Tidal HiFi now $9.99

Do you have a bunch of his albums saved under "My Collection", try to play them if you do. I tried again and no go, there's only 5 available I'm in Canada.

 

Not sure how you are searching either. I just did a search on Tidal for "Neil Young" and all that comes up are five solo albums. I'm not searching for albums with Neil Young the artist and any album he might be playing on but solo albums only. So I'm not sure how you come up with thirty plus Neil Young solo albums when only five are listed in the search I did. The same for Mark Knopfler as he doesn't have 37 solo albums, not even close to that. There are fifteen solo and sound track albums when searching for Mark Knopfler.

Neil Young - TIDAL

Mark Knopfler - TIDAL

I have thirteen Neil Young albums in my albums collection. When I go to play them that they all say "The Content Is No Longer Available". They're all early Neil Young albums that are my favorites. Didn't check later Neil Young albums. I did find that some of Mark Knopfler solo albums do play but quite a few do not.

Once again there are not thirty solo Neil Young albums listed, only five. Mind posting a link showing the thirty solo albums? I'm located in the US if that matters.

 

I only found the 5. I have a US account, so maybe that's the difference? But yes, he announced a while back he was removing his albums from Tidal because of the "masters" designations that he did not approve.

 

I don't think the location of the US or Canada makes a difference. As Deuce66 posted above he only found five solo albums and he's located in Canada.

 

Strange indeed, I just searched for a second time and found over 30. Are you talking about MQA only ?

 

I really don't know how you are searching. Search "Neil Young" then it shows his page then select "Albums" and it only shows five albums. I'm not including MQA in the equation at all.

I just did a search and it's down to four Neil Young solo albums with only Trans being labeled as "Master"

 

Neil Young is definitely gone from Tidal. There are plenty of articles that explain his beef...
I went and joined Neil Young Archives for $19.99 per year. I've had it for a couple of years now and I've never even been charged...!

 

Based on what multiple people reported Tidal non-MQA atream is still MQA encoded file with MQA flags turned off to disable MQA decoding. Enjoy DRM feature.

 

I just signed up for Qobuz and there are a ton of Neil Young albums. I randomly played some but haven't tried them all.

I just cancelled Tidal.

 

Just searched tidal here in Britain,i found 2 master,Old ways and Trans.Total albums i found incl the above 2 were 6 as follows.
Lucky thirteen,Everybody rockin,Life,Landing on water.
I wonder why he has allowed the 2 masters to remain?.Maybe different labels and he does not have the rights to them.

 

He doesn't have control over what is currently available on Tidal, I think those are Geffen titles.

 

So Tidal is using lossy MQA files and still calling it their Hifi tier? Isn't this another deception again?

 

Following!

 

MQA is by far the best sounding stream available.

 

Just started a Tidal HiFi tier trial. Under the settings, the HiFi quality stream says "Lossless CD Quality". Does this not mean that files listed as MQA should be lossless? Have Tidal come up with a lossless MQA format?

 

In principle, the streaming, whether it's 16/44.1 "HiFi" or the higher bitrate "HiFi+" tier (that goes up to 24/48) is "lossless" in terms of the data sent over. The problem is that MQA has touched the original data and taken some bits for itself to use for the "authentication" scheme as well as assigning meaningless stuff like the low-quality filtering they implement (your DAC's filtering can easily do better).

By doing this, with real hi-res data, it gets partially lossy compressed and bit-depth reduced (for example, to make an original 24/96 so it can fit in 24/48). With simple 16/44.1 CD data, MQA deteriorates the actual resolution. Either way, TIDAL streaming has lost the original resolution...

Very disappointing IMO that TIDAL seems to be streaming MQA-encoded 16/44.1 content instead of just using the original without stealing bits away or applying MQA's DSP process to massage the data. It's all a waste of time just so MQA can take a "tax" for itself along the streaming chain with zero benefits these days when true hi-res is possible and CD-resolution should be left alone "as the artist intended".

 

One more thing I think is important to spell out here regarding TIDAL and MQA. Implied in my comments is the idea that anything that touches MQA will result in a "spin" to market the scheme. IMO, there are some very questionable business ethics involved that results in at the very least "white lies" being told. Shame on Bob Stuart, MQA, the audiophile press and TIDAL over the years. I find this in general objectionable as it skirts around being truthful to the consumer, but ludicrous when it's being marketed to the "perfectionist" audiophile crowd!

For example, their graphic showing the benefits of the tiers suggesting that "HiFi+" can do "up to 9216kbps" sounding impressive, is patently wrong since at best it will stream <2300kbps from TIDAL to your home due to the maximum 24/48 encoded MQA (discussed here with graphic annotated at the bottom).

For audiophiles who do care about "best" quality, IMO, TIDAL needs to review what they're doing and at the very least stop corrupting standard resolution 16/44.1 with MQA.

 

If that's the case , their Hi-Fi tier inst lossless for albums that the master audio symbol besides them?

 

I’m not sure my dog can hear up to 9216kbps. Last time I asked she just shook her head.

 

Agreed, 16/44.1 should be lossless and not be encoded with lossy MQA.

 

Looks like these boys at Tidal and Qobuz are having to bring their prices down since Amazon music is now offering Hires....some good ol' fashioned healthy competition...

 

More like lossless Spotify is coming and Apple Music introduced lossless for no extra cost (probably because of the Spotify news).
These are the two biggest music streaming services so the rest are reshaping for a changing market.
Hi-res is irrelevant for most people.

 

Yes and yes.

 

I'm not sure what Tidal is thinking with their $19.99 plan. Apple and Amazon are offering CD quality + high res for $9.99. Quboz is such a small player in the market, but they have more high res than anyone for $10.83. Why does Tidal think maintaining a $19.99 high res tier is going to appeal to anyone??? And $2 goes to the artist, what the heck does that even mean? It as if they just couldn't let go of that $19.99 price point, that it pained them so much to follow the market that they kept it anyway.

And Spotify is yet to throw their hat in the ring. Hopefully they will follow Apple, Amazon and Quboz and include high res at the base price.... I like Tidal because it plays most nicely access wise with my Marantz SACD 30n. But I'm disappointed Tidal didn't just make their whole shebang cost $9.99.

 

Take it up with new owner Jack Dorsey. I heard he's on Twitter.