Tidal sucks

[wklie]

With a Lumin player using a Tidal HiFi account for US country, here's the bitrate of the first track of each album:

 

320kbps AAC:

Joanne Shaw Taylor|Almost Always Never

Joanne Shaw Taylor|Diamonds In The Dirt

Joe Bonamassa|A New Day Yesterday

Joe Bonamassa|Sloe Gin

 

96kbps AAC:

Núcleo - José Luis Gutiérrez Trio

Jimmy Ponder|Jimmy Ponder

Joanne Shaw Taylor|White Sugar

Joe Bonamassa|Had To Cry Today

Joe Bonamassa|So It's Like That

 

Cannot find:

Jimmy Ponder|Steel City Blues

 

@Fridolin Which country is your Tidal account created in?  This may explain why some of us can stream 320kbps for some of the albums you listed, and why there is at least one album you listed that I cannot find.  (These things can change daily too, but let's rule this out for the sake of discussion.)

[wklie]

17 hours ago, Cebolla said:

Are you also able to get the same MP3 streams for those albums using the TIDAL API and are their bitrates the same?

 

I tried two versions of API and cannot get those MP3 320kbps streams, not even for the album in the Roon thread I checked 9 months ago.

 

Based on the various reported test results I'd conclude getting the AAC stream is normal, while getting MP3 is an exception, since Tidal documentation always refer to AAC instead of MP3 for lossy streaming:

http://tidal.com/lp/about/

 

If a device gets MP3 streams instead of the AAC streams the other devices get for the same account, then I speculate that the former device is using yet another different version of API, or Tidal server is (not) doing something for that device.

[wklie]

23 hours ago, Cebolla said:

Presumably, you no longer have the API version that you used 9 months ago and also the Lumin is using a different (latest?) API version.

 

The old API still works, so I redid the test using the same API, the same type of Tidal HiFi US account, the same Lumin product, and seemingly (*) the same album: 9 months ago I got MP3, now I get AAC.

 

(*) - I cannot be sure it is exactly the same album.  If a different encoding of the same album with the same cover art and tracks replaced the one I tested 9 months ago, I would not know.

[wklie]

On 3/4/2018 at 1:30 AM, rodrigaj said:

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.

 

Using Lumin player and app, I found the three albums:

 

AAC 96kbps - first track is 10:09

FLAC - first track is 10:04

FLAC - first track is 10:07

 

It is very common for Tidal to have multiple versions of the same album.  It can be Tidal Master (not the case here, and there can be multiple versions of Tidal Masters too), or different remasters or (re-)releases.

 

None of the albums show up as UNK when using Lumin player hardware.  Please note that the Lumin app display of codec is not determined by the Lumin app itself - it is determined by the renderer and reported to Lumin app for display.

[wklie]

For the 22kHz issue, I don't see it with Lumin player using a Tidal HiFi US account.

 

Lumin shows 44.1kHz for the 96kbps AAC for the first track of Joanne Shaw Taylor | White Sugar.

 

To confirm it is correct, I retrieved the music and checked it using VLC, Audacity, and foobar - all these software report 44.1kHz.

[wklie]

On 3/2/2018 at 8:00 PM, Fridolin said:

I have the Audirvana app installed now and have to say: WOW!

 

But the Tidal-affair gets even worse.
Not only have the bad quality albums only a bitrate of 96 kbps but also the sample rate is at 22.0 kHz! All that 96 kbps BadFi tracks show this behavior.

 

For the 22kHz vs 44.1kHz sample rate of Tidal 96kbps AAC stream issue, does Audirvana support HE-AAC SBR?  @damien78

[wklie]

17 hours ago, Fridolin said:

I tested a typical AAC, 96 kbps, 16/22.0 khz example (Ottmar Liebert|La Semana|#3|Caballada) with the MusicScope app, that i normally use for testing HiRes files.

 

Please check Tidal desktop app instead of Audirvana.  Set Quality to Master.  Use Exclusive Mode if possible.

[wklie]

For this album, I found an additional version that is lossless FLAC for all tracks using a Tidal HiFi US account.

[wklie]

On 3/9/2018 at 3:54 AM, Cebolla said:

did you try the lossy version (https://listen.tidal.com/album/15563242 , Released 1985-01-01, Length 44:05)  with the Lumin and notice the same difference with the first track?

 

Yes, first track 320kbps AAC the rest are 96kbps.