Tidal - Oh No

[MarkS]

[GUTB]

Sounds like fake news.

[Alan B]

Good riddance.....

 

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

[Rt66indierock]

4 minutes ago, GUTB said:

Sounds like fake news.

 

It was reported first by Norway's Today's Business. Not surprising last June Norway Today reported unpaid taxes and had confirmation from the taxing authorities in Norway.

[GUTB]

Just now, Rt66indierock said:

 

It was reported first by Norway's Today's Business. Not surprising last June Norway Today reported unpaid taxes and had confirmation from the taxing authorities in Norway.

 

Well that puts the story in better light. AT&T is invested in them though and they have big assets, they won’t die easily.

[Rt66indierock]

Just now, GUTB said:

 

Well that puts the story in better light. AT&T is invested in them though and they have big assets, they won’t die easily.

 

Aren't you thinking Sprint? 

[GUTB]

Just now, Rt66indierock said:

 

Aren't you thinking Sprint? 

 

Lol maybe...don’t know why I was thinking AT&T.

[rickca]

If TIDAL disappears, what does MQA do?

[Rt66indierock]

1 minute ago, rickca said:

If TIDAL disappears, what does MQA do?

 

For MQA it means there may few ways to listen to MQA music files in the United States. It will be pretty hard to sell MQA DACs and that means the royalty stream they were counting on will not happen.

[PeterSt]

FWIW, this is what I wrote on Oct 23 (2017) :

 

The last time someone at Tidal did not answer more than one email from me for many months, he had left the building.

Are you still there, or ? ...

I hope so !

 

So last time the person of concern responded was March 16 2017. First time without answer was May 8.

Never heard anything since. So he too must have left the building ...

 

I could add that my last questions (from Oct 19) were about whether a means I use (in XXHighEnd) to quickly decode a track of an MQA album in order to see some kind of "state" would not bring the artist too much money (the album/track is not played for real but it will look like that) or IOW Tidal may lose on such a process (which could be illegal)). The fact that that already never was responded to, speaks (sort of).

 

Anyway, I guess I saw this coming and was waiting for a good moment to tell about this.

That is today.

 

 

 

 

 

[Indydan]

I am still within my 90 day free trial for Tidal's Hifi tier. I got the free trial when I bought my Naim network player. I rather like Tidal now that I have experienced it. It would certainly be a bummer if they closed shop.

 

My network player also has Spotify access. I hope Spotify eventually offers a CD quality Hifi tier themselves. I would sign up immediately (especially if there is no more Tidal).

 

[rickca]

5 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

For MQA it means there may few ways to listen to MQA music files in the United States. It will be pretty hard to sell MQA DACs and that means the royalty stream they were counting on will not happen.

Exactly.  Without TIDAL, MQA really has no distribution.  There are now a lot of DAC manufacturers who have implemented MQA that are dependent on TIDAL for a return on their investment.  MQA needs to keep TIDAL alive.  The labels who have invested in MQA need to keep TIDAL alive.  With so many stakeholders, I don't see TIDAL going away unless one of the other streaming services picks up MQA distribution.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, rickca said:

Exactly.  Without TIDAL, MQA really has no distribution.  There are now a lot of DAC manufacturers who have implemented MQA that are dependent on TIDAL for a return on their investment.  MQA needs to keep TIDAL alive.  The labels who have invested in MQA need to keep TIDAL alive.  With so many stakeholders, I don't see TIDAL going away unless one of the other streaming services picks up MQA distribution.

I don't think MQA has the money to keep Tidal alive. What makes you think MQA has serious money. All indications are that it doesn't.  It basically has a private family investment backing it. Doubt they will be willing to invest multiple tens of millions in Tidal. 

 

Sprint and the record labels invested in Tidal could keep it afloat if they see it as a revenue producer in the future. 

[rickca]

5 minutes ago, firedog said:

I don't think MQA has the money to keep Tidal alive. What makes you think MQA has serious money. All indications are that it doesn't.  It basically has a private family investment backing it. Doubt they will be willing to invest multiple tens of millions in Tidal. 

 

Sprint and the record labels invested in Tidal could keep it afloat if they see it as a revenue producer in the future. 

I only said that MQA needs to keep TIDAL alive.  I didn't say MQA had to be the source of capital.

[realhifi]

That would be a big loss to the Music community. 

[jcbenten]

Record labels might keep it alive as a means to re-sell the same music over and, in the future, implement DRM.  As for Sprint, at some point the investment becomes a sunk cost and walking away is the way to go.

[Samuel T Cogley]

Remember the big Tidal rollout after Jay Z purchased it?  #TIDALforALL

 

We were all supposed to love Tidal because these "important" artists were finally getting paid for streaming!

 

As a Tidal subscriber myself, I would have panicked at the news of Tidal's demise 6 months ago.  But now, I'm ready to let it go.  Mostly because the UMG audible watermarking infects the majority of classical music on Tidal.  Why pay extra for lossless if it's clearly compromised?

 

I haven't seen anyone in the thread point out that Roon's fate is moderately linked to Tidal's fate.  Personally, I have way less use for Roon without Tidal.  Audirvana+ and JRiver should be more than enough.

 

Perhaps Bob Stuart's wife can buy Tidal.  Losing money seems to be a thing with Bob, and it seems his heiress wife is only too happy to enable him.

 

 

 

 

[james45974]

5 hours ago, rickca said:

MQA needs to keep TIDAL alive.  The labels who have invested in MQA need to keep TIDAL alive.

Having to rely on record label buffoons and MQA to keep Tidal alive is a scary thought! (disclosure, I don't use streaming)

[james45974]

2 hours ago, realhifi said:

That would be a big loss to the Music community. 

actually, not really, there are other options available.  

[mav52]

within this link  it notes that Tidal is making money https://thebusinessoftech.wordpress.com/tag/tidal/

 

I wonder how much Tidal is paying these celebrities that endorsed Tidal. or is Jay Z using the money to further build his empire.

[Charente]

It might do Qobuz a great favour ...esp following the recent announcement of official US release

[firedog]

2 hours ago, realhifi said:

That would be a big loss to the Music community. 

I could always switch to another service. My issue would be lack of integration with Roon. That integration is one of the main reasons I like both programs. 

[Musicophile]

38 minutes ago, Charente said:

It might do Qobuz a great favour ...esp following the recent announcement of official US release

Do you have a link to this announcement? I wasn't aware of it.

[Charente]

4 minutes ago, Musicophile said:

Do you have a link to this announcement? I wasn't aware of it.

 

Announcement reported by AFP ...

https://www.rtbf.be/culture/pop-up/detail_qobuz-prepare-son-arrivee-aux-etats-unis?id=9772232

 

... in French, however.

[Rt66indierock]

43 minutes ago, mav52 said:

within this link  it notes that Tidal is making money https://thebusinessoftech.wordpress.com/tag/tidal/

 

I wonder how much Tidal is paying these celebrities that endorsed Tidal. or is Jay Z using the money to further build his empire.

 

The actual number for 2015 are a loss of $28 million and in 2016 a loss of $44 million.