The Press Loves To Hate TIDAL

I couldn't agree more with the CA editorial. As I stated in a comment on the original TIDAL article ' the tides they are achangin'this venture is akin to what charlie chaplin,mary pickford ,dw griffith and then later burt lancaster and other actors attempted to with UnitedArtists-take back control of their art and product and keep more money for themselves and for the less fortunate but wonderful unknown artists who get next to nothing for their efforts and the famous and unknown artists from our past and before who get fractions of a penny if we the consumer/audiophiles stream their music. But we now have a commitment to lossless SQ as a bonus.

Those of you using this forum to rant about TIDAL's SQ must have poor equipment/cable companies etc. For the last 2-3 years i have used TIDAL/WiMp/Qobuz(yes you can get it in USA) with Amarra Sq and a Schiit gungnir DAC and have never ever had 'pops' 'crackles' or dropouts EXCEPT when i used PureMusic original or 2 in playthrough mode-the sound reproduction is spectacular and consistent-the SQ definitely depends on the original source that is streaming to us.

As far as Beats is concerned the only thing worthwhile is i was able to transfer my 400 MOG playlists-their web offering is horrible you can't make playlists there is is no 'sentence' and there is no web player but on apple tv and iphone everything is avaliable and the sound with help of Amarra Sq is not too shabby whereas Spotify's sound is 'ok'.

Pandora is less than 250 kbps.

All the services above layouts are different unique and offer access to different types or unique artists(and the ability to make endless playlists) for example Qobuz offers Bea Vander Maat(Won-Ton-Ton) and a lot of european/french artists i never heard of/Tidal offers Pat Guadnago(Tired Horses) a Jersey Shore dylan cover band and Trailer Trash another dylan cover band/ both offer more or less all of RHINO's, Vanguards and Columbia legacys album collections plus albums from clapton and sinatra i never knew existed.

Let them compete or eventually combine- we and they will all benefit and they will improve and exploit the "SQ" which is all that should be important to us 'audiophiles'.( ps i really miss WG his comments on this would be wonderful)

Get off your high horse bro . I have damn good equipment and Tidal doesn't sound as good as a ripped cd .!

And never a streaming problem!? Congrats !

i'm new here, can't find post link, so clicked on reply for bobflood. this message not intended for bobflood but a general response to the main article and it's commentors.

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i read about 20 of the 26 posts on this topic, and i am in disbelief of all the short-sighted, ignorant, or negative commentary about the new funders of tidal, Jay-Z et al. as a public school teacher i see a bit more than what the 20 comments state. my low socioeconomic students now have a massively large target for hope. too many of my kids either have no clue about going to college, expect they will make it to the nfl or nba or live some hip-hop rockstar dream. the truth is not so pleasant. music aside, Jay-Z et al are an inspiration for the communities from which they arose. they are a light. THAT is the value of what they have done; it has very little to do with art or music. a little-known secret of racial minorities is that their very wealthy members do more for their communities than "other" gov. racial classifications. so, let them grub for money. i don't mind because i know that in many, many, many round-about, unreported ways beyonce, jay, kanye, and etc. route much of their wealth back to their communities in ways that the vast majority of THE ONE PERCENT (or even the top 15%) simply DO NOT. TIDAL's business move is not, at it's heart, about money, but about setting a tone for who owns money (i.e., power) in the music industry. and since so many of my low socioeconomic kids love music and wish to have careers in music, i'm ok with tidal as it is--the pros far outweigh the cons. while i may not like some of the personal behaviors of the new tidal owners, it (and THEY) are no different in a business sense than any other "high-power" money-makers on the planet. business is business. it makes the world work. this business move by jay-z and associates is tilted more to the pro than the con...and...yes, in part, this is about RACE.

i'm new here, can't find post link, so clicked on reply for bobflood. this message not intended for bobflood but a general response to the main article and it's commentors.

