 10-11kHz (22 kHz /2), unlike with Audirvana.

 

You are right.

With the TIDAL desktop app, the frequency response goes up to about 20 kHz.

So Audirvana seems to be the bottleneck here. But that doesn't matter because 96 kbps is not an option anyway.

 

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

Coming late to the thread, but wanted to provide a little background into what some are calling "AAC+".

 

This is actually HE-AAC and will appear to be at a 22kHz sampling rate if not properly decoded.  I saw some HE-AAC content on Tidal when I first signed up, but haven't really been playing other than classical so I rarely see it any more.

 

Don't misunderstand my intent:  HE-AAC is suitable for an internet radio stream in cases where bandwidth for the hosting side is scarce.  But Tidal should purge all their HE-AAC content.  It's downright scandalous.

[Cebolla]

TIDAL should most definitely not be providing the  HE-AAC 96kbps streams if you haven't asked explicitly for them, ie, via the LOW quality connection setting.

 

According to the OP it has only started happening recently, via the HIFI quality connection setting. In all cases the HE-AAC 96kbps streams have been found to have replaced regular AAC (ie, AAC-LC) 320kbps streams. The original AAC 320kbps streams (and their recent HE-AAC 96kbps replacements) are seemingly forced on the HiFi TIDAL account user, because TIDAL don't appear to have a lossless version of the source album tracks in their catalogue.

 

Certainly all of the AAC album track streams (so both HE-AAC 96kbps and AAC-LC 320kbps) that I've investigated thus far have their albums available for purchase in the TIDAL store only as lossy MP3 downloads. Albums that are not restricting the HiFi TIDAL account user to these AAC streams are available for purchase in the TIDAL store as both FLAC & MP3 downloads.

[rodrigaj]

I'm not going to defend Tidal, but can this swap of bitrates be something that is out of Tidal's hands. When a record label gives Tidal access to a file does Tidal own it? Are the record companies responsible for the downgraded bitrates? I can't imagine a reason for Tidal purposely screwing over the HIFI consumer. 

[Fridolin]

But TIDAL is responsible for not telling their customers that they don't have the right to stream all of the files they are offering in HiFi quality. In fact they are cheating  HiFi subscribers with their low quality stream when they can't offer a HiFi stream. Nowhere in their advertisement or their website they tell us the truth. 

 

It is bad enough that you often got the greyed out HiFi symbol before, meaning that the quality is 320 kbps. But now even that low quality isn't guaranteed any more. Quite the contrary is the case. 96 kbps is normal now, when they can't supply FLAC streams. And that is the case very, very often, at least for me. Your milage may vary (or you don't pay attention to this behavior so much). 

[Fridolin]

4 hours ago, Cebolla said:

According to the OP it has only started happening recently, via the HIFI quality connection setting.

 

Not only the HIFI quality connection is concerned.

 

I purposely changed my subscription to "TIDAl Premium" just to see if i could get better quality for these LoFi albums. But the effect only was that i got 320 kbps (for all HiFi FLAC files) and 96 kbps for the rest (as is the case with a HiFi subscription). I then immediately changed back to the HiFi subscription.

[rando]

4 hours ago, rodrigaj said:

I'm not going to defend Tidal, but can this swap of bitrates be something that is out of Tidal's hands. When a record label gives Tidal access to a file does Tidal own it? Are the record companies responsible for the downgraded bitrates? I can't imagine a reason for Tidal purposely screwing over the HIFI consumer. 

 

Mounting bandwidth charges

 

Investor pressure

 

Board decision

 

Music label contract rate hike

Street smart rapper/impressario steps on streaming music like a smart dealer steps on a junkie's drugs.  

 

  

 

[Cebolla]

9 hours ago, Fridolin said:

 

Not only the HIFI quality connection is concerned.

 

I purposely changed my subscription to "TIDAl Premium" just to see if i could get better quality for these LoFi albums. But the effect only was that i got 320 kbps (for all HiFi FLAC files) and 96 kbps for the rest (as is the case with a HiFi subscription). I then immediately changed back to the HiFi subscription.

 

Indeed - I didn't want to mention that it also occurs with TIDAL Premium accounts, just in case it would confuse some as to the underlying problem, ie:

a substancial proportion of the lossy album collection in TIDAL's catalogue have recently been forced by TIDAL's online server to stream in pathetic 96kbps HE-ACC (more usually used by bandwidth challenged internet radio stations), instead of the expected and far greater quality (but of course still lossy) 320kbps AAC-LC.

 

This has been found with both TIDAL HiFi accounts (via the HIGH or HIFI or MASTERS streaming quality connection) and TIDAL Premium accounts (via the HIGH streaming quality connection), regardless of country of origin. Country of origin of the TIDAL account only appears to determine whether the user has access to a particular album in TIDAL's catalogue, be it lossy or lossless in origin.

 

The problem has also been found with all devices/platforms mentioned as tested thus far in this thread, with the exception of the ickstream/LMS platfrom (for Squeezebox type streamers) special case (see below).

 

 

There is also the related issue that a couple of devices/platforms, namely Roon & Lumin, were reported 9 months ago to have been streaming TIDAL's lossy albums in MP3 (either 320kbps or 256kbps) via the HIFI streaming quality connection, as opposed to the AAC format. However, this is no longer the case, with both Roon & Lumin both confirmed in this thread to be streaming TIDAL's lossy albums in AAC and therefore also subject to the 96kbps HE-AAC streaming issue.

