Impressions of Tidal

Mikey081057

Lumin U1 Mini to pair with my Mytek Brooklyn DAC+

WLDock

Also, there are several other cool productson the Volumio USA website for putting together a high performing budget music player, DAC, Digital amp w/bluetooth, etc

https://www.volumiousa.com/products/?limit=100


WHAT IS VOLUMIO
Volumio is a Free and Open Source Linux Distribution, designed and fine-tuned exclusively for music playback.
It runs on a variety of devices, typically small and cheap computers like Raspberry PI, but also on low power PCs, Notebooks or Multimedia PCs.

By flashing (installing) Volumio on any of this platforms, it will then become a headless Audiophile Music Player. Headless means that the only way to control it will be with another device, such as a Smartphone, Tablet, PC or anything that has a browser.

This is made possible by Volumio’s UI: a web applications that runs on any device with a browser, and that allows an easy and intuitive control of your playback sessions. All communications between the Web App and Volumio will happen through your home network.

•Runs on Raspberry PI, UDOO, Cubox-i, Odroid, PC, Mac and a variety of other small
devices
•Minimal operating system, tailored for Bit-Perfect Audio Playback
•The system is loaded entirely on RAM and optimized for lightweight operations
•Various Audio related tweaking for best audio performances
•Works with any USB 2.0 DAC
•Raspberry PI and Odroid I2S DACs supported natively
•Supports all filetypes: FLAC, Alac, Aac, Vorbis, Mp3, DSD etc
• Playback
•Airplay Playback
• Over PCM support, for non Direct-DSD compatible hardware
•Integrated WebRadio directories
•If a compatible wireless hardware is found, Volumio will create a hotspot network for
first configuration
•Mount CIFS and NFS Network Attached Storage, with an auto-discovery function
•Custom playlist editing and creation
•Plugin support with new functions available like Spotify and Digital Room Correction
•Seamless update system: no need to reinstall when a new version is available
• with a growing number of translations available
•Image background support, even your favourite one
•Alarm and sleep function

HOW DOES IT WORK
Once you’ve installed (or flashed) Volumio to your device, and connected it to your network and Audio equipment you will be ready to play. Volumio will discover automatically the music on a USB drive, or allow you to connect your network storage and your streaming services account.

From now on you will control your playback from anything that has a browser: a tablet, a mobile phone, a computer or even your Smart TV.

Volumio can adapt itself to a variety of configurations.

gyosa

Yes ..

Bk

audioluvr wrote: »

Has anyone A/B'd the difference between Tidals HiFi and Premium service? Just wondering if it's worth the extra ten bucks a month.

audioluvr

gyosa wrote: »

Yes ..

Bk

audioluvr wrote: »

Has anyone A/B'd the difference between Tidals HiFi and Premium service? Just wondering if it's worth the extra ten bucks a month.

Sweet! Thanks!

steveinaz

I ended up canceling Tidal, primarily because I wasn't using it very much. I'm still searching for a more radio-like experience, like Pandora, but higher quality.

audioluvr

Steve, does your Bluesound Node stream radio? That's what I use probably more than anything. I use Tidal when I want to explore new stuff or stuff that I haven't heard in ages.

steveinaz

Yes it does have a number of music sources...

jdjohn

steveinaz wrote: »

I ended up canceling Tidal, primarily because I wasn't using it very much. I'm still searching for a more radio-like experience, like Pandora, but higher quality.

Steve, have you tried Spotify lately??? I find the quality of the premium service to be quite good, and it has radio/station features related to certain artists, genres, 'moods', etc. This is much like Pandora where you create a station for an artist. You can also create and save your own playlists.

audioluvr

Tidal does that too. At least for me. Maybe it's in the settings. If I start a playlist and it finishes it will automatically start playing music that it thinks I want to hear.

steveinaz

jdjohn wrote: »

Steve, have you tried Spotify lately??? I find the quality of the premium service to be quite good, and it has radio/station features related to certain artists, genres, 'moods', etc. This is much like Pandora where you create a station for an artist. You can also create and save your own playlists.

Yes, I just noticed that he other day when I re-visited Spotify. Still investigating...

tonyb

Steve,

IHEART radio is close to the Pandora experience. However, finding a radio station that plays in higher quality is going to be tough.

