Music Streaming Services

This is probably old news, but I just updated my Tidal desktop app and MQA is gone.

New streaming quality options are:
Low - choice of 320/96kbps
High - 16/44.1
Max - 24/192

Are the albums that were formerly MQA just transcoded to 24bit FLAC now? Doesn't really matter to me I guess, I've only been using the CD quality stream, unless those were also transcodes.

 

@bobboxbody Interesting, since I do not have the highest level I still see Master under a lot of albums and still have the normal, hi and hifi choices.

I suppose you need to be paying for MQA to see what you see.

 

https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/17412130162961-HiRes-FLAC-and-new-audio-quality-levels

If artists upload both MQA and lossless hires files, Tidal will now prioritize serving you the lossless file.

Also:

 

I'm only paying for hifi, not master. Maybe you need an app update? I'm on Windows 10.

 

I did the update this morning. Those settings I mentioned were under the hifi menu on the bottom right next to volume control.

 

Same here, odd.

 

@bobboxbody

Quite odd indeed, but I did find out why it is showing that on my end. I have the audio output going through Jriver. When I run it to the ifi dac drivers directly or system default I can see the same options as you have.

case closed, haha.

 

Is there any way how to see what file is actually playing, without the need to be checking it on DAC that shows sampling rate? In the Windows App it just seems to show "up to 24/192" and kind of gives up on sharing any more details.

 

I haven't really tried to verify the data/sampling rate and don't know how to do it in the native app, but I have noticed on accident when I'm streaming Tidal through the BubbleUPNP android app that it will display the file info above the controls at the bottom of the "Now Playing" screen.

 

does it take a lil longer to buffer, unwrap the FLAC like on quboz? that's how i knew tidal was iffy, bc it was as quick to load as spotify.

 

Yeah, it doesn't play instantly through BubbleUPNP/Pi2AES, a couple seconds to load, but that could be network speeds vs just playing straight from computer via USB to DAC. I don't know much about this, lots of technology stuff going on.

 

People stream 4k video instantly these days the relative bandwidth required for hi-res audio is nothing.

 

I think I phased it wrong. Since BubbleUPNP is a service running on my phone and is pulling the data from Tidal, rather than the native Tidal app, and then everything is going through my home wifi network to the RPi, I imagine there could be a bottleneck in there. It's likely on my home network side(router in the basement), or the wifi card in the RPi3, or maybe the processing power of the RPi3.
Either way I don't find it a major inconvenience to wait 1-2 seconds for an album to start playing. There's no problem with gapless playback, nor is there a delay when transitioning from one album to another on a playlist. Just a slight pause when starting a new stream initially.

 

Spotify's long-promised hifi tier might actually be coming soon:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23884577/spotify-supremium-lossless-audio-tier-code

 

I hope they have a discount if you pay for a year like Tidal, and/or a cheaper 16bit lossless option. $20/mo is pretty steep for the pennies a year the artists are getting.

 

Big agree. The 16/44.1 FLAC that Tidal is now serving up is great for me. AND the family plan is cheaper than this new Spotify option seems to be. Can't see the value.

 

I have been on a annual plan for Tidal through Best Buy, but they just cancelled the program.
So now I need to decide what to do for lossless music streaming.

The rest of my family is on a Spotify family plan, they don't care about lossless.

I'll see how much Spotify wants for a HiFi family plan. I can pay the difference for that, or look elsewhere.

I've set a budget of $100/yr since that was my Best Buy Tidal cost.
Seems like Apple and Amazon are my other choices with that budget.

Randy

 

We know that Tidal does not sound as good as your own ripped lossless files via JRiver for example, but is there a way in a Windows based setup to get better sound out of Tidal?

I do know that Roon does a good job of improving Tidal to a degree but at a huge effing cost.

Ideas?

 

I'm in the same boat and currently trying out amazon. It's better than I was expecting.
This is what has stood out so far:
With exclusive mode turned on(win10>usb>eitr>coax>dac) everything sounds a little bit sharper compared to tidal with the same chain, like maybe a slight treble emphasis or transients are more well defined or etched sounding? it's a subtle difference, but noticeable to non-golden ears.
Exclusive mode doesn't stay on in the windows desktop app, have to turn it on every time I open the app(tidal's app was so unreliable that I had to check every time anyway though).
No integration with m0ode/Pi2AES.
Car audio/bluetooth has more gain from the android app vs tidal and a V shaped sound.
Libraries seem comparable.
Managing play queue is improved over tidal on windows and android.
Almost everything is native 16/41 or 24/48 flac with a few rare exceptions in mp3, vs tidal's mystery grab bag.

I'll update if I think of anything else.

 

Yeah, exclusive mode is the primary thing I can think of. Keep volume normalization off, also. I’ve done a ton of juju stuff and nothing is as consistent as those two options in having a noticeable change in sound, hardware or software. Yes, I’ve messed around with network switches too, among other stuff.

I do think that SQ might be more than a smidge better with TIDAL HiFi Plus lately, at least, with the proliferation of FLACs vs MQA. Real hard to tell if that’s psychoacoustic though, especially given they’re now telling you what you are listening to if Max quality is available.