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Tidal HiFi vs HiFi Plus: Can you hear the difference?

Can you hear the difference between Lossless and Hi-Res?

  • Yes. I hear the difference (I did a blind test)

  • Yes. I hear the difference (I didn’t do a blind test)

  • No. I don’t hear the difference


Results are only viewable after voting.

MRC01

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I was using XLD on Mac to convert hi-res to 16/44. In your view, Is it a proper way of converting files?
I'm not familiar with XLD or Mac stuff generally. On Linux with Pulseaudio, I use soxr-vhq for real-time conversion and Audacity seems to work well too. At least I haven't found any obvious problems with either of these.
 

Barry_Sound

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I have been using Tidal HiFi Plus for a while now. I used to listen to MQA all the time, and lately decided not to as I read a few articles against MQA. My new DAC (RME) is not supporting MQA either. This made me think that I might need to downgrade my Tidal account to HiFi only. ($10 vs $20). Today, I went ahead an downgraded my Tidal account. A few hours later, I got a pop-up offer from Tidal, offering me $15 for HiFi plus for a year term. This made me reconsider my decision.

Even though I can hear the differnece between Lossless and lower qualities, l am not sure if I am able to hear the difference between lossless (CD quality) and the higher qualities.

I am wondering what’s your experience with higher than CD quality? Can you hear the difference?

Please vote if you wish, in addition to sharing your perspective.
Is there a definition of what "master" quality is? Higher bit-rate or what?
 

Jimbob54

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Is there a definition of what "master" quality is? Higher bit-rate or what?
Its Tidal shorthand for MQA.

Well, actually its anything that (once MQA decoded) is at or above 16/44.1- which includes anything that maxes out at 16/44 in their library, plus access to the MQA files to be unfolded (and in their app, will have the first unfold applied)- which usually takes the playback to 24/88 or 24/96- and can then be decoded on appropriate hardware to 24/192 or 24/176

Which is now contrasted with their Hifi tier which is 16/44
 

airgas1998

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if anybody cares you can go through best buy and get a 10.00/month Tidal (hi-fi) subscription when you buy the 1yr plan...and no MQA means nothing to me....1411 is all i need..
 

Zensō

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I have been using Tidal HiFi Plus for a while now. I used to listen to MQA all the time, and lately decided not to as I read a few articles against MQA. My new DAC (RME) is not supporting MQA either. This made me think that I might need to downgrade my Tidal account to HiFi only. ($10 vs $20). Today, I went ahead an downgraded my Tidal account. A few hours later, I got a pop-up offer from Tidal, offering me $15 for HiFi plus for a year term. This made me reconsider my decision.

Even though I can hear the differnece between Lossless and lower qualities, l am not sure if I am able to hear the difference between lossless (CD quality) and the higher qualities.

I am wondering what’s your experience with higher than CD quality? Can you hear the difference?

Please vote if you wish, in addition to sharing your perspective.
Consider taking these tests sometime. They’re likely to be eye opening.

 

DJBonoBobo

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Hello, I am trying Tidal for the first time. I am not a believer of Highres in general, but still I wonder if the "master" quality might have advantages for me:

One of my favorite albums ("Alien" by Strapping Young Lad) is heavily compressed in the CD version, so it doesn't sound optimal. I know that vinyl masters were once made that might be less compressed. But I don't know. I've always been interested in whether the album sounds better as vinyl, but I don't have a turntable and don't want to start there.

Now I've noticed that the "master" version of the album on Tidal is significantly quieter than the hifi version. This also makes it difficult to properly compare the sound of both versions just by listening.

Does anyone have experience if it could be that the "master" version not only uses a different codec, but also a different master? Or how to get such versions easily compared (technically) to find out if they differ, e.g. in dynamic range?
 

Bow_Wazoo

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....Even though I can hear the differnece between Lossless and lower qualities, l am not sure if I am able to hear the difference between lossless (CD quality) and the higher qualities.

I am wondering what’s your experience with higher than CD quality? Can you hear the difference?....
In a blind test you will not be able to distinguish 256kbit MP3 / Wav / Flac / CD / DSD.
I don't even want to talk about Hi-Res...

An interesting blind test already took place more than 20 years ago:

About Hi-Res:

 

Zensō

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Hello, I am trying Tidal for the first time. I am not a believer of Highres in general, but still I wonder if the "master" quality might have advantages for me:

One of my favorite albums ("Alien" by Strapping Young Lad) is heavily compressed in the CD version, so it doesn't sound optimal. I know that vinyl masters were once made that might be less compressed. But I don't know. I've always been interested in whether the album sounds better as vinyl, but I don't have a turntable and don't want to start there.

Now I've noticed that the "master" version of the album on Tidal is significantly quieter than the hifi version. This also makes it difficult to properly compare the sound of both versions just by listening.

