Putting Tidal in Perspective

[AudioDoctor]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

I do not have any info on how many car owners have hotrodded their Chevy Spark.  However, a ture car aficionado does not just buy a sports car out of the box....

 

Does this mean you've forgiven me for modifying my GT4?

[Ralf11]

of course!  enjoy whipping about in the snow

[AudioDoctor]

haha it was snowing earlier today, however even with the snow tires on it, I doubt I'll be driving it much.

[Ralf11]

you need to stream this...

 

 

[TubeLover]

13 hours ago, Blake said:

i use Tidal and I enjoy it very much.  I tried Qobuz a while back using the USA work around and I was not impressed with the music catalogue, as the focus was not on the music I like.  However I can see how classical/jazz lovers would prefer it.

 

 

 

 

 

That is EXACTLY my concern despite other people here on CA telling me I am wrong. Too many people have otherwise told me that the Qobuz library is heavily oriented to classical and jazz. Thats not what I listen to either, and why I am terrified at the thought that Tidal could go under. It represents such a huge portion of my listening that it would be crushing to lose it!

 

JC

[TubeLover]

5 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

haha it was snowing earlier today, however even with the snow tires on it, I doubt I'll be driving it much.

Exactly Doc, put that car away somewhere safe and protected for the winter. I thought about you as I was test driving a friends GT4 for the first time today. Sensational car!

 

JC

[AudioDoctor]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

you need to stream this...

 

 

 

 

If they didn't put so much salt and other crap on the roads I would drive it much more, however they do, so if I want the car to last a while I need to keep it away from as much of that stuff as possible.

 

[AudioDoctor]

2 hours ago, TubeLover said:

Exactly Doc, put that car away somewhere safe and protected for the winter. I thought about you as I was test driving a friends GT4 for the first time today. Sensational car!

 

JC

 

It really is! 

 

How about your car, how is it doing?

[TubeLover]

22 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

It really is! 

 

How about your car, how is it doing?

Loving the car. My alternate  vehicle, the BMW m235ix, has been at the body shop for the past two and a half weeks for some hail damage repairs. Given that, I've been driving the R8 daily, or as much as needed. I've developed an even closer relationship with the wonderful R8.

 

JC

[Taz777]

I'm about to sign up to TIDAL HiFi. In terms of using TIDAL HiFi with a computer-based audio system, is the audio quality good enough? I keep reading stories of TIDAL going under (even from 2017!) and how MQA isn't all it's cracked up to be. At the end of the day, if the music sounds at least as good as, or better than, CD-quality, and is recorded well enough, then does any of this really matter?

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Taz777 said:

I'm about to sign up to TIDAL HiFi. In terms of using TIDAL HiFi with a computer-based audio system, is the audio quality good enough? I keep reading stories of TIDAL going under (even from 2017!) and how MQA isn't all it's cracked up to be. At the end of the day, if the music sounds at least as good as, or better than, CD-quality, and is recorded well enough, then does any of this really matter?

I CD quality streaming sounds very good. I don't think you will be disappointed.  And if it goes under - so what? You are paying monthly, so you have got nothing to lose. 

[gomle69]

On 10/14/2018 at 4:27 PM, rodrigaj said:

 

 

Spotify Connect has been a true eye opener for me. As a classical music lover, it has been a revelation to discover that some of my favorite artists will share their own playlists with me.

 

For new music discovery, this feature alone is worth the 10 bucks per months. The ability to send the music to my uR or my Bridge II makes it a no brainer.

 

If I want HiRes, I simply buy it. I don't miss Tidal at all.

 

In the future, I see myself subscribing to Qobuz while assessing its benefits, but always having a Spotify Premium / Connect account.

Same here. I used to subscribe to Tidal Hi-Fi, but at the same time I was buying my favorite music in lossless when available. I decided that I did not need to pay the premium for lossless streaming so I went back to Spotify Premium for music discovery and the superior interface. I will probably try Qobuz if they ever launch their service in Norway.

[mav52]

On 10/13/2018 at 12:44 PM, Brinkman Ship said:

yes, but Qobuz was limited to French citizens, and possibly a few other European countries, until very recently.

And your point is,

 

Qobuz still not in the US. 

[rodrigaj]

25 minutes ago, mav52 said:

And your point is,

 

Qobuz still not in the US. 

FWIW, the OP Brinkman Ship has been banned from CA. This is his third time using three different names. 

 

(Just in case you are expecting a reply)

[mav52]

38 minutes ago, rodrigaj said:

FWIW, the OP Brinkman Ship has been banned from CA. This is his third time using three different names. 

 

(Just in case you are expecting a reply)

Interesting it doesn't show his users name as Banned

[rodrigaj]

12 minutes ago, mav52 said:

Interesting it doesn't show his users name as Banned

I think Chris is giving him a chance of sorts.

 

 

[left channel]

6 hours ago, Taz777 said:

I'm about to sign up to TIDAL HiFi. In terms of using TIDAL HiFi with a computer-based audio system, is the audio quality good enough? I keep reading stories of TIDAL going under (even from 2017!) and how MQA isn't all it's cracked up to be. At the end of the day, if the music sounds at least as good as, or better than, CD-quality, and is recorded well enough, then does any of this really matter?

