I Must Say...Tidal’s Blowin’ My Mind!

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Khorn, May 24, 2020.

  1. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Tidal at home was not very impressive yet the in-store demo was? So your home setup was not quite right correct?
     
    Tim 2 likes this.
  2. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    The DRM was the red flag that got so many folks not liking what they saw in MQA. Plus there had been a drive to get newer music sever systems to playing bit-perfect digital audio, sometimes called bit-transparent. MQA was asking folks to suspend that effort... and pay up for the privilege. So there were three strike-outs, and it was over for some. Pretty simple.
     
    Shawn and McLover like this.
  3. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    The "master still matters" with any formate not just streaming.
    I started a thread a while back about an audible difference with streaming masters, didn't get much response.
     
    jonwoody likes this.
  4. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    Add me to the list TIDAL is excellent, sound quality is superior to Apple Music, the selection is on par and the desktop interface is very easy to use. It's basically the equivalent of being unleashed into the world's biggest record store with a unlimited budget to try whatever you want at a ridiculously low cost. $240 per year versus the thousands spent on CD's/Vinyl and you give up nothing in terms of sound quality. In some cases multiple masterings of albums are available.
     
    Billy Infinity, Brenald79 and Tim 2 like this.
  5. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I’m surprised how good Tidal sounds through Bluetooth wireless headphones. I hardly notice any difference than through wired headphones.
     
    vinylfilmaholic and Tim 2 like this.
  6. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I just tried to get the 4 months for $4 deal and it was not valid. I should have held out for its imminent return. But I decided to go and try a month free. Screw them if they don't want my $4.00 cold hard cash. Now they will get nothing outta me, fine.

    Ok, so I did searches for tons and tons of albums (I have on my music server) both CDs that are now OOP and my own needle drops. as well as CD stuff found on eBay and Amazon in the under $9.00 range before shipping.

    I found less than 10% of the albums I searched for. Very often even major label stuff that is a bit rare anyway is not found. If you want tons of Glen Campbell or Julie London fine. Johnny Cash, George Jones and Merle Haggard pretty good. But if you want Steve Hoffman mastering of those then you can forget it. You want Bear Family box sets to forget that as well. You want Buck Owens live albums, like the " The Nugget" or "Big In Vegas" nope, nothing except the inferior Scandanavia album. Beck, Bogert and Appice's Live in Japan, NO! BTO's Live in Japan (which I think got a reissue on CD in UK & Japan) no, not found. King Biscuit Flower Hour released CDs, nothing except Dave Edmunds. Robin Trower's live at the BBC yes, but not the KBFH recording which is a favorite. The Humble Pie KBFH show from '73 is there, but it's the bootleg without the real credits. Just Live '73. That's the pirate issue. I know it.

    I'm going hunting for B-Side appearances later after sleep. But I'm not expecting too much. Only Bs that have appeared as bonus tracks or box sets I am actually expecting. Not B-Sides that are still simply B-sides.

    So the classic rock collector with a really good collection already is not going to be impressed that much with the TIDAL catalog.

    But for hearing new music maybe. I am hating that I do a search and get a few albums and must click again to get all the listings. And they are pushing music at me that I have no interest in. So far as rock goes, I have a far more exotic, precious, rare, and unusual collection than what they offer up here. For the person with a limited collection or trashed up vinyl, or just over physical media, there is something good here.

    Not the world's biggest music selection by a loooooong shot.

    Ok, now they are suggesting rock albums to me. I own every one of them already. I still need to check and see how this works on WiFi because I am currently wired up for the installation and initial testing.

    This TIDAL can't compare to my 12 TBs of FLAC, DSD, LPCM, Multichannel, boots, imports, radio shows, b-sides, exclusives, and just plain old harder to find gems.
     
  7. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    With 60 million tracks and more added everyday $20 a month is the best music bargain ever.
    We've had Tidal for two years and only once we couldn't find what we were looking for.
     
    Billy Infinity and Jaap74 like this.
  8. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    My searches and music collection are rather deep.
     
  9. Rattlin' Bones

    Rattlin' Bones Grumpy Old Deaf Drummer

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    I noticed big differences between Bluetooth to my DAC/amp vs USB to my DAC/amp. Virtually all of the Bluetooth sounded compressed and flatter. USB connection had fidelity and sparkle.

     
    Brenald79 likes this.
  10. arem

    arem Forum Resident

    One thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to tell the difference between versions of an album. For example if you search for Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage, three versions come up, one is the RVG in "HiFi" quality. And two are "Master" versions, both credited to AP with mastering by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray. What is the difference between these last two? Same thing for Peter Gabriel's Passion album, there are two "Master" versions, and the artwork is slightly different, but the credits look the same to me. What's the deal?
     