Most all the streaming services have radio stations, local and around the globe. You can add stations too just by adding their URL. So I don't see how switching services will get you a better radio experience.

joecoulson

I will say that while I love the music selection and overall quality of Tidal, it’s algorithms for radio stations are no where near Pandora. In fact, no other music service comes close to the perfectly random yet weirdly similar music choices (great music choices btw) you get from creating a station in that service. Others have random, but not brilliant.

WLDock

I started discovering 320Kbps radio stations using the incorporated vTuner app in my Onkyo receiver. Its a list of about 2600 worldwide stations that you can query through and sort by speed.
http://vtuner.com/setupapp/guide/asp/BrowseStations/startpage.asp


Here are some other high res stations:
https://www.hiresaudio.online/cd-quality-internet-radio/

http://radiobit.50webs.com/

http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2015/03/04/digital-watch-in-search-of-high-fidelity-internet-radio/

I would think most modern streamers allows one to load in URL's.

jdjohn

I think what Steve means by 'radio station' in this case is not a literal FM/AM radio station that streams over the net, but a 'sounds like' or 'similar to' list. With services like Spotify and Pandora, you can create a 'station' for a particular artist, and it will play that artist along with others from the same genre. And in Spotify, they have preset playlists for certain moods or genres such as 'study/focus', 'chill', 'dinner music', etc., as well as 'acoustic rock', 'new indie', '90s', 'classical', etc. And lastly, they have 'this is:' stations that will ONLY play songs from a specific artist, like 'this is Led Zeppelin'.

motorstereo

I finally threw in the towel today and cancelled my pandora subscription after having it several years. I signed up with Tidal and first thing I notice is it has better sound quality. 2nd thing is I'm hearing songs I've never heard on pandora. I'm hoping Tidal is going to put a lot of the fun back into listening for me. Lately I couldn't go a day without getting pissed at pandora for their lousy playlists and repetitions. It's pretty bad when you have to give the thumbs down to good songs because they get overplayed just like fm radio.

joecoulson

Lol! I haven’t used Pandora in years but it goes to show that I’m completely out of touch.
I’ll stick withTidal.

steveinaz

Pandora seems to be very good at choosing songs I really like. My "Kansas Radio" station I created just nails the music I love. I've heard Pandora has been bought by Sirius/XM...

Mikey081057

I use ROON to connect all my streaming devices to one interface. In Tidal on ROON you can listen to an album and when it is done playing you can configure it to play ROON RADIO which has gotten better release to release. ROON RADIO plays like songs from artists that it considers "similar in Genre". Now sometimes after listening to a Steely Dan album, it will play maybe some Doobies or some Boz Scaggs but sometimes you'll get Neil Young or Bob Dylan with that too. But you can skip like you can on Pandora and tell them you dint like that song...

ROON is awesome. There is also a place in ROON called Internet Radio where you can paste your favorite streaming radio stations. The best i have found is JB Radio which is hi quality FLAC content.

WLDock

jdjohn wrote: »

I think what Steve means by 'radio station' in this case is not a literal FM/AM radio station that streams over the net, but a 'sounds like' or 'similar to' list. With services like Spotify and Pandora, you can create a 'station' for a particular artist, and it will play that artist along with others from the same genre. And in Spotify, they have preset playlists for certain moods or genres such as 'study/focus', 'chill', 'dinner music', etc., as well as 'acoustic rock', 'new indie', '90s', 'classical', etc. And lastly, they have 'this is:' stations that will ONLY play songs from a specific artist, like 'this is Led Zeppelin'.

Yeah, I use Pandora, Spotify, and Slacker just for those purposes also. However, I still get exposed to so much music, mainly jazz, listening to regular radio stations. My jazz education started when I was a kid with the legendary Detroit WDET public radio Ed Love program and the defunct WJZZ station. There are still some good regular radio stations arond the globe.

steveinaz

The Node 2i has a number of internet radio apps, what is a good one?

audioluvr

KYCH 97.1 is good for a mix of everything. It also has very few commercials. What genre's you like?

motorstereo

I'm on my 2nd day with Tidal and already I'm wondering why I tortured myself all those years with Pandora??

rooftop59

Tidal is NