I have never been able to get Tidal to play in bit-perfect "exclusive mode" while UAPP asks me every time. They sound the same to me, but I wanted to devise an experiment to see if they actually are the same. I can log into Tidal through UAPP and play the same source material (CD quality 16/44.1 FLAC) from either app. My phone is plugged into a modi+ DAC via USB.
I took the analog output of my modi and sent it to my PC line-in and recorded with Audacity.
There were three recordings of the same 7 seconds of the same track (Aja):
BP2 and Tidal were the test waves.
After recording I did the following:
Questions:
I took the analog output of my modi and sent it to my PC line-in and recorded with Audacity.
There were three recordings of the same 7 seconds of the same track (Aja):
- BP1 = UAPP bit-perfect mode #1
- BP2 = UAPP bit perfect #2
- Tidal = Tidal high quality
BP2 and Tidal were the test waves.
After recording I did the following:
- all three waves were aligned manually aligned to the exact same sample (I zoomed all the way in)
- all three were cropped to the same length.
- all three were volume normalized to -22dB RMS (all were within 1.5dB to begin with)
- dB and Tidal were inverted and then subtracted from BP1. If a comparison wave was exactly the same as the control wave, then the mix result would be a completely flat line.
- BP1-BP2 had an RMS of -57dB
- BP1-Tidal had an RMS of -50dB
Questions:
- does this mean that the difference between Tidal and BP1 was -28dB, which would mean that they only differed by about 1/1000th of the original signal's strength?
- is there a way for my PC to record or analyze the digital output of these apps?
- does anyone at all know why Tidal has never offered me the option to play in bit-perfect mode? (samsung A50 andoid 11)