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i read about 20 of the 26 posts on this topic, and i am in disbelief of all the short-sighted, ignorant, or negative commentary about the new funders of tidal, Jay-Z et al. as a public school teacher i see a bit more than what the 20 comments state. my low socioeconomic students now have a massively large target for hope. too many of my kids either have no clue about going to college, expect they will make it to the nfl or nba or live some hip-hop rockstar dream. the truth is not so pleasant. music aside, Jay-Z et al are an inspiration for the communities from which they arose. they are a light. THAT is the value of what they have done; it has very little to do with art or music. a little-known secret of racial minorities is that their very wealthy members do more for their communities than "other" gov. racial classifications. so, let them grub for money. i don't mind because i know that in many, many, many round-about, unreported ways beyonce, jay, kanye, and etc. route much of their wealth back to their communities in ways that the vast majority of THE ONE PERCENT (or even the top 15%) simply DO NOT. TIDAL's business move is not, at it's heart, about money, but about setting a tone for who owns money (i.e., power) in the music industry. and since so many of my low socioeconomic kids love music and wish to have careers in music, i'm ok with tidal as it is--the pros far outweigh the cons. while i may not like some of the personal behaviors of the new tidal owners, it (and THEY) are no different in a business sense than any other "high-power" money-makers on the planet. business is business. it makes the world work. this business move by jay-z and associates is tilted more to the pro than the con...and...yes, in part, this is about RACE.

Not sure about some of the other press reports but from the press conference itself most of the reactions could be predicted.

I would hazard a guess that the demographics of CA and of the audiophile community including press skew toward the white, male, comfortable if not affluent, non-celebrity driven, and exclusivity seeking range of the population. At the press conference you show an ethnic, male/female, basic income, celebrity driven, and popular culture type of spokes-group. And the reactions are a surprise how?

All I know is I have been an avid Spotify user but after reading about Tidal and then seeing the commercial I decided to give it a try. I am really happy with it! I think the interface is very nice. Better than Spotify's IMO and for sure the difference in audio quality is immediately apparent. I think its pretty cool that JayZ and Daft Punk are pushing lossless audio. I wish all artists would. This is going to make the next generation pause and wonder why JayZ wants his music lossless. It may just be the catalyst that everyone in this forum have always talked about. I find it very interesting the negative reaction everyone here is having.

I am not sure about drop outs and crackling, I stream from my phone and PC and have yet to have any sort of drop out. What I would recommend is give it a try.. you are out nothing if you don't like it. You may just find out you really like it.

Just my two cents, I love this forum and appreciate everyone's opinions on it!

I don't see any big win win for major artists or labels.......the revenue is drop in the bucket compared to record sales 15 years ago.......and the $240 per year is a huge savings compared to what I used to spend on CDs and Vinyl annually.

You guys are right. We are just a bunch of stuffy old men, and there is absolutely no reason to be cynical about those 100% altruistic rich celebrities up on the stage.

I don't see any big win win for major artists or labels.......the revenue is drop in the bucket compared to record sales 15 years ago.......and the $240 per year is a huge savings compared to what I used to spend on CDs and Vinyl annually.

If you buy both new and used lps and CDs then the cost can certainly exceed that, BUT...YOU CAN RESELL THEM. I find myself using streaming services less and less these days and relying more on radio (terrestrial and Internet) and then purchasing the music I want to listen to repeatedly. In fact I am ready to cancel subscription to the one I currently have and am not really looking to sign up to another anytime soon.

Agree with all but the comment about the Beatles disappearing. People will still be listening to The Beatles in the 22nd century, no matter what shakes out with the streaming contracts.

Yep . I use Amarra Sq with Tidal and it stutters ,pops and crackles . Amarra Sq works perfectly with every other music service except Tidal. If I do not use Amarra , there are still problems but not as many .

 

 

Still way too many problems. I have 120/20 Mbps speeds at the house . Pretty fast but not Google Fiber l

 

Tidal does sound it's best on the Auralic Aries and playback is flawless on it . It is the only reason I still have a Tidal

sub .

No problems for me streaming from the Tidal app on my CAPS server to my Auralic Vega DAC. Very rare to hear any hiccups for me.

