Article: The TIDAL HIFI Revolution Starts Today

[Fridolin]

Tidal is the same as WIMP in Europe - right?

If so, you could get disappointed.

 

Here is a list of albums (textfile) that can't be played in HiFi quality although promised by WIMPs advertisement. I compiled the list in the last few weeks and there are tons of other albums that aren't playable in HiFi.

 

In WIMP's Mac-App (and the iPad-App) you can detect NonHifi albums when the little HiFi logo is grayed out.

 

It would be nice if someone could check if this is true for Tidal, too.

 

Thanks

Fred

[bobbmd]

Has anyone tried Tidal through Pure Music 2's Playthrough feature?

 

i disinstalled PM after a year of crackles pops hisses every few songs using Qobuz and BeatsMusic/in addition PM and 'playthrough mode' started crashing every 15" to 1/2 hr of listening-IMHO it was a waste of 130$

Amaara SQ has none of these problems with either Qobuz or now TIDAL( for last 3 days).

[alice]

Waiting for tidal to come to roll or at least plex.

[robcentola]

Wow, this is amazing. Some of this sounds so good! Discovering so much. Once they get more content, it will be unstoppable! I thought MOG was good, but this is a whole new level for me. LOVING IT!

[flatmap]

[...]

Here is a list of albums (textfile) that can't be played in HiFi quality although promised by WIMPs advertisement. I compiled the list in the last few weeks and there are tons of other albums that aren't playable in HiFi. [...]

 

Thanks, Fred.

 

I checked 5 or 6 of these and found that they were also grayed out in the US offering. I'm keeping track of how many low resolution titles show up in my own musical selections, now.

 

I wonder if these items will be ultimately be upgraded to full resolution? Has Wimp/Tidal made any statement on this?

[Fridolin]

Thanks, Fred.

 

I checked 5 or 6 of these and found that they were also grayed out in the US offering. I'm keeping track of how many low resolution titles show up in my own musical selections, now.

 

I wonder if these items will be ultimately be upgraded to full resolution? Has Wimp/Tidal made any statement on this?

 

I can only speak of WIMP.

I contacted their service several times and spoke with their staff at the latest HighEnd show in Munich/Germany but with no success. They are not interested in updating their "LoFi" files to "HiFi" as it seems. Their advertising says "All is HiFi", however.

 

Besides the fact that so many albums are NonHiFi, there are countless albums that simply are not playable at all because they don't have the license to play them, but are listed in their library. No wonder that they have 25 million titles, but i doubt the numbers seriously.

 

The tragic is, many of the missing/NonHiFi titles are those that are interesting for the audiophile. I think HipHop music is available completely in HiFi.

[clipper]

I have Tidal playing now thru JPlay using the JRiver MC 20 WDM driver. I think your problem is trying to use the Xtreme mode of JPlay which is not supported for streaming (only for local playback). In Win 7 try River or Beach. In Win 8 Ultrastream works the best. I have both a Win 7/32 and a Win 8/64 machine and have tested it on both and works great at these settings. Also, make sure that JRiver MC 20 is updated. There were some problems reported with the first build to have the WDM driver. Good luck!!

 

2 pc JPlay setup here (control pc and audio pc) and a USB DAC. I'm trying to play Tidal using the JRiver WDM driver, but I am getting stuttering and skipping, especially at the beginning of tracks. It sounds really good when it's not stuttering and skipping.

 

I have tried changing almost every conceivable option in the JPlay settings (engine, buffers) and JRiver audio device settings (buffers, live playback latency) and I can't figure it out.

 

Any ideas? Thanks...

[blaven]

LIKES:

--Lots of new music at fingertips (just listened to 2 full Vangelis albums I will be buying to rip) in better quality than other streaming stuff

--good sound vs Spotify and Pandora

--my 5year-old's One Direction songs were almost tolerable in lossless compared to how they sound on Spotify and my usual iTunes 128kbs downloads

 

DISLIKES:

--does not seem to do gapless -- I get a 1s pause between tracks, annoying with atmospheric stuff like Vangelis

--no remote app that I can find to control it on my MBP

--sound quality, while very nice, is not as good as ripped AIFF through A+/iTunes integrated mode (so now I am buying the 2 aforementioned Vangelis CDs to RIP them -- kinda kills the point (note-- Diana Krall Temptation still sounded awesome, although that would sound good on anything)

 

I will continue the 1 month trial, but not so sure will continue.

 

Some stuff sounds great, other stuff, clearly not as good as AIFF CD Rip through A+

[Tnewell]

2 pc JPlay setup here (control pc and audio pc) and a USB DAC. I'm trying to play Tidal using the JRiver WDM driver, but I am getting stuttering and skipping, especially at the beginning of tracks. It sounds really good when it's not stuttering and skipping.

 

I have tried changing almost every conceivable option in the JPlay settings (engine, buffers) and JRiver audio device settings (buffers, live playback latency) and I can't figure it out.

