Tidal - Oh No

[Samuel T Cogley]

7 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Hmmm I am listening with Hugo2 > Sennheiser HD800S headphones (Macbook and Hugo2 both on batteries) and can't hear this fluttering noise.

 

I need to find a copy of this album that isn't claimed to be watermarked,  to be able to compare.

 

Can you recommend a digital download for this album that you believe doesn't have this fluttering?

 

 

I don't have one.  I was thinking about getting a copy of the CD, but just thinking about it.

[AudioDoctor]

7 hours ago, hagensieker said:

It'll be a sad day for me to see Tidal go away.  One thing I really enjoy about Tidal is it integrates with LogitechMediaServer in which I am heavily invested (and by that I just mean my home has about a zillion Raspberry Pi and Mac Mini LMS servers with Squeezelite clients).  I love the LMS platform.

 

I almost never listen to the Mac app that has the MQA but every once in a while I check it out.

 

One thing I have picked up on this thread is that several have mentioned the price of Tidal.  As a veteran I pay $11 and change a month for Tidal.  I'm certain I'm not the only person in this thread who is probably a veteran. 

 

I also have Spotify and for months I have toyed around with dropping one or the other.  I'd have gladly dropped Spotify but my college aged daughter uses it almost non stop so I'm glad I haven't dumped it.   Spotify's music library is a little deeper I think for some of the kinds of music I like to listen to. 

 

Anyway I hope Tidal rides the storm out and survives. 

 

You're not.

[Samuel T Cogley]

12 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Hmmm I am listening with Hugo2 > Sennheiser HD800S headphones (Macbook and Hugo2 both on batteries) and can't hear this fluttering noise.

 

I need to find a copy of this album that isn't claimed to be watermarked,  to be able to compare.

 

Can you recommend a digital download for this album that you believe doesn't have this fluttering?

 

 

Try the first ten seconds of track one of this:

 

https://listen.tidal.com/album/5387443

 

It's pretty obvious.

[PeterSt]

17 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

https://listen.tidal.com/album/5387443

 

It's pretty obvious.

 

Has, or has not ?

[Samuel T Cogley]

4 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Has, or has not ?

 

The watermark is obvious in the first ten seconds.  Like I said, headphones help a lot.

[PeterSt]

Just now, Samuel T Cogley said:

The watermark is obvious in the first ten seconds. 

 

Thanks. I asked because the question was for without.

 

Quote

Can you recommend a digital download for this album that you believe doesn't have this fluttering?

 

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

3 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Can you recommend a digital download for this album that you believe doesn't have this fluttering?

 

Sorry, don't know where lossless content found on Tidal can be downloaded elsewhere.

 

Besides, I think you would need a CD rip to be sure.  UMG is watermarking all of their content found on the internet (though perhaps not MQA). I'm thinking UMG is not going to go through the expense of remastering/repressing catalog titles (CDs) just to put the watermarks there.  So older CDs are likely a great place to look for non-compromised comparison examples.

[miguelito]

On 12/14/2017 at 4:41 AM, rickca said:

Without TIDAL, MQA really has no distribution.

Yeap. Maybe Deezer will become a replacement for TIDAL? I am a Roon user so TIDAL is pretty critical in my system.

 

On 12/14/2017 at 4:41 AM, rickca said:

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. 

MQA is busy trying to squeeze every penny out of the music ecosystem. They don't have the money to support something like TIDAL.

 

On 12/14/2017 at 4:41 AM, rickca said:

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 disagree about the labels. They have made little to no investment, they have just covered their bottoms in case MQA takes off, saying you support MQA is basically an (almost) free option.

 

If TIDAL folds I will be very very sorry.

[realhifi]

1 hour ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

The watermark is obvious in the first ten seconds.  Like I said, headphones help a lot.

Beautiful recording  Don't hear that "watermark" but listening on a stereo not headphones.

Plus I'm listening through Roon and I hear that they deactivate watermarks.

[Samuel T Cogley]

2 hours ago, realhifi said:

Beautiful recording  Don't hear that "watermark" but listening on a stereo not headphones.

Plus I'm listening through Roon and I hear that they deactivate watermarks.

 

Me too, and I hear the watermarks through Roon.  Where did you hear that Roon "fixes" the watermarks?

 

[Rexp]

13 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Try the first ten seconds of track one of this:

 

https://listen.tidal.com/album/5387443

 

It's pretty obvious.

Agreed it is obvious, a kind of reverberation on the piano.

