TIDAL is NOT Worth it! Listening Test

[Phelonious Ponk]

I succumbed to the convenience and polish of Roon recently and I really like the Tidal integration. I have done zero testing that would be acceptable here in terms of being objective but subjective listening does show a range of different experiences when comparing my local digital library to Tidal's files.
Most often Tidal beats my files that I ripped twenty years ago and have been moved through a dozen hard drives since then. They have obvious ripping errors or file corruption that are repeatedly audible at the same positions in a track. In the wisdom of my youth I decided to rip all my CDs and then sell them all when I moved countries - that was about 5000 tracks that I ripped at 160 Kbps MP3 or 128 Kbps AAC (no idea why I mixed the formats!)

There's a number of other lossy tracks I've obtained since then that I can hear significant differences in sound when comparing to Tidal's versions (or lossless rips). Almost always the major difference for me is the sound of cymbals, saprono level woodwind/brass notes and acoustic guitar along with other higher frequency sounds. The giveaway to me is a sort of warble effect on the note. Hard to describe the sound really - like a phase effect or being played underwater or a combination. This happens almost always with 192 Kbps or lower but I have found a couple of 256 and 320 Kbps tracks that exhibit the same sound but I put this down to the rip being done poorly.

Tldr; Tidal rocks when used with Roon and sounds better than a lot of my crappy rips. However, if Roon supported other lossy streaming services I'd jump ship immediately.

Phew, my first post here out of the way!

Ripped at 128 or 160 kbps, I'll bet Tidal sounds better. The hump, for me, seems to be at 320kbps (AAC) I have to listen closely enough, on headphones, no longer paying attention to/enjoying the music to even imagine I can hear a difference between 320 and lossless. And at that point, what's the point? iTunes automatically converts larger files to 256 when it saves them to my phone, and that's perfectly acceptable, too, though most of that listening is in the car.

Tim

 

[fas42]

Definitely something interesting - I had a look for the group mentioned by Ray, http://audiosciencereview.com/forum...-listening-to-right-now.40/page-21#post-21477, and was able to pull down an audio track again at 321 Kbps AAC - and it sounds like it. Very, very clean, punchy sound, "CD quality", ... will keep checking this out ...

Uh-oh! YouTube appear to have cottoned on to the 720p anomaly, and are "correcting" it, as we speak, . Channels which had high quality sound have now lost it - I did some investigating, and videos that were uploaded say 6 months ago have just been re-encoded, literally a week or so ago - dropping the quality back to the 128 or so level.

So, now Tim is correct - the clip audio quality will typically be marginal, a deliberate decision by YouTube, apparently ...

 

[Blumlein 88]

Uh-oh! YouTube appear to have cottoned on to the 720p anomaly, and are "correcting" it, as we speak, . Channels which had high quality sound have now lost it - I did some investigating, and videos that were uploaded say 6 months ago have just been re-encoded, literally a week or so ago - dropping the quality back to the 128 or so level.

So, now Tim is correct - the clip audio quality will typically be marginal, a deliberate decision by YouTube, apparently ...

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6395969 Anyone aware youtube would allow ambisonic encoding?

BTW Frank, I have never seen anything or nabbed any youtube with more than 192 AAC. Youtube recommends you upload at 384 kbps AAC to them. Quite a few people upload HD content at 256 and youtube typically will dowsample that to 128. They need to use 384 if they want a final 192 available.

 

[fas42]

Thanks for that, Dennis. I agree that one can't do better than 192 AAC, that 321 figure was a mistake on my part in understanding what was occurring at the time ... however, there is something curious about the encoding date stamps on the clips - what I've seen so far after the end of March this year is always 126Kbps, even though the video may have been uploaded far earlier than this date.

 

[dallasjustice]

Is Tidal circling the drain? It's no wonder Jay-Z acted so desperate to sell it to Apple.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...treaming-service-Tidal-posts-huge-losses.html

 

[RayDunzl]

I bought a month of Tidal when they came out with lossless.

I quit for political reasons, after observing some Jay-Z rhymes.

Call me deplorable.

 

[Sal1950]

I bought a month of Tidal when they came out with lossless.

I quit for political reasons, after observing some Jay-Z rhymes.

Call me deplorable.

We're on the same page Ray, no use for him.