 

I have speculated that the original format of the lossy albums in TIDAL's catalogue may well be MP3, given that MP3 is the only format available for purchase of the lossy albums as a download in the TIDAL store. This would imply that even the lossy 320kbps AAC streams would be compromised by having been derived from either 320kbps MP3 or 256kbps MP3.

 

However, I've found one platform that does still stream TIDAL's lossy albums in MP3, the majority with a bitrate of 320kbps & the rest 256kbps - the Logitech Media Center with the ickstream LMS plugin, used by Squeezebox type devices. It is therefore unaffected by the 64kbps HE-AAC problem.

 

 

[rodrigaj]

9 hours ago, Fridolin said:

But TIDAL is responsible for not telling their customers that they don't have the right to stream all of the files they are offering in HiFi quality. In fact they are cheating  HiFi subscribers with their low quality stream when they can't offer a HiFi stream. Nowhere in their advertisement or their website they tell us the truth. 

 

It is bad enough that you often got the greyed out HiFi symbol before, meaning that the quality is 320 kbps. But now even that low quality isn't guaranteed any more. Quite the contrary is the case. 96 kbps is normal now, when they can't supply FLAC streams. And that is the case very, very often, at least for me. Your milage may vary (or you don't pay attention to this behavior so much). 

I'll repeat, I am not going to defend Tidal. I do pay attention to this behavior, in fact I find the deception (thank you @rando ) to be bordering on fraud. And...I hate the SQ of these 96 kbps files.

 

How does Tidal do this? Does Tidal have an army of workers downgrading files? Do they downgrade the files on the fly? Do they request the downgraded files from the record labels? And...how do they choose which files/artist to downgrade? 

 

I can't get it out of my mind that this is a conspiracy instigated by the record companies in order to prevent theft of high resolution files by the Tidal consumer.

[rando]

Though I put this in a vein that placed it in a lower spectrum of society.  That isn't exactly true.  It has every earmark of how retail operates in the US.  Big Box stores that swing for the fences with perks and feelgood antics.  Which vanish as soon as every small business competitor is displaced and they are firmly planted in a few thousand communities.  This appears to be very similar in tactic.  Even if not identical in implementation.

 

None of us can say with any conviction what is actually driving the change in streaming quality though.  I mentioned a few possibilities depicting a large object in motion.  The last one had a bit more zing and wit. 

[Cebolla]

You are assuming that the imposition of the low quality 96kbps HE-AAC streams is a deliberate act by TIDAL. There's also the possibility that there's some sort of bug in the system. It would explain the apparent random nature of the problem, where only some of an artist's lossy albums are affected, or, better still, where only some of the tracks of a lossy album have been affected.

 

Plus, why when an artist does have the same album also available in a lossless format, is that lossless album never affected when its lossy equivalent is affected?

 

Don't forget both the TIDAL provided software and some third party applications provide the following options (where appropriate) to allow the user to manually configure the quality of the stream provided by TIDAL's online server:

Masters - streams up to 24/48kHz FLAC or ALAC
Hi-Fi - streams up to 16/44.1kHz FLAC or ALAC
High - streams up to 320kbps AAC-LC
Standard - streams only 96kbps HE-AAC

 

So any Album track, be it originally lossless or lossy, can already be set to stream in TIDAL's so called Standard quality, ie, 96kbps HE-AAC - no need for TIDAL to employ an army of workers to downgrade the files!

[Cebolla]

On 3/7/2018 at 7:14 AM, Fridolin said:

Here is an example of the different behaviors (44 kHz vs. 22 kHz) of Audirvana and Aries Mini with the same title when playing "LoFi" streams.

 

By the way, the first title of the album plays with 320 kbps, the rest with 96 kbps only. Strange.

 

 

 

I have not been able to stream anything other 320 kbps AAC for the first track and 96kbps HE-AAC for the rest of the tracks, for all devices that I've tried with this album - so similar to Audirvana.

Well, all devices apart from the ickstream/LMS platform, of course - which streams all of the album's tracks as 320kbps MP3!

 

However, I did notice an odd thing when the UPnP streaming devices were used with the BubbleUPnP Android app. The device's own display indicated receiving as mentioned above, but the BubbleUPnP Android app indicated 96kbps AAC for all tracks, including the first. Stranger still, the BubbleUPnP app's display momentarily displayed 320kbps AAC for the first track when it started playing it, but then very quickly changed to display 96kbps AAC as the track carried on playing.

 

Could the Aries Mini and its Lightning DS controller app be doing the same thing - so for the first track, theAries Mini is streaming 320 kbps AAC, but its controller app is incorrectly displaying 96kbps AAC?

 

Also, do you have any other examples of albums where the Aries Mini's controller app displays 96kbps AAC instead of the 320kbps AAC displayed by Audirvana?

[Cebolla]

On 3/7/2018 at 11:10 AM, wklie said:

For this album, I found an additional version that is lossless FLAC for all tracks using a Tidal HiFi US account.

 

On 3/7/2018 at 11:34 AM, Fridolin said:

Here in Germany the FLAC version is missing. The LoFi version is the only one.

 

UK account only has the lossy version too.

 

@wklie, did you try the lossy version (https://listen.tidal.com/album/15563242 , Released 1985-01-01, Length 44:05)  with the Lumin and notice the same difference with the first track?

[Fridolin]

The first title (Call it Democracy) plays with AAC 320 kbps from begin to end on the Aries Mini.

The next title and all the rest of the album are in 96 kbps however.