Tidal CEO: We're introducing Hi-Res FLAC for HiFi Plus Subscribers

[phoenixdogfan]

Interesting, and I bet they also will be pushing their lower tiers aggressively in the next few weeks as well, since there is a lot of upset over Spotify's latest app changes and talk of users heading elsewhere. After all, a lot of Spotify's user base are disgruntled Apple refugees who left at times when Apple tried to dump a lot of extras into iTunes then switched to Apple Music. And Apple are slowly getting their act together in Windows now.

I wasn't aware of Tidal Connect not working to PC, it does work to a lot of streaming devices, and I guess if they could get it to PC soon they may get customers out of it. They seem to be too busy with making their own PC app work slower and slower every update (that's what I see anyway on my desktop).

My guess is that MQA isn't going to disappear on TIdal anytime soon, but that could change if someone aggressive buys MQA and tries to make it break even by increasing fees.

The next weeks could see a lot of change in the streaming market.

I would actually go back to Tidal if they lost the MQA and had a better interface. I currently use Qobuz and it doe not work on one of my platforms (NVIDIA Shield). So I would gladly pay a little extra for Tidal, even though Qobuz seems stellar on the platforms it works on (my Android phone & Windows PC). I will not pay for both, so I currently stream Qobuz to my NVIDIA from my Android phone via HiFi Cast.

 

[jhwalker]

Millions?

LITERALLY millions?

Probably hundreds of millions.

 

[Timcognito]

Do you think Qobuz has better sound quality than Apple Music? If so, how is that explained?

I only tried it against Spotify and head to head agaist Tidal, the focus of this thread with my old ears. From what I read, not just this site, seems that people think Qobuz is better than Tidal, Apple and Prime. Some biased insight below by people that switched to or away from Qobuz.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

 

[Zensō]

I only tried it against Spotify and head to head agaist Tidal, the focus of this thread with my old ears. From what I read, not just this site, seems that people think Qobuz is better than Tidal, Apple and Prime. Some biased insight below by people that switched to or away from Qobuz.

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

OK, thanks. I have some of my own music on Qobuz and Apple Music and did some null testing of both against the masters I supplied to my distributor. In every case the files nulled out to almost nothing, indicating no audible difference between the master and the files served from both services. As expected, I found a slightly larger difference when testing against Tidal MQA, but still only a very small amount of high frequency noise that was likely inaudible. I think in most cases, when people hear obvious differences between these services it’s either because they’re listening to different masters, or there’s some difference in their local signal path (EQ, volume difference, etc.). Of course, expectation bias can also play a significant role when listening sighted.

 

[sarumbear]

Probably hundreds of millions.

Any reference to that number?

 

[Hatto]

My guess on the chronology of events is this:

1. Tidal realize they're loosing blood trying to compete with $20/mo in a landscape filled with competitors doing same or more for half their asking price.
2. Tidal people look into where they can cut costs and come across MQA licensing fees. They realize: People are streaming 4K video even on their mobile devices and no one bats an eye, so what's the point in "data efficiency" they claim to provide through MQA?
3. Tidal informs their licensor that they won't be renewing their licensing.
4. MQA probably tries to re-negotiate hoping for a sub-optimal, yet non-catastrophic, deal. They fail.
5. MQA at least asks Tidal to delay their announcement to switch to FLAC so they can cut their losses.
6. MQA files for bankruptcy under more favorable conditions.
7. Tidal announces their plans to abandon MQA.

 

[LearningToSmile]

I guess Tidal would be a worse value proposition in a better served market but it works for me.

• the price is around ~$10 here which is reasonable for me
• Qobuz is plain and simple not available in my country
• Spotify still hasn't come out with their HiFi option

I suppose Apple Music would be a competitor, as it's also proportionately cheaper here, but at least in the past Apple services were seriously gimped on non-Apple devices, and I'm happy enough with Tidal to not see the need to try it out to see if it changed. Tidal coming out with FLAC just reinforces that decision, though I'm not that much of a stickler for hi-res file formats.
Overall I'm pretty happy with the progress Tidal made since I started using their service, at first the catalogue was a bit lacking, but steadily they've been improving and even getting some seriously niche releases, and I'm finding less and less that I have to look for elsewhere. Still not as wide of a selection as Spotify, but it's getting there.