 

Any ideas? Thanks...

 

I am getting the same stuttering and skipping at the beginning of each track. I was thinking it was a problem with Tidal but I am thinking now it's a problem with the J River WDM driver. I am not using JPlay, just the latest version of J River 20.

 

Please post if you figure it out.

 

Tom

[findog3103]

Does anyone know if you can import playlists from spotify?

[sjohnson]

I tried PM 1.89 but need to do some more troubleshooting. Got it working but am experiencing intermittent pops etc. Went back to using the Tidal mac client with no issues there for me. I tried it on a Yosemite partition so may try Mavericks that is relatively clean still. Don't know if 2.0 would change the results but maybe will try a demo version.

 

Also tried Amarra sQ but that has never worked for me and Sonic Studio has not responded to my support request on that which does not do anything to lessen my growing frustration with them. The issue is sQ intermittently screeches. Amarra and other uses of my Metric Halo DAC do not have issues during playback once you get playback going ie the ongoing problems with loading files into the playlist from my SDXC card file source.

 

Anyway, my initial impression so far (including with PM Playthrough) is that Tidal music sounds good but not on par with playing my ripped files via my sw players. More discussion and digging is needed to see if and how the playback sound quality can be optimized further. Am glad to see from Chris's post that it's showing bit perfect. Really like the selection ie catalog so I'm planning on continuing my subscription.

 

Best,

 

Steve

 

 

After getting things more stable with playing through Amarra sQ I found sQ to elevate the sound quality noticeably over the Tidal mac client. I put the sQ player on a fresh Yosemite install and updated DAC drivers to get better stability. Now any infrequent dropouts seem to have been on Tidal's end or with my cable provider. I can't say it sounds quite as good as my own rips played via Amarra Symphony in playlist mode but it's close enough to really enjoy it. That in mind it was really cool to listen to new artists, tracks, and albums with great sound while just hanging out. I'm sure as I find albums I really like I'll occasionally buy the CD so don't see totally giving up on my music collection either.

 

And for now the network connection is via ethernet directly off the cable modem. The old airport extreme's wifi is not up to it.

[Account Closed]

Hi Chris, Could you please start a new thread for "Tidal Streaming Problems" and use your pull with them to get them to monitor it. I see here that several people (including me) have had streaming issues since the rollout. I have submitted a support request on it but it is not yet resolved. Maybe a thread here would give them a better idea of where the difficulty lies. Thanks, Bob

 

PS: I suspect that they are overwhelming their server capacity but that is just a guess.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Chris, Could you please start a new thread for "Tidal Streaming Problems" and use your pull with them to get them to monitor it. I see here that several people (including me) have had streaming issues since the rollout. I have submitted a support request on it but it is not yet resolved. Maybe a thread here would give them a better idea of where the difficulty lies. Thanks, Bob

 

PS: I suspect that they are overwhelming their server capacity but that is just a guess.

A and you shall receive -> http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f22-networking-networked-audio-and-streaming/official-tidal-hifi-streaming-issues-thread-22260/

[Account Closed]

Thanks

[bobbmd]

CHRIS: Very nice intro to TIDAL. I was a 'VIP' subscriber, and signed on with a paid subscription the minute i was notified yet was only given 7 days- was this a bait and switch? Today i got an email that 'time was running out for me to subscribe and get 30 days FREE.

Their SQ is outstanding-TIDAL may even sound 'better' than Qobuz BUT they don't have the QUANTITY they claim. For example if i type in RHINO RECORDS to Qobuz (search) it returns 65000 songs 5200 albums and 139 artists-I am listening now to a playlist of those 65000+ songs. Do the same with TIDAL and you get almost NOTHING.Same goes for a lot of individual artists I do not get get but few albums, no cover albums or similar artists like i do with Qobuz. Do you think this a start up problem and will be resolved by TIDAL. I am going to use both services and hope Qobuz survives its financial problems as so far aside from SQ it offers more than TIDAL.(mac mini(OS X YOSEMITE) i7 16GB/amarra SQ/schiit gungnir)

bobbmd

[jiminlogansquare]

I am a fan of TIDAL, although I have not been able to try Qobuz, so there may be a better alternative out there. Anyway, here are the reasons I am really enjoying my 30-day free trial of TIDAL:

 

1. A curated library. I understand the desire to have access to any and every recording, but I also enjoy being presented with a focused library of curated music choices selected by people with taste and opinions. I might ultimately not agree with their taste and/or opinions, but for now I am glad that they have them and that they are there. This is the reason I subscribe to Downbeat and other magazines that review music; I literally could never find time to listen to it all, nor could I afford to buy it all. I like the curated music libraries TIDAL is providing, even if they are of course vastly limited compared to the entire universe of recorded music.