Does anyone have experience if it could be that the "master" version not only uses a different codec, but also a different master? Or how to get such versions easily compared (technically) to find out if they differ, e.g. in dynamic range?
There’s always the possibility of different masters, but unless there’s something obviously different in the arrangement or mix, it’s unlikely you’ll ever know for sure. The streaming services just stream whatever they’re provided by the labels, which often makes it difficult to ascertain the provenance of any one track.
 

Blorg

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Now I've noticed that the "master" version of the album on Tidal is significantly quieter than the hifi version. This also makes it difficult to properly compare the sound of both versions just by listening.
This is definitely a thing, there are some albums where the "Master" version has very noticeably better dynamic range and sounds less compressed. But this is the source master, not the encoding. Try listening to the Master version but with the streaming quality set to "High" (which limits it to 44.1/16), the albums which have this for me they still sound like they have better dynamic range with the streaming quality stepped down. My understanding is you still get access to all the "Master" library with Tidal if you have the HiFi sub, you just get these in 44.1/16 quality. If it's a higher quality master though you will still get that better dynamic range.

You can sometimes dig around with the credits and the year of the copyright or the record label to get an indication of what version it is, and when I've compared to other streaming services, even lossy ones like Spotify or Apple music, I can hear the volume / dynamic range differences in the versions they have too and they match up with the copyright year indicated on Tidal. So it's the source master here making the difference, not MQA or HiRes.
 

DJBonoBobo

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This is definitely a thing, there are some albums where the "Master" version has very noticeably better dynamic range and sounds less compressed. But this is the source master, not the encoding. Try listening to the Master version but with the streaming quality set to "High" (which limits it to 44.1/16), the albums which have this for me they still sound like they have better dynamic range with the streaming quality stepped down. My understanding is you still get access to all the "Master" library with Tidal if you have the HiFi sub, you just get these in 44.1/16 quality. If it's a higher quality master though you will still get that better dynamic range.

You can sometimes dig around with the credits and the year of the copyright or the record label to get an indication of what version it is, and when I've compared to other streaming services, even lossy ones like Spotify or Apple music, I can hear the volume / dynamic range differences in the versions they have too and they match up with the copyright year indicated on Tidal. So it's the source master here making the difference, not MQA or HiRes.
Thanks, i´ve since given up on the Tidal Master subscription, but maybe i´ll give it a try with the Hifi setting.

BTW, i asked the label about the particular albums i´m interested in, but never got an answer.
 
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Rescue911

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In all these researches there is one obvious miscalculation.
Researchers are trying to find a black cat in a black room.
And all you need to do is take an IDEALLY recorded master file and then convert it into those formats that are of interest to us for comparison. It is not at all easy to do this.
But, where are these IDEAL master files???
Ay!
 

fireboy1968

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I stream using a Topping D90Se as an external DAC to a Bluesound Node. So when I did my one month free trial what I found was a large percentage of Tidal Masters recordings were actually CD quality enfolded into MQA. The top image is 26 bit 96 KHZ. As you can see the bottom image is CD quality. Amazon's Hi Def catalog is probably on par with Tidal. Also, a lot of the masters recordings sounded bad. Give a listen to Toys in the Attic.
 

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Peterinvan

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I still don’t know what I am getting when I change the settings from Master streaming to HiFi.

Am I streaming a Master track, and the Tidal player is just not unfolding at all? Run a test…

iPad Pro > Cayin RU6 > Meze 109 Pro.

My Cayin RU6 displays 96Khz regardless of whether I set it to HiFI or Master streaming. Confused.

Sample track from Taylor’s new album…

 
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fireboy1968

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If you do not own a DAC that can do the unfolding, or you do not bypass the Tidal app, Tidal does the unfolding for you. My Topping DAC seems to display the correct bandwidth unless it is a lossy format on which it still displays it as CD quality. The one thing with Bluos devices is that airplay does not stream MQA or hi def. To stream MQA and hi def, you need to use the Bluos app that kind of sucks. I know both Tidal and Amazon have airplay that works seamlessly. I would think that after years of ignoring customer's complaints, Amazon finally added airplay, that Qobuz more likely than not also offers it.
 

Blorg

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@Peterinvan this sounds like Tidal does not have direct access to your DAC. So it's passing either 96 or 44.1 to the iPad and the iPad is resampling it all to its shared rate, which seems to be 96kHz.

This is on PC, if I set Exclusive mode I get 96kHz if set to Master and 44.1 set to Hifi on my DAC. Some other Master albums are 88.2kHz.

I usually use EQ so don't use exclusive mode and it's all just resampled for me too. I don't think this is a major problem.

1669542602727.png
 

Peterinvan

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deleted.
 
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