 

You can download the album here:http://tidal.com/my/store/album/2497378

 

[realhifi]

14 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Me too, and I hear the watermarks through Roon.  Where did you hear that Roon "fixes" the watermarks?

 

 

That’s a joke, ah say that’s a joke son.

 

[loop7]

On 12/14/2017 at 6:44 PM, MarkS said:

The impact on Roon is what worries me most. I’m now listening 100% Ethernet, so Roon is key for me. 

 

And Spotify will never agree to link with Roon, so even if Spotify implements hi res or MQA, it might be hard to feed to my dac and will assuredly lack Roon’s DSP. 

 

The ripple effects are bad for audiophiles. Seems to evidence dramatically that we really are a tiny niche market ?

Agree.

 

If for some reason TIDAL failed completely, it would be disruptive and definitely impact Roon. As Roon user in my second year, I'm not sure I would be willing to pay as much if a lossless streaming service were not integrated. Tough call because I can't imagine not using Roon at this point.

 

[Melvin]

This short article on The Verge suggests Tidal has been busy behind the scenes (i.e., expanding service):

 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16801320/tidal-tv-apple-android-apps-music-streaming-video

[tapatrick]

1 hour ago, Melvin said:

This short article on The Verge suggests Tidal has been busy behind the scenes (i.e., expanding service):

 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16801320/tidal-tv-apple-android-apps-music-streaming-video

Good news, also on Roon forum the negative news about Tidal is challenged by moderators as being distorted. 

[tapatrick]

On 12/14/2017 at 3:03 AM, Alan B said:

Good riddance.....

 

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

Why?

[Tsarnik]

On 12/15/2017 at 6:04 PM, Sonicularity said:

 

For new CDs, might these be watermarked too?  

 

Probably just being paranoid, but I noticed this blurb in a recent job posting for a marketing assistant at UMG:

 

• Keeping diligent track of watermarked cd’s, both production of and tracking.

 

https://jobs.jobvite.com/universalmusicgroup/job/oDJw6fwI

@Miska @mansr @FredericV

Did you acknowledge this book yet?

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811042881

Maybe in 10 years from now audiophiles will have stopped talking about delivery formats, reconstruction filters and room correction. The real worry by then might have become the quality of the watermarks used... besides DR and mastering, of course.

 

[Tsarnik]

23 hours ago, Tsarnik said:

@Miska @mansr @FredericV

Did you acknowledge this book yet?

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811042881

Maybe in 10 years from now audiophiles will have stopped talking about delivery formats, reconstruction filters and room correction. The real worry by then might have become the quality of the watermarks used... besides DR and mastering, of course.

 

How to paste an URL...?

That one went terribly wrong, obviously!

Here comes the full one, typed on mobile:

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811042881

[buonassi]

On 12/18/2017 at 12:52 PM, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Try the first ten seconds of track one of this:

 

https://listen.tidal.com/album/5387443

 

It's pretty obvious.

Wow is it ever.  I'm using pretty resolving headphones and headamp, but it is not something I need to strain to hear.  It is very apparent.

 

This is what watermarking sounds like?  It is present in other areas of the track, not just the first 10 seconds - lower registers of the piano as it sustains seem to be the "tell".  Fluttering of the wave form is a perfect way to describe this.  Are you sure this isn't just a recording anomaly?  I've heard this before and just chalked it up to recording or master tape flutter.

[Tsarnik]

On Friday, December 15, 2017 at 11:49 PM, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Here's a real user impression for you:

 

I've been a Tidal subscriber since before the Jay Z acquisition.  I've never been a fan of the Tidal Desktop App (although admittedly it has improved a little) and I'm perhaps less critical of the mobile app, except that the mobile app doesn't decode MQA at all.

 

After a prolonged session of tearing my system apart trying to find what on earth was causing the weird fluttering noise on Tidal content (didn't happen with local files), I finally realized that most of the classical content on Tidal is compromised by an audible watermark applied by Universal Music Group.  This watermark is particularly noticeable with classical content, and now that I know what I'm hearing, it's almost everywhere in Tidal's content (but less noticeable on pop/rock).

 

I was willing to pay $20/month for lossless streaming.  And I signed up because of the large amount of classical content available.  I thought it would be a great way to explore.  Now I feel like I've been played by the pointy heads over at UMG.  "Protecting" content by ruining it.  The mind boggles.