 

[Power Pop 23]

In the USA only, customers of Best Buy (who also have an account with Best Buy dot com) can buy access to 12 months of the HiFi Plus 'Hi-Res' tier at Tidal Music for an upfront cost of $119.99 and an upfront cost of $79.99 for the 16-bit/44.1 KHz HiFi tier. The digital download is for the U.S. only This auto-renews annually unless canceled via Best Buy dot com. The offers are for new customers but I recall reading comments indicating Tidal Music accounts that have been canceled can be be re-activated with these offers - I would double-check the claim as these offers via Best Buy are non-returnable. I know of one person who moved from the $19.99/month plan via Tidal Music to the $119.99/year offer but they had to use a different email address and rebuild their favorites

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/tidal-hifi-plus-12-month-music-subscription-starting-at-purchase-auto-renews-at-119-99-per-year-digital/6407163.p?skuId=6407163

 

[Mkaram]

Reading this thread I feel uneducated.
I have physical media, and I rip it to FLAC.
This has always been my definition of "lossless"

So when we say that qobuz "sounds better" than tidal, are they not both just lossless streams of the album?

If they are both lossless of studio albums how should it be possible that one "sounds better" than the other?

 

[kemmler3D]

Reading this thread I feel uneducated.
I have physical media, and I rip it to FLAC.
This has always been my definition of "lossless"

So when we say that qobuz "sounds better" than tidal, are they not both just lossless streams of the album?

If they are both lossless of studio albums how should it be possible that one "sounds better" than the other?

No, you're not the uneducated one.

It's possible that one service uses a different master than another, which would produce (probably significant) differences in sound from "the same" album. Otherwise why did they bother remastering?

However, one lossless file sounds exactly the same as another lossless version of the same recording. That's actually the whole point.

People who assert that one lossless stream is audibly different than another stream of the same master either:

A) Have something wrong with their audio drivers / DAC
B) Have good imaginations fueled by very hazy ideas of what digital audio is.
C) Think they can hear sounds above 22khz and highly value 96Khz encoding because their great-grandmother on their mother's side was a bat.

If it's B, they might think the audio signal is being sent in a direct stream, individual bit by bit, from the Tidal or qobuz data center, in a way that's analogous to a voltage traveling up and down a wire in their system. In which case, audible differences in lossless streaming implementation might... happen somehow. This is NOT REMOTELY close to how digital audio (or any other data) is sent over the internet. There's really no chance for differences to creep in except via gain or different masters.

 

[GaryH]

Reading this thread I feel uneducated.
I have physical media, and I rip it to FLAC.
This has always been my definition of "lossless"

So when we say that qobuz "sounds better" than tidal, are they not both just lossless streams of the album?

If they are both lossless of studio albums how should it be possible that one "sounds better" than the other?

Because Qobuz offers the original masters of albums, which I invariably find sound better than the new 'improved' remasters (usually with dynamic compression jacked up ruining dynamic range) that are often the only version available on other streaming platforms.

 

[kemmler3D]

Because Qobuz offers the original masters of albums, which I invariably find sound better than the new 'improved' remasters (usually with dynamic compression jacked up ruining dynamic range) that are often the only version available on other streaming platforms.

As ever, the biggest determinant of sound quality is ... the recording!

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I have used Spotify almost since they started. It was great and still is superb.

I tried Tidal for free and couldn't hear any difference. Tidal was louder at the same volume step though. I bet that it's on purpose.

I can't differ lossless between 320 kbit mp3 or Spotifys Premium OGG.

 

[bevok]

Because Qobuz offers the original masters of albums, which I invariably find sound better than the new 'improved' remasters (usually with dynamic compression jacked up ruining dynamic range) that are often the only version available on other streaming platforms.

What are a couple of albums where they have the original masters (as opposed to the ones on Apple Music etc)? Interested to compare

 

[RosalieTheDog]

They should do a Tidal hifi plus family subscription, but make it cheaper, one where only the pater familias (or mater familias, or audiophile teenage son of course) with the good gear gets the FLAC.

On a sidenote, this could entice me to upgrade to the Wiim Pro from the Chromecast (which sometimes struggles a bit with 96khz and cannot go further). So far the only added "advantage" of Tidal Connect streamers was MQA with USB-out.