If you buy both new and used lps and CDs then the cost can certainly exceed that, BUT...YOU CAN RESELL THEM. I find myself using streaming services less and less these days and relying more on radio (terrestrial and Internet) and then purchasing the music I want to listen to repeatedly. In fact I am ready to cancel subscription to the one I currently have and am not really looking to sign up to another anytime soon.

I was an early adopter of Spotify, mostly because it let me hear albums before I bought them, and with a free or very low cost Spotify account, it was worth it to do so.

TIDAL is a whole different kettle of fish however, and I don't think I will be subscribing to it. Apple or Sony or someone will have a highly competitive service out sooner or later, and that may not have some of the issues that TITDAL seems to have to me. I'll re-evaluate then.

-Paul

My wife just said to me ' I see everyone hates Tidal' and when I asked why do you think that is, she said because JayZ and co are conspiring to put the cost of listening to music up and profit from it....The press seem to have done a good job of trying to bury this FANTASTIC service.

This is just a difficult thing. On the one hand, the press is being vicious. On the other hand, this seems more and more like a money grab and f&*! the customer paying that $240 a year, as well as the small artists who are making music we want to hear. And understandably I suppose, the Jay-Z version may not spend time and effort courting classical or jazz artists for their music.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I want to extend my compliments to the author on an interesting and informative article/editorial well written. Thanks!

Tidal is a business and like any business the principal owners are interested in making a profit. This is no different than public corporations that typically have a primary interest to make money for their shareholders.

Here is a good article that raises some valid questions about the new Jay-Z run Tidal music streaming service.

Jay Z's New Music Streaming Service Tidal Has Many Flaws | The New Republic

Jay-Z is very good at presenting an image. The initial video clip released shows nothing more than all the artists involved walking into a Tidal round table meeting:

It's a clever video that creates hype and attracts the adoring masses to their favorite popular artists being shown. Most of the artists shown are the most popular and biggest selling artists within their genre and sub genre (note: U2 was not there likely due to ties to Apple) and we're told that 16 of them were each given a 3% stake in Tidal (Alicia Keys, Arcade Fire, Beyoncé, Calvin Harris, Chris Martin, Deadmau5, Daft Punk, Jack White, Jason Aldean, J. Cole, Jay Z, Kanye West, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Usher).

It is always the case that business owners put their own interests first above and beyond all others. Let's call it survival of the fittest. Jay-Z and his 16 co-owners are sure to benefit far more than any of the smaller artists being signed to Tidal, as they should since they are the owners.

Already, iOS purchasers of Tital will be dinged an extra 30% if their purchase is made via the Apple App store. This surcharge shows the business wars that are happening between corporations and will surely secure more money in the hands of Tidal owners and less in the hands of Apple with respect to Tidal subscriptions.

Star power seems to be at an all time high today. We see fashion designers using actors in their print advertisements instead of models. We see athletes being used in advertisements for soft drinks and watches. We see artists using their twitter accounts to advertise product to their millions of followers. Today, with Tidal, we are seeing musicians in the upper echelon of the music business selling us a music streaming service. This proposed message harkens back to the days when real music lovers were running record labels instead of accountants as is so common today. That era spawned a lot of fantastic music that mirrored a social consciousness. It was an era when art imitated life. That era of music still has the power to attract younger listeners of today because the messages they deliver still ring true. As much as Tidal's new ownership appears to be promoting music and artists, the artists representing Tidal appear to be more interested with life imitating art. If that is not true, with all the conflicts taking place in our world, where is all the protest music? It's rather incredible and disturbing.

Online digital music stores such as iTunes have existed for some time now with a specific model. Each $.99 song sold equates to about $.70 to $.75 for the record label, about $.15 to $.20 for Apple, with the remainder going to the artist. Popular established artists with large music sales of CDs have had the negotiating power to squeeze more than the 5 or 10 cents normally allotted to smaller artists. In the iTunes model, each unit sold to each customer directly compensates the artist. This is also true of the physical sales of CD and vinyl. This is NOT the case for streaming services.