  11. Rattlin' Bones

    Rattlin' Bones Grumpy Old Deaf Drummer

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    I've been doing a lotta searches since signing up over the weekend. For older (50's-60's) jazz. Only one title I could not find, and that was a stereo version. They may have had it, but with how Tidal describes their albums it's sometimes hard to tell. That being said, I'm finding none of the issues quicksrt is experiencing. I'm finding virtually everything I'm searching for.

     
  12. Rattlin' Bones

    Rattlin' Bones Grumpy Old Deaf Drummer

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    I'm finding that is a bit of an issue on Tidal, too. They don't have many details. At end of playlist they have the copyright owner or something about the release. But it's just "who" and "year". Sometimes they have same album 2x or 3x and it's same who" and "year" and same album cover with no discernable difference.

    It would be a great enhancement to include more details like the actual Label Name, Catalog #, Country, and Year. That way you could goto Discogs and identify the actual release and pressing and other details.




     
    Rockin' Robby likes this.
  13. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    How many songs/albums do you have on your 12 TB's ? is it close to 60 million?
     
    Rockin' Robby and Tim 2 like this.
  14. I really like tidal, I'm really enjoying it a lot during these crazy quarantine days.
    I just wish searching were more neat. For example, yesterday I was searching for some "Rage" albums, I mean the german metal band that I liked a lot in '90s and I still have some of their albums of that time.
    Since there are lots of band with that name, discography is a mess, I noticed most of their albums were missing and a lot of albums from other bands called Rage were there. I decided to search for their last album, that didn't appear when I'd done the "rage" search, "wings of rage". Searching by album made it appear, and when I went to see other albums of this band, there they were all the other albums I thought they were missing... I don't know why does that happen.
     
  15. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    And maybe a little obscure ? At $20 per month you still can't beat it.
     
    audiomixer likes this.
  16. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Does anyone know if you can use Tidal on the Amazon Fire Tablet?
     
  17. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    I had a similar issue with RIOT, most of the albums appeared except for Fire Down Under, searched by album name and voila there's a Master version. If in doubt search first by artist/album name or a song from the particular album.
     
    Stonegarden71 likes this.
  18. shug4476

    shug4476 Nullius In Verba

    Location:
    London
    The DAC I used at home does not support MQA, whereas the one in the store did, and I have assumed this was at least partly responsible.

    I was not impressed with Qobuz at home either.
     
  19. Leroyd

    Leroyd Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ireland
    Currently streaming Tidal using analogue out from Chromecast Audio dongle. I like it and want to upgrade for a better hifi experience and have MQA. Any suggestions?. Can I use Chromecast audio dongle as a network bridge to MQA dac and get the full MQA experience?. Thanks in advance. Budget is around the $1000 mark
     
    Tim 2 likes this.
  20. Jaap74

    Jaap74 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Luckily I got my Lifetime license before they went to Yearly only.......
     
    Brenald79 likes this.
  21. Stereosound

    Stereosound Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Is MQA DOA?
     
    shug4476 likes this.
  22. Stereosound

    Stereosound Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Don’t waste your money. Is MQA DOA?
     
    Rockin' Robby likes this.
  23. Rattlin' Bones

    Rattlin' Bones Grumpy Old Deaf Drummer

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    Saved a bunch of Allen Toussaint albums today on Tidal. They all sound horrible. Treble is strident. Everything sounds compressed. Like my speakers are bad. But speakers are not. Listening to Miles Davis Milestones now on Tidal and sounds fine. Any recommendations on a good sounding Allen Toussaint album on Tidal?
     
    Khorn likes this.
  24. Rattlin' Bones

    Rattlin' Bones Grumpy Old Deaf Drummer

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    Such a difference in albums. I deleted all the Allen Toussaint albums in My Collection: not one sounded full and bright. All were awful flat compressed sounding and sometimes distorted in trebles. I have a few of the same CD's - the CD's are wonderful. Not so the Tidal streaming versions.

    Now listening to Carla Bley "Trios": the space between instruments is black, the instruments are precise, no distortion. Speakers disappear. Great album.
     
  25. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Ahhhh!!! I’m having a nightmare trying to sign into my Tidal account with my new Fire Tablet. My account was created using my Apple ID. There’s a Tidal App to instal on the Fire Tablet but it says “Apple ID Registration error” when selecting to Sign In with Apple ID. I followed the instructions on the Tidal website for Apple ID login problems but it didn’t fix the problem.

    I really wanted to try out Tidal on the new tablet so I created a new Tidal account on the Fire Tablet with the same email I use for my Apple ID and it let my do a free 30 trial. What’s interesting is that I had to confirm a payment through my Amazon.ca for $25.99 CAN for after the free trial expires. Unless the monthly price was just increased, it’s more expensive through Amazon.

    Sound quality through headphones is noticeably poorer on Fire Tablet than IPad Pro and IPhone. It’s horrible.
     

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