Tidal hi-fi vs CD rips....My opinion

[tboooe]

tboooe

1m

So last night I compared some Tidal albums with the same ones I have in my CD collection ripped to uncompressed FLAC. I will say Tidal sounds pretty good. The big difference I hear is Tidal songs have more a digital edge to them. I won't call them bright but there is definitely more high freq energy than my CD rips. I notice I can't listen to music at the same volumes. The other big difference I hear is in vocals. My rips have a fuller, more 3d image. Tidal by comparison has a flatter presentation with vocals. This makes me wonder if the regular quality service would be any different than Tidal hi-fi? Has anyone compared?

[audiventory]

Tboooe,

 

I'm not sure that there fully identical binary content. May be the stream service have other sources, than your CDs? As example, converted from masters other software or remastered.

[smartin]

I had an undergraduate student do a project on this last year. Of the 95 songs compared (only one song per album was used), 91 were bit identical to available CD. The others were clearly from different sources(though not necessarily worse, in blind testing it was 2-2 for what version was preferred, but only by the tiniest of margins in each case). She attempted to find the source for the Tidal version, but neither Tidal, nor the label responded.

 

Songs were not selected randomly, it was based on what CDs she, her friends, myself, and others in the department had readily available. So, the sample may not be representative, but given the variety of music, and the fact that they were purchased by multiple people, I would say the selection was psuedo-random.

 

Since a vast majority are bit-identical, any perceived difference could only be due to network errors in the stream, or bias.

[audiventory]

Since a vast majority are bit-identical, any perceived difference could only be due to network errors in the stream, or bias.

 

I suppose, what unrecognized network errors have significantly lower probability, than CD reading errors.

[Rexp]

tboooe

1m

So last night I compared some Tidal albums with the same ones I have in my CD collection ripped to uncompressed FLAC. I will say Tidal sounds pretty good. The big difference I hear is Tidal songs have more a digital edge to them. I won't call them bright but there is definitely more high freq energy than my CD rips. I notice I can't listen to music at the same volumes. The other big difference I hear is in vocals. My rips have a fuller, more 3d image. Tidal by comparison has a flatter presentation with vocals. This makes me wonder if the regular quality service would be any different than Tidal hi-fi? Has anyone compared?

 

Try buying the same master as a Tidal download in FLAC and comparing it to your rip,

[tboooe]

Try buying the same master as a Tidal download in FLAC and comparing it to your rip,

 

Super dumb question...how do I purchase an album in Tidal. I've just looked through the site and software and I dont see a way to do this.

 

EDIT...have to go to tidal.com/store

[Rexp]

Yes not dumb question at all , Tidal dont make it easy..pretty dumb of Tidal..

[realhifi]

Yes not dumb question at all , Tidal dont make it easy..pretty dumb of Tidal..

 

They definitely need to fix that. Being able to easily purchase an album would make the artists happy happy.

But......Bon Jovi's latest in flac...$25.19? Ouch. Guess that house IS for sale.

[Ralf11]

I had an undergraduate student do a project on this last year. Of the 95 songs compared (only one song per album was used), 91 were bit identical to available CD. The others were clearly from different sources(though not necessarily worse, in blind testing it was 2-2 for what version was preferred, but only by the tiniest of margins in each case). She attempted to find the source for the Tidal version, but neither Tidal, nor the label responded.

 

Songs were not selected randomly, it was based on what CDs she, her friends, myself, and others in the department had readily available. So, the sample may not be representative, but given the variety of music, and the fact that they were purchased by multiple people, I would say the selection was psuedo-random.

 

Since a vast majority are bit-identical, any perceived difference could only be due to network errors in the stream, or bias.

 

what dept.?

 

and do you have access to a nice listening room in the music dept.? it could be stuffed full of students for a double blind listening test...

[witchdoctor]

I had an undergraduate student do a project on this last year. Of the 95 songs compared (only one song per album was used), 91 were bit identical to available CD. The others were clearly from different sources(though not necessarily worse, in blind testing it was 2-2 for what version was preferred, but only by the tiniest of margins in each case). She attempted to find the source for the Tidal version, but neither Tidal, nor the label responded.

 

Songs were not selected randomly, it was based on what CDs she, her friends, myself, and others in the department had readily available. So, the sample may not be representative, but given the variety of music, and the fact that they were purchased by multiple people, I would say the selection was psuedo-random.

 

Since a vast majority are bit-identical, any perceived difference could only be due to network errors in the stream, or bias.

 

What a GREAT project and fantastic post, thank you.

[George Hincapie]

CD Rips using Exact Copy from my Synology NAS over NightHawk WIFI to my Auralic Aries with femto clocks are noticeably better than Tidal HIFI.