 

2. The ability to play through Amarra SQ. If you are using the TIDAL application on a Mac (as I am) and have Amarra SQ on that Mac (as I do), then you can send the music from TIDAL through the filter of Amarra SQ before it hits your DAC, amp, and speakers. This is a great thing to have. I also have Amarra/Dirac IRC(b), and I have made filters from the particular acoustics of my listening room and the output of my speakers. Although Amarra SQ does not allow me to import those Dirac filters, it is possible to roughly simulate them by using the parametric curves in Amarra SQ to pump up or tamp down the swaths of the frequency band that are under- or over-emphasized by the native amplification/speaker/room combination -- i.e., to roughly apply the same corrections that Dirac IRC(b) is doing for me when I listen to music through Amarra/iTunes. That is all a long way of saying that by playing around a little bit with these software applications, I've been able to combine them with TIDAL in a way that results in FANTASTIC sound quality in my listening chair. So, while YMMV a lot if you don't use Amarra with IRC(b) (or full Amarra Symphony with IRC full version), for those who do, consider signing up for TIDAL. I am kind of glad I did.

[ChrisG]

I've been using it on my Sonos for some time. If you don't see it as a Sonos app, I'm sure it will be there soon.

 

Chris - I'm curious, how are you using Tidal on Sonos? Since there is no app yet (but they say it is coming), are you using line-in on one of the zone players? BTW, for Linn owners, Tidal works great with Songcast.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Chris - I'm curious, how are you using Tidal on Sonos? Since there is no app yet (but they say it is coming), are you using line-in on one of the zone players? BTW, for Linn owners, Tidal works great with Songcast.

Im using a little trick that I'm not sure if I can divulge.

[goldband]

Ive been using Tidal for about a week and I am totally disappointed:

 

* Many tracks that they 'appear' to have, actually fail to play in the Chrome browser player. They play in the downloaded Wndows app though

* I am using Win 8.1 and Jriver media player for my main music, using my Mtek DSD DAC. In Tidal, I selected 'Jriver' as the output device-- which I think is the DLNA renderer. In any case, it does play through the DAC and the rest of my system (Wyred4 sound ST1000, wilson sophia).

* The most cursory comparison tests with music I have on my server in 192/96 or CD Flac format shows me the Tidal versions are unlistenably bad. There are many gaps and skips, but worse, the sound is grainy and awful. Yes I have Tidal set to 'hi fi' and I have really good internet connectivity. If this is their hifi they are really in trouble.

[Fridolin]

Ive been using Tidal for about a week and I am totally disappointed:

 

* The most cursory comparison tests with music I have on my server in 192/96 or CD Flac format shows me the Tidal versions are unlistenably bad. There are many gaps and skips, but worse, the sound is grainy and awful. Yes I have Tidal set to 'hi fi' and I have really good internet connectivity. If this is their hifi they are really in trouble.

 

Did you check the HiFi-icon right of the progress bar in their app (Mac app in my case)?

If it's not highlighted (bold) but greyed out they play a LoFi version of the album.

 

For my musical taste there are often more LoFi albums available than HiFi albums. An example: The artist Friend 'N Fellow appears with 10 albums where only one album plays in HiFi, the rest (90%) is LoFi only.

 

Could it be you ran into this trap?

[simmobb2]

£19.99 per month in the UK, that's about $32.00! Good luck selling that proposition then! I tried the 7 day trial and, tbh, not that impressed. SQ is OK but at that price I don't really think it's going to sell.

[flatmap]

* Many tracks that they 'appear' to have, actually fail to play in the Chrome browser player. They play in the downloaded Wndows app though

Goldband, would you mind sharing one of the tracks that works in the app, but not Chrome? Would love to try the same experiment on my setup. Generally for me, (on Mac OS), Chrome is the far better option. But perhaps Windows has the better App!

[Account Closed]

I am very disappointed with the Tidal rollout! It has been a parade of server issues, buggy Windows Desktop App and mostly average to poor audio quality. I have done every test I could. I compared albums in my CD collection, on my hard drive and on Qobuz against the same on Tidal and Tidal is always the poorest sound quality. I really wish they would have waited until they could really get it right and properly scaled up. This is likely to set back lossless streaming for a while if enough people are having the same problems and I suspect that they are from reading the Tidal Streaming issues thread here on CA. I don't think that their conversion rate after the free trial period will be very high if they don't fix this fast and be very upfront with people about what the problem is and what they are doing to resolve it. Unfortunately they proving the naysayers right and that is very sad indeed.

[findog3103]

I am actually liking Tidal. I have tried Spotify, Beats and MOG. Though I have a soft spot in my heart for MOG as the interface was very easy for new releases and lots of choices, I have found Tidal to sound great on my iPad, iPhone, computer and main system with hardly any glitches. Come on, for less than the price of two album downloads, it's worth it.

[pga]

i installed their app on my Mac and it sounds excellent. Not much more to say.