 

[Mnyb]

Wait a minute so tidal has a CD Quality tier , why would any one opt for a special Hi-rez tier in the first place ? As they don't sound different if you bother to use the same master.

They could bundle both of these options together to a lossles plan at the price of of their current CD quality offering ? One less option for the consumer to be confused over and attractive price

What boggles me with all so called hifi streaming options is that no one seems to actually curate the selection on sound quality basis ie picking the best master of a piece of music regardless of which format it would exist in ? I would pay for that ? Offering a bunch of same sounding format options seem a bit daft to me ?

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Wait a minute so tidal has a CD Quality tier , why would any one opt for a special Hi-rez tier in the first place ? As they don't sound different if you bother to use the same master.

They could bundle both of these options together to a lossles plan at the price of of their current CD quality offering ? One less option for the consumer to be confused over and attractive price

What boggles me with all so called hifi streaming options is that no one seems to actually curate the selection on sound quality basis ie picking the best master of a piece of music regardless of which format it would exist in ? I would pay for that ? Offering a bunch of same sounding format options seem a bit daft to me ?

And most wouldn't notice flac for Ogg anyway. HiFi streaming is kind of snake oil IMO.

 

[Galliardist]

Wait a minute so tidal has a CD Quality tier , why would any one opt for a special Hi-rez tier in the first place ? As they don't sound different if you bother to use the same master.

They could bundle both of these options together to a lossles plan at the price of of their current CD quality offering ? One less option for the consumer to be confused over and attractive price

What boggles me with all so called hifi streaming options is that no one seems to actually curate the selection on sound quality basis ie picking the best master of a piece of music regardless of which format it would exist in ? I would pay for that ? Offering a bunch of same sounding format options seem a bit daft to me ?

One of the promises of you-know-what was using the "best master" and a couple of the very early Tidal Masters were at least from different sources, if not necessarily better.
Higher resolution masters may offer security or a slight improvement for some particular DACs with slow roll off filters, and at least there's no real harm in 96/24, or DSD128 if you have to, and you have the bandwidth.

A high quality tier (where better/less compressed/more "audiophile" versions are available would be a better value. Given that a lot of music actually gets to be mastered twice, and the more compressed one just gets put everywhere, a service that offers "hifi" and "mobile/bluetooth" versions of the music would be better still, maybe also selectable in the app. If you-know-what continues, it could also add that option into its codec and files (where there is the ability to add control codes for filters and processing into the folded portion, supposedly).

 

[Mnyb]

And most wouldn't notice flac for Ogg anyway. HiFi streaming is kind of snake oil IMO.

One of the promises of you-know-what was using the "best master" and a couple of the very early Tidal Masters were at least from different sources, if not necessarily better.
Higher resolution masters may offer security or a slight improvement for some particular DACs with slow roll off filters, and at least there's no real harm in 96/24, or DSD128 if you have to, and you have the bandwidth.

A high quality tier (where better/less compressed/more "audiophile" versions are available would be a better value. Given that a lot of music actually gets to be mastered twice, and the more compressed one just gets put everywhere, a service that offers "hifi" and "mobile/bluetooth" versions of the music would be better still, maybe also selectable in the app. If you-know-what continues, it could also add that option into its codec and files (where there is the ability to add control codes for filters and processing into the folded portion, supposedly).

Yes so I use spotify for streaming..

But Roon remains tempting with the metadata integration with qubus and tidal .

My point is the it's still up to the labels themselves to upload tracks to the streaming service , so it's kind of false advertising to offer a hifi quality service as none of the streaming service has any control or knowledge over what's uploaded to them, it is what it is . Once you reached CD quality lossles. The returns are very diminishing unless they start to curate great sounding masters , heck most of even very good records are not limited by the CD format very few have the dynamic range to challenge CD ,most records are still not even upto CD quality ? To put them in a bigger bit bucket is a kind of waste

My hope is that eventually labels would not even bother to resample the work ( just another point of failure where some underpaid intern can get it wrong ) but just send in 24/48 or 24/96 or what's the end result from their DAW ?

 

[brandonhall]

I only use Tidal HiFi because HiRes isn't important to me. Tidal's positioning is actually really clever. You just basic HiFi for $9.99 a month which is awesome for most folks. If you want "innovative audio formats", you can pay $19.99 a month for those. It's a clear difference in what you get for each plan.