Looks to be some rough times out there.
Tidal's in trouble and the doors remain locked at the Pono store.
All the stories sound a bit fishy to me?

 

[amirm]

All of these services lose money. Their goal is not to make money but to sell the company to a big company and exit. Spotify for example lost almost $200 million last year.

 

[dallasjustice]

All of these services lose money. Their goal is not to make money but to sell the company to a big company and exit. Spotify for example lost almost $200 million last year.

Yes, but the number of entities able and willing to buy a service like Tidal is very small. If Tidal doesn't sell to Apple, then what? It's also important to pay vendors. What if Tidal's music rights become impaired?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yes, but the number of entities able and willing to buy a service like Tidal is very small. If Tidal doesn't sell to Apple, then what? It's also important to pay vendors. What if Tidal's music rights become impaired?

Then we blame the MQA promise that is unfulfilled.

 

[Sal1950]

Spotify Reaches 40 Million
http://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-remains-tops-in-music-subscriptions-1473910164
9-14-2016
STOCKHOLM—Swedish music-streaming service Spotify AB on Wednesday said it had reached 40 million paying subscribers, up a third from six months ago.
“40 is the new 30. Million,” Spotify’s co-founder and Chief Executive Daniel Ek tweeted. A spokeswoman for Spotify confirmed the news.
By crossing the 40 million threshold, Spotify confirms its position as market leader in an increasingly crowded music-streaming market.
Apple Inc.’s Apple Music, Spotify’s main competitor, launched in June 2015, said earlier this month it had 17 million paying users. Tidal, the streaming service owned by rapper Jay Z and others, in June said it had expanded its user base to 4.2 million paying subscribers."


They just gained me today. Never a penny to Jay Z and friends from me.
The Premium download stream of 320 kbps sounds OK. Haven't done a direct comparison with a CDRB or better file.
Don't want to, ignorance is bliss.
"I know, it's only Rock and Roll, but I like it!"

 

[amirm]

Tidal has a lossless subscription. That is the main attraction and unfortunately they are the only ones to offer CD-quality lossless tracks. So we are stuck with them no matter what.

Since they are not profitable anyway, others are paying for us to listen anyway, than the other way around.

 

[NorthSky]

• http://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmci...nobody-want-to-buy-jay-zs-tidal/#3ed8f2bd5583

 

[RayDunzl]

Now I remember the straw that broke the camel's back for me...

I clicked on an email from them and was presented with this suggestion for something to which to listen with my lossless subscription:

Yeah? Well, fuck you!

lyrics check...

Of course, there's a nice video to go with it...

 

[NorthSky]

• http://www.diffen.com/difference/Pandora_vs_Spotify
• http://www.werockyourweb.com/spotify-vs-rhapsody-vs-pandora-vs-google-music-vs-rdio-vs-mog/
• http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-spotify-better-than-pandora

Tidal might have an advantage for quality sound, CD quality, butt...

 

[RayDunzl]

So we are stuck with them no matter what.

I'm not.

Gee, they got all conservative on that mail. Khaki pants and a brown belt on a caucasian reading what? New York Times? Wall Street Journal?... with a picture of white-haired penguin-suited conductor urging his string section to greater glory...

I'm not so easily fooled.

 

[NorthSky]

Ray, I just luv the lyrics and video (the 2nd video)...truly first class.

People are free to subscribe to Tidal or not. That's the great choice we have here in North America, in our free democracy.
And I'm sure that there are way more grandiose first class acts than those lyrics and that video to go with it; a great first grand act in itself.

I would check for Opera music myself, or Organ with chorals, or classical symphony orchestras, or classical chamber music.

 

[RayDunzl]

Ray, I just luv the lyrics and video (the 2nd video)...truly first class.

Yeah?

 

[RayDunzl]

People are free to subscribe to Tidal or not.

I exercised both choices.

Just giving my personal comment. Like others often do, here.

I would check for Opera music myself, or Organ with chorals, or classical symphony orchestras, or classical chamber music.

I found them to have reasonable breadth of selection, but, too often, not much depth, outside the mainstream, for which I generally have little interest.

 

[NorthSky]

Just in case you missed my sense of humor...after I've read the lyrics and watched the video, I felt some slight pain inside my chest, and puke a little in my brain.