The current streaming model offers subscribers the ability to stream an unlimited amount of music from a selection of millions of songs in the lossy mp3 format for $10 per month (Tidal now offers lossless for $20 per month). Billboard recently altered its charting rules to account for streamed content for charting purposes, where 1500 streams amounts to a purchase, thus affecting chart positions and influence on the general public.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/billboard-shift-streams-helps-ariana-hurts-industry-article-1.2041041

In an interesting case a band figured out how to make money from Spotify by streaming silence. The band released short clips of silence and asked fans to stream them repeatedly overnight.

How to make money from Spotify by streaming silence | Music | The Guardian

We have read many stories of the pittance of cash being paid to artists, even well known artists such as Barbra Streisand, via songs played by these streaming services. A few of these popular artists have chosen to pull their catalogs of music from these streaming services in protest. That is because the current streaming model does not make any economic sense for smaller artists and even some larger artists.

Currently there is no other business model to choose from in the streaming realm and most artists have no choice but to join rather than risk not joining and not be heard. Artists are not typically savvy business individuals able to weave the legalese of a binding contract and thus are taken advantage of often unaware.

The problem with streaming services is how the pool of money collected from subscribers is distributed to artists. All monthly fees paid by subscribers are lumped together to pay out artists based on total streams played by all subscribers. This model does not correlate with past models. If in a single month I use my $10 account to stream music from a single new artist I have discovered, my $10 should only compensate the single artist I listened to. This is similar to making a purchase of a physical product such as a CD. My $10 should not be used to pay artists that other subscribers have listened to but that is exactly what happens in the streaming model. This creates a huge and significant imbalance that favors popular artists.

To demonstrate, if a streaming service consists of only 2 subscribers and subscriber A only listens to 100 Led Zeppelin songs in a given month while subscriber B only listens to Britney Spears in a given month but listens to 10,000 songs, pooling total streams by all subscribers and pooling money from all subscribers creates a huge imbalance. Subscriber A only listened to Led Zeppelin and all of their $10 should be allotted to them. Likewise subscriber B only listed to Britney Spears and even though they listened 100 time more than subscriber A, $10 should only be allotted to Britney Spears. That is in fact what each subscriber used. Instead, the current streaming model would lump the $20 together and pay out to artists based on percentage of total streams. Therefore in the example given Led Zeppelin would be allotted about 1% of $20 whereas Britney Spears would be allotted 99% of the $20 collected from all subscribers!

Even if streams are tracked and paid out on subscriber by subscriber basis, another problem still exists. The traditional models of CD purchases and digital file purchases allow you to listen to a purchased product as much as you like. A payment for a CD or digital download means you own it and you are free to listen to only the music in that purchase as often as you wish. Comparatively, the streaming music model allows you to rent the entire music store for a monthly fee less than the price of a CD. As a subscriber you are free to listen as much as you like but the more you listen the smaller portion artists receive from your fraction of your monthly subscription price. In an environment where internet connections are uncapped and streaming services become more ubiquitous and more heavily used by each subscriber, the payout to all parties (record label, distributor, artist) diminishes with the artist suffering the most. Effectively, if a subscriber listens to more than one CD worth of music over the course of the month, the streaming model is putting less money in the artists' pockets than non streaming services.

The above examples demonstrate the problems with the current music streaming models and why smaller artists are doomed to be enslaved by it and become extinct because of it. Technology is advanced enough to track individual subscriber usage and pay out artists based on individual subscriber usage but that will not solve the problem. The music streaming model by design rewards popular artists in an unfair and unbalanced way.

It is no doubt convenient for a streaming subscriber to have a library of millions of songs at their fingertips for $10 or $20 dollars a month. However, the current structure of the music streaming model guarantees and ensures that only mainstream artists will flourish and smaller artists will not. This is not at all encouraging for music lovers who listen outside of the mainstream. In fact, when you break it down this way, it is a method of controlling the industry and the music within it by a select few.