 

According to a recent study, many people cannot hear the difference between a good 320k MP3 track and the same track in CD quality. In that case Masters won't matter, regardless of all the arguments for or against. Tidal HiFi does sound better to me, and most Hi-Res or MQA Masters sound even better, but not always. Because not everything deserves to be released in those formats.

 

Last night Tidal got stuck in buffering mode while I was using a CD-quality track to test some new headphones here, so I switched to Qobuz and found the same album in a new Hi-Res release. That was nice. But as usual I was happy enough with the Radio Paradise FLAC streams for most of the evening. To me the RP streams sound so much better than most other internet radio. The only low-resolution streaming I can handle is electronica. Because, well, electronica.

 

As for Tidal's future, who knows? All the streaming services seem to be losing money "chasing ears" the way websites used to chase eyeballs during the dot-com boom. But Qobuz seems to have the right idea: charge more for Hi-Res. Because many people cannot hear the difference ...and many more just don't care.

[Taz777]

Thank you @left channel for the feedback on TIDAL. The financial risk is low - just 19.99GBP maximum risk if TIDAL goes under. It's good to know that the audio quality is good.

[rodrigaj]

@Taz777

 

Much of the satisfaction that people derive from Tidal or any streaming service, depends to a large extent on the music that they are most likely to listen to. Also, your listening habits: do you like to listen to complete albums, curate your own playlists, compare artists...etc.

 

My experience with Tidal was that their sound quality was excellent, their connectivity was excellent (Audirvana A+, Lumin App). But... If you are primarily a classical music person you will probably not like Tidal because they truncate track titles on classical albums. It became obvious to me that my musical preferences were not of interest to them. I finally, quit the subscription and began looking elsewhere.

[Sonicularity]

5 hours ago, firedog said:

I CD quality streaming sounds very good. I don't think you will be disappointed.  And if it goes under - so what? You are paying monthly, so you have got nothing to lose. 

 

For those that use streaming services as the bulk of their music library, having to switch to an alternate service can be a major headache.

 

Before Roon allowed for Tidal to be integrated into their player, I could never switch to Tidal from Google as the interface doesn't work for me.  I had no way to shuffle my entire library in Tidal and it was no easy task to convert my Google library to Tidal no matter what online tools or my own data manipulation could muster. 

 

Roon makes Tidal more like Google with regards to the interface and features and allows for the ability to shuffle my entire library and to add my own music to fill in gaps with music that is not available to stream.    While I now have more albums in my Roon library with Tidal than I do in my Google library, I'm still missing about 200 artists in Tidal that I currently have in Google. 

 

It took 2 long weekends to get my Roon/Tidal library set up to be nearly complete, but I'd hate to have to do all of that again anytime soon.  If Qobuz is made available with Roon, I'm hoping my library can be matched with the metadata.  Though, matching my Tidal albums to Qobuz should be easier, as Tidal exports are much better implemented than Google exports.  

[Doak]

26 minutes ago, rodrigaj said:

@Taz777

 

Much of the satisfaction that people derive from Tidal or any streaming service, depends to a large extent on the music that they are most likely to listen to. Also, your listening habits: do you like to listen to complete albums, curate your own playlists, compare artists...etc.

 

My experience with Tidal was that their sound quality was excellent, their connectivity was excellent (Audirvana A+, Lumin App). But... If you are primarily a classical music person you will probably not like Tidal because they truncate track titles on classical albums. It became obvious to me that my musical preferences were not of interest to them. I finally, quit the subscription and began looking elsewhere.

Find anything to your liking elsewhere?

[rodrigaj]

1 minute ago, Doak said:

Find anything to your liking elsewhere?

Yes I did - Idagio. For classical music and only classical music, it can't be beat. I use Spotify Premium / Connect for everything else.

Here is a link to a brief review I just did on Idagio:

 

 

[buonassi]

On 10/16/2018 at 11:39 AM, Sonicularity said:

It took 2 long weekends to get my Roon/Tidal library set up to be nearly complete, but I'd hate to have to do all of that again anytime soon. 

https://soundiiz.com

cross platform playlist manager (import/export - organizer).

 

edit:  whoops, looks like this was already well discussed on CA - a quick search after I posted showed that

[Taz777]

I looked at soundiiz.com and it transfers playlists between audio streaming services only, from what I can gather.

 

My current music library is entirely local under iTunes and I couldn’t find a way to check what is available in TIDAL. Hence, I started to search for random songs that are in my iTunes library, one by one in TIDAL and after several searches TIDAL was sending me to a 404 page (page not found).

 

I haven’t signed up yet and I’m wondering whether TIDAL effectively stops you from searching its music catalogue after a few searches if you’re not a member? Or perhaps this was a bug?

 

I was trying to see how many of my existing songs were available in TIDAL.

 

[rn701]

4 hours ago, Taz777 said:

I looked at soundiiz.com and it transfers playlists between audio streaming services only, from what I can gather.

 

My current music library is entirely local under iTunes and I couldn’t find a way to check what is available in TIDAL. Hence, I started to search for random songs that are in my iTunes library, one by one in TIDAL and after several searches TIDAL was sending me to a 404 page (page not found).

 

I haven’t signed up yet and I’m wondering whether TIDAL effectively stops you from searching its music catalogue after a few searches if you’re not a member? Or perhaps this was a bug?

 

I was trying to see how many of my existing songs were available in TIDAL.

 

 

I exported a .m3u playlist from my local library and imported it to Tidal and Spotify using Soundiiz.