Tidal sucks

[rodrigaj]

@Fridolin I too have been a Tidal subscriber since the WIMP days.

 

I have noticed that many more Albums are playing at the 96kbps than before. I don't have playlists but use "Favorites" as I tend to listen to whole albums. I think I would have noticed that they were 96kbps, but I can't say for certain.

 

But I have noticed that when I do searches there are duplicates and triplicates of albums, and that some of them are Flac 16b/44.1kHz/1411kbps and others are 96kbps AAC files.

 

For example: Starry, Starry Night by Robert Silverman shows 3 Albums with different bitrates. Of course, unlike the MQA "Masters" they are not identified as such and you only find out when you play them. On the desktop app the HiFI is no longer highlighted and on the Lumin App the actual bit rate is shown.

 

I'm really, really getting tired of Tidal.

[rodrigaj]

@Cebolla It is not unusual for Tidal to have various versions of the same album.

 

Search( Robert Silverman. You'll find three copies of Starry, Starry Night. One of them is 16b/96kbps Apple Lossless, one is 16b/1411bs Flac, and the other is 16b/1411bs Flac. That is what my iPad (Lumin App) shows.  My DSDAC shows the 16b/96bps as 24bit/ 44.1KHZ with format "UNK". The other two show as 16/44.1 FLAC. 

 

Who knows why Tidal has three versions of the same album and why two of them are seemingly the same bit/bit rate.

 

I do know that what is displayed on Lumin App is different than what is displayed on the DSDac.

[rodrigaj]

Here is yet another problem I have been encountering with Tidal (notice the tracks to the Symphonies are out of order):

[rodrigaj]

@wklie Thank you for clarifying. Having multiple versions of the same album is part of the frustration of dealing with Tidal, especially as the only way to tell which version you are dealing with is by playing it. At least with Masters, the little symbol is visible in the library.

 

Thank you also for clarifying the display on Lumin App. Interesting that my renderer (Bridge II) reports Apple Lossless / 16b /96Kbps to Lumin App and the DSD display reports UNK / PCM 44.1K / 24 b. Presumably both should be getting the same information. 

[rodrigaj]

@Cebolla Thank you for your input. I feel that it is important as consumers of these products and services that we understand their behavior. The time you take to explain these formats and the detail you provide are very much appreciated.

 

 

[rodrigaj]

I'm not going to defend Tidal, but can this swap of bitrates be something that is out of Tidal's hands. When a record label gives Tidal access to a file does Tidal own it? Are the record companies responsible for the downgraded bitrates? I can't imagine a reason for Tidal purposely screwing over the HIFI consumer. 

[rodrigaj]

9 hours ago, Fridolin said:

But TIDAL is responsible for not telling their customers that they don't have the right to stream all of the files they are offering in HiFi quality. In fact they are cheating  HiFi subscribers with their low quality stream when they can't offer a HiFi stream. Nowhere in their advertisement or their website they tell us the truth. 

 

It is bad enough that you often got the greyed out HiFi symbol before, meaning that the quality is 320 kbps. But now even that low quality isn't guaranteed any more. Quite the contrary is the case. 96 kbps is normal now, when they can't supply FLAC streams. And that is the case very, very often, at least for me. Your milage may vary (or you don't pay attention to this behavior so much). 

I'll repeat, I am not going to defend Tidal. I do pay attention to this behavior, in fact I find the deception (thank you @rando ) to be bordering on fraud. And...I hate the SQ of these 96 kbps files.

 

How does Tidal do this? Does Tidal have an army of workers downgrading files? Do they downgrade the files on the fly? Do they request the downgraded files from the record labels? And...how do they choose which files/artist to downgrade? 

 

I can't get it out of my mind that this is a conspiracy instigated by the record companies in order to prevent theft of high resolution files by the Tidal consumer.