TV

Lots of worries here, on all levels. Business model concerns, artist remuneration concerns, technical concerns, purpose of ownership concerns.

Let´s face it; the digital world has forever changed the music industry. Streaming services is probably the only way for artists and the music business to gain some control over their work and revenues.

Let´s give Tidal and the new owners a fair chance to prove themselves. I have been running Wimp HiFi/Tidal since November last year without a single glitch on my Aries (apart from the two days when they did the server changeover), and it seems as if Tidal are working hard to sort out the problems users in the US are facing. SQ is great, the music library is gigantic, and the ease of controlling it all from your pad is a gift to every lazy audiophile out there.

I love Tidal, and for the price of 20 USD a month, it´s a steal!

 

 

I love Tidal, and for the price of 20 USD a month, it´s a steal!

Probably not the best word to use to describe the streaming music model *s*

I personally think that what we are seeing is a scramble to find the next revenue stream (no pun intended) in the wild Wild West of digital music distribution. After seeing the amazing success of Apple with the iTunes store and the huge profit stream created by that near brilliant business model, everyone in the music biz seems to be scrambling to discover the "next big thing". Is the streaming music paradigm the one? If we look at the abyssmal bottom lines of the companies that have tried so far, it would appear to my uneducated eyes to be a dead end from a pure business model. Great for customers

(especially the ones that are not paying at ALL) but I just can not see it being a sustainable business plan with the main suppliers (the artists) not being able to make a real living by supplying the "product".

Actually the one I personally would put my money on would be the deceptively simple radio emulator, Pandora. Giving listeners the ability to start with an artist and have it play similar artists in the chosen genre along with the ability to purchase songs (on iTunes of course) and to tailor a station constantly makes it a win win for both artists and listeners alike. Perfect? No. They need to mix it up better than it is in its current state but I still feel like they could emerge as the prototype for digital music distribution moving forward.

As an aside, I notice this same model in a number of the better internet radio stations where they have "human curation" (I think they are called djs) that play music and when the cut plays the album art comes up and has a link to iTunes to purchase the song or album.

Assuming that the press conference was intended to create a strong impression and communicate TIDAL's vision, it seems the overwhelming emphasis was on pop music personality i.e. TIDAL = JayZ, Madona et al. OK. But that's not a vision that appeals to me. (btw, Interesting to contrast with PONO's vision. ) I'd pay extra for hi SQ and ease of use and huge library of all genres - including classical, experimental, jazz, indy. But that's not what I'm taking away from the promo/press/hype. To the contrary, I got the impression of prestige branding, like $250 personality-branded sneakers.

OK I'll add my two cents as well. For one, I would love to have about 5mins in a locked room with some of those journalists who did nothing but spew garbage from their pen about a service they probably havent even tried yet.

Rich celebrity this, rich celebrity that, blah, blah, blah! The fact of the matter is any audiophile worth his salt should be reaching deep into their dusty pockets to cough up the measley .67 cents a day required to enjoy a rather massive music catalog of better then average SQ that can also be taken with you on the go and refreshed as often as you wish. What's not to like!

BooHoo, I don't get to own the CD. Are people that naive to think that the resale value of said CD is even worth the cost of gas it takes to drive to the store and try to resell it years from now after you've worn it out. Wake up!

I say get all the celebrities and line them up as many times as required until all the competitors of Tidal are forced to follow their lead. It's about time the industry is finally deciding to take their head out of their asses and offer such a service with a massive catalog of content that isn't riddled full of .MP3 files.

In terms of the streaming hiccups some folks (including myself on occasion) experience with this brand new service I say give the company some time to work out the surprisingly few kinks they have. The reality is that it's not beyond reason to think that a streaming issue can be anyone's fault and not necessarily Tidals fault. Afterall, there could be literally 100's of network hops involved between you and the streaming service and any one of them could be to blame. I suspect those who have no concept of the technologies involved in deploying a large scale and fairly complex global project like this will have less tolerance then those who are familiar but in any event I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that things will get better in fairly short order.