 

Tidal can die a slow, agonizing death as far as I'm concerned.  And for those of you tempted to retort something along the lines of "it's not Tidal's fault", that may be true, but they knew about it and said nothing.  Tidal is a willing co-conspirator in this debacle.  I never would have signed up in the first place had I known most of the content I wanted to listen to was compromised.  Lossless means lossless, period.  What Tidal has is not lossless content.  And UMG has ruined this content for all streaming providers, so moving to another is not an option.  It's back to ripping CDs for me.

When I found out about that widespread watermark one and a half years ago I waa appalled. It is so clearly audible on classical music that I thought it was just scandalous. Then came the real shock: no-one I know seemed to care and a German manufacturer of expensive network players who knew about the watermarking mainly shrugged his shoulders: there's nothing we could do about it. We care about our low-distortion playback equipment only to be fed with up to –20 dB (10%) worth of fluttering noise in the signal? What a scam. Another poster suggested that UMG might be using watermarks on CDs as well...

I hope that with your eloquence you can help raising the awareness about watermarking in this community even more. 

[mav52]

2 minutes ago, Tsarnik said:

When I found out about that widespread watermark one and a half years ago I waa appalled. It is so clearly audible on classical music that I thought it was just scandalous. Then came the real shock: no-one I know seemed to care and a German manufacturer of expensive network players who knew about the watermarking mainly shrugged his shoulders: there's nothing we could do about it. We care about our low-distortion playback equipment only to be fed with up to –20 dB (10%) worth of fluttering noise in the signal? What a scam. Another poster suggested that UMG might be using watermarks on CDs as well...

I hope that with your eloquence you can help raising the awareness about watermarking in this community even more. 

 

[rando]

2 hours ago, Tsarnik said:

Another poster suggested that UMG might be using watermarks on CDs as well.

 

I take it you've never heard a pre-release or sample disc that cut out every so often with a spoken message declaring it was not released for sale or distribution.  Or some variation to that effect.  

 

The watermark used on Tidal alternates between maddening and disruptive even after recognizing what it is.  I can't remember a specific example, but it seems to me, and based on my listening habits, it was present on classical albums with near non-existent sales.  Times streamed were almost certainly very low as well.  I might be remembering wrong too.  

[Tsarnik]

6 hours ago, rando said:

 

I take it you've never heard a pre-release or sample disc that cut out every so often with a spoken message declaring it was not released for sale or distribution.  Or some variation to that effect.  

 

The watermark used on Tidal alternates between maddening and disruptive even after recognizing what it is.  I can't remember a specific example, but it seems to me, and based on my listening habits, it was present on classical albums with near non-existent sales.  Times streamed were almost certainly very low as well.  I might be remembering wrong too.  

You're right, I don't receive pre-releases or sample discs.

But pointing at Tidal when they in fact are the ones who have been asking UMG for non-watermarked music misses the point. UMG will give out its files to AppleMusic, Amazon, Spotify, Tidal etc. only watermarked with a robust spread-spectrum watermark provided by a South Korean company, a watermark per provider. Downloads from UMG directly are the only ones that do not get a watermark.

Since nothing is sacred to the labels (and has never been) I think it is not unimaginable that Universal could start using watermarking on CD releases, too. Yet the latter is just speculation at this time. 

[Samuel T Cogley]

38 minutes ago, Tsarnik said:

Downloads from UMG directly are the only ones that do not get a watermark.

 

Do you have a URL for this?  I can't find any evidence that this even exists.  I see this URL from 2002 (!), but none of those sites are UMG directly.

[Tsarnik]

2 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Do you have a URL for this?  I can't find any evidence that this even exists.  I see this URL from 2002 (!), but none of those sites are UMG directly.

These are some of the links I had collected 13 months ago (I updated the two CA links).

 

http://www.rudyscorner.com/1102/disturbing-trend-universals-digital-watermark.html

 

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/is-universal-music-group-using-audible-watermarks-on-digital-files.334991/

 

http://www.progressiveears.org/forum/showthread.php/7424-Audible-watermarking-(intentional-degradation)-in-music-downloads-and-streams

 

http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=30466

 

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,111198.0.html

 

 

 

The following post (from page 2 of the second link) might help with your question:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/is-universal-music-group-using-audible-watermarks-on-digital-files.334991/page-2#post-9695405

 

"UMG sells lossless classical through its DG and Decca websites.

http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/

http://www.deccaclassics.com/en/
Just click on a particular recording (or go to the search page) and choose "lossless flac" as the option.

Edgard Varese, Nov 26, 2013"