Time To Dump Tidal? Bluesound / BlueOS Now Has Deezer HiFi

[psjug]

23 hours ago, blownsi said:

Since this is the same cost as Tidal Hifi, what's the advantage of Deezer?

For me, the Deezer apps are just much better than Tidal's.  My main gripe with Tidal is that they keep two different albums lists for "my music" and downloads, so that it is difficult to manage changing the downloads list on a phone from a large list of "my music" albums.

 

I have been using Deezer Elite/Hifi for about two years with a Sonos Connect.  It sounds great.  Someone gave me a Bluesound Node so yesterday I was listening to Deezer FLAC tracks on that and it sounds really great too.  No AB comparisons but I doubt I could tell the difference between the Sonos and Bluesound (I think I like Sonos controller software better).  I also did a trial of Tidal to check out MQA with the Bluesound and I thought that sounded fine too but nothing noticeably better than 16/44.

[psjug]

57 minutes ago, Rexp said:

Yes Deezer adds gaps to albums that are meant to be continuous which is a big no no, shame coz it sounds great. Does anyone know if it streams Flac via Chomecast, read it might?

The gapless problem with FLAC streams is only the Windows app, right?  I thought the Windows app was beta.  Maybe Deezer will fix this?

[psjug]

1 hour ago, Rexp said:

Premium also gaps on Andoid and Ios, needs fixing.

Since Abbey Road was mentioned, I checked this on Deezer Hifi playing with Sonos and Bluesound.  On both Sonos and Bluesound Deezer plays FLAC gapless just fine (Polythene Pam -> She Came in Through The Bathroom Window is seamless).

 

Premium is a different story.  Pretty typical for mp3 to play with gaps.  I doubt they will make Deezer Premium gapless.  Is Tidal Premium gapless?

[psjug]

7 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

 

 

The issue is definitely with Deezer's own client/player applications, rather than their online servers supplying the lossless audio files for streaming over the internet. As I pointed out in my previous post, Squeezebox players are able to play gaplessly with the same Deezer HiFi lossless audio file streams.

 

Deezer is in fact calling the windows app beta. Hopefully the gapless problem in that will get a fix.

[psjug]

8 minutes ago, jhwalker said:

 

I'm incredulous this is still an issue   At least 25% of the albums in my collection need to be played lossless to make any musical sense whatsoever - virtually all of the classical ones, for example.

 

Is there an official link for feedback anyone has found?

You can email [email protected] but my experience is they will just say they passed it on to the technical people.  There is a new Deezer Community forum that might be a better avenue: https://en.deezercommunity.com/

[psjug]

40 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

P.S. Yeah, BlueSound NODE2 works as a source too, but Chromecast Audio is so much cheaper...

The old Node works too.  As does sonos connect.  I agree these are expensive - especially if, like me, you are not using them for multiroom.  But still they are really great for listening through streaming services in a living room.  You'll never regret getting one of these things.

[psjug]

Has anyone looked at whether the Deezer Mac Desktop app is gapless?

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/16/deezer-app-mac-lossless-audio/

[psjug]

On 11/30/2017 at 10:25 PM, crenca said:

 

I have intermittent (for example, for a few minutes up to about an hour) where Tidal simply can not stream consistently.  A track might be ok for 30 seconds or so and then, nothing.  The desktop will tend to pause, whereas Roon will give that well known "track unavailable" error and skip to the next track (in vain).  sometimes (but only sometimes) this is cleared up by selecting another album.  For the first few months I had Tidal I thought I could correlate this behavior to high traffic times (evening, etc.) but the fact is this behavior can and does occur anytime.  I have ruled out application/device problems, bottlenecks in my network, upstream in my ISP, and general internet traffic.  Fortunately, this behavior is short lived most of the time (10, 20 minutes usually) otherwise I would just do 320 Spotify.

Probably you are already are doing this, but I solved a similar problem I was having with Deezer by changing QoS settings on my router, so that whatever device is used to stream music has highest priority.

[psjug]

On 11/20/2017 at 9:17 PM, SlimPickins said:

Roku has a Deezer channel now.

 

https://channelstore.roku.com/details/68610/deezer

Last night the battery was dead on my phone (my Sonos and Bluesound controller) so I decided to try the Deezer app on Roku.  It's very clean and functional.  The best music app for Roku that I've used.  It is mp3, but I think it could be flac if Deezer wanted this.  You can play 16/44 flac with Roku using Plex, so it seems doable.