Tidal, if your watching this thread maybe a possible option would be to make available some form of "Caching" App or Program that can be installed on the end user side to take any latency related issues out of the picture.

Maybe I have low standards but I'm satisfied with just Offline Mode personally.

Sort the delivery first and foremost, I ditched Tidal because of intermittent service. The hype around artists' support is chimera and won't deliver cashflow which is the lifeblood of these businesses. I may be wrong but Qobuz seems to be doing much better; I hope they win because I love that service.

Get off your high horse bro . I have damn good equipment and Tidal doesn't sound as good as a ripped cd .!

 

And never a streaming problem!? Congrats !

And why the anger- I was simply stating my opinion and i wasn't trying to 'diss you equipement but I never get dropouts pops crackles with/without Amarra Sq+ with SPOTIFY,BM,TIDAL HIFI , or Qobuz HIFI.

And I was simply pointing out some history to clarify what Jay-Z etal. are trying to do even if they don't realize it but I bet they do.

And by the way, I aint' your bro-I live in the 'wood' the Kenwood section of Oneida NY not the 'hood'

bobbmd

If you buy both new and used lps and CDs then the cost can certainly exceed that, BUT...YOU CAN RESELL THEM....

Unless you completely delete all your rip copies, by reselling CDs (i.e. your license to listen to those songs), you really are hurting the artist.

I was almost ready to sign up for Tidal. With Kanye involved. No deal, no dice, no way.

 

I'll listen to 45's played on my old machine with a steel needle, copied to 8-track, transcribed to cassette, and then converted digitally to 64k mp3 played on Beats headphones before I would send money to anything Kanye West is involved with.

Such hatred for such an eccentric but highly talented musician.

Unless you completely delete all your rip copies, by reselling CDs (i.e. your license to listen to those songs), you really are hurting the artist.

If I am selling the cd (which I never seem to get around to anyway) then it's because I don't listen to it and would of course delete the file also.

Unless you completely delete all your rip copies, by reselling CDs (i.e. your license to listen to those songs), you really are hurting the artist.

You lose your license, but whether you sell it or not, the musician in neither harmed nor damaged in any way. Same issue with selling used books, neither the author or the publisher gets a penny of that money in any case. Book authors have been raving for decades about getting income from used book sales, but the whole idea was, and still is, rather ridiculous. Even though I understand it and would sure be ticked to see a royalty check from used book sales.

-Paul

If any of these so called "artists" really cared about sound quality they would be making noise against the total lack of dynamic range in the music they're bringing to market. A lossy stream at a reasonable bit rate that wasn't compressed to have a DR in the single digits would sound better than the loudness war controlled drek streamed losslessly.

Listen to what Tom Petty has to say about DR on the HDA remasters of his catalog,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Hl_MQwc4qOE

As for Tital, read what a leading engineer in HRA has to say about it.

Audiophile Streaming Tidal & MQA | Real HD-Audio

There are things being done to improve the SQ of what we listen to and there are things being done only for the money.

As for me I'm a dinosaur, when I spend money for my music I want to own it. I have a couple thousand albums on my server, none less than flac cd rip quality. When I want to listen to whats new I turn on the radio for free or listen to something I heard about on youtube before buying it.

I'll consider a sub to Tital when they allow me to record the stream to my computers hd in no less than a lossless quality std file format.

You lose your license, but whether you sell it or not, the musician in neither harmed nor damaged in any way. Same issue with selling used books, neither the author or the publisher gets a penny of that money in any case. Book authors have been raving for decades about getting income from used book sales, but the whole idea was, and still is, rather ridiculous. Even though I understand it and would sure be ticked to see a royalty check from used book sales.

 

-Paul

Hi Paul,

My thought is around lost income. Since the potential customer, who would have purchased a new CD and supported the artist, is essentially taken away from supporting the artist by buying second hand. Now I realize that this pales in comparison with the volume of torrent/download/copy style theft of artist income, but it still hurts.

Cheers