[psjug]

1 hour ago, bobbmd said:

Does everyone dislike TIDAl b/o MQA and/or collective owners/investors or both?? Seems there is little more than meets the eye here.l just like the music and the ability /ease of making playlists and have them immediately transfer toA+3 and I️ like MQA. Why dump tidal for something else doesn’t really seem any better and Qobuz is infinitely better than either of them

These are not the reasons at all, speaking for just me.  Deezer apps and functionality are way better IMO.  Deezer is going for MQA also so it's not that.  I actually like to use a service with artist ownership like Tidal has, but I just don't like the Tidal service.

 

You might do a trial of Deezer and decide for yourself.  

[psjug]

15 minutes ago, bobbmd said:

@psjug I downloaded the beta desktop app for my mac mini and signed up for FLAC HiFi High Quality or whatever they call their best quality sound...

Thanks for the suggestion but it was a dud and I cancelled even the trial.

Fair enough.  I can't speak to your criticisms because for streaming I use Sonos and Bluesound at home and Android at work and in my car.  Never use the desktop apps. Also I never do playlists just play albums.  I found Tidal's management of downloads on their Android app to be the biggest turnoff for me.  

[psjug]

53 minutes ago, bobbmd said:

@psjugfair enough also- different systems different tastes nice hearing from you

Likewise.  I would like to try Qobuz but not available in USA as far as I know.

[psjug]

If you sign up for Qobuz using a VPN, can you then stream to the USA on a normal network?  Maybe I will see if that works.

[psjug]

The VPN thing worked for signing up for Qobuz.  I used a UK VPN to sign up.  Then disconnected the VPN and I can still stream in USA.  I will see if it works OK with bluesound tonight.

[psjug]

2 minutes ago, shadowlight said:

Which VPN did you use?

 

I used the UK Maidenhead one listed here http://freevpnaccess.com/

 

[psjug]

5 minutes ago, shadowlight said:

@psjug, thx

I am interested to hear if the workaround works for you.

[psjug]

3 hours ago, bobbmd said:

@psjug@shadowlight: Qobuz gave me a French address and a North American address of New France 

 

 

Ha Ha I live in New England I would love if we join Quebec/Canada and rebrand as New France!

[psjug]

Qobuz works great in USA once you do a workaround to sign up.  Sounds great on bluesound.  I don't know if I will go past the trial since I like Deezer and my Qobuz acct is not exactly legit, but Qobuz is cool.

[psjug]

On 12/7/2017 at 3:15 PM, synn said:

No one beats Spotify when it comes to selection, curated content or discovery.

 

This may be true; I don't know.  Deezer's catalog is pretty good but I am finding it to be missing some (fairly mainstream) albums that are available on other services.  With the exceptions of very obscure stuff or the stupid exclusives, you would think the catalogs of all the services would be about the same.  I think it will become that way over time.

[psjug]

7 minutes ago, synn said:

https://www.whathifi.com/news/tidal-in-trouble

 

Tidal might not be long for the world...

I think you have to wonder about of all of them except Apple, Google, Amazon.

[psjug]

I think Deezer sounds great on Bluesound. Also Deezer on bluesound plays gapless unlike Deezer's Windows app (unless Deezer has fixed that).

 

I will say that I find it slight;y annoying that the Deezer app is so different on various devices.  I expect some differences, but it would be nice if Deezer had some unified vision of basic appearance, menu structure, and nomenclature.

[psjug]

16 minutes ago, Melvin said:

 

I agree with you on the sound, but gapless is still lacking, at least from what I've heard myself. An example is this album:

 

 

The gap between tracks 3 & 4 is particularly noticeable. I've experienced the same with other recordings.

I checked this and indeed there was a problem.  It did not seem to be a gap though, more like the end of track 3 was cut off.  Also, the BluOS controller was showing 0 time remaining about half way through the track but then continued to play past 8 minutes.  And on Sonos the track was cut off at about 5 1/2 minutes. So I think it is some other issue with the track/album besides gapless. 

[psjug]

44 minutes ago, Melvin said:

The gap between tracks 3 & 4 is particularly noticeable. I've experienced the same with other recordings.

FWIW Qobuz on bluesound is having an even harder time with track 3.  It cut off after a little over a minute.  So I think the file is corrupted.

[psjug]

3 minutes ago, Melvin said:

Last I remember reading on the topic was Deezer uses cross-fading to somewhat mitigate the issue.

I could be wrong, but I thought the complaints about cross fading were for the lower tier service with MP3.

[psjug]

44 minutes ago, psjug said:

FWIW Qobuz on bluesound is having an even harder time with track 3.  It cut off after a little over a minute.  So I think the file is corrupted.

Hmm, everything I try to play on Qobuz right now is cutting off and skipping (maybe my Qobuz trial ended?)  So the above doesn't mean anything.  Deezer seems to be playing OK in general though, so I still think track 3 on the Haden/Barron: Night and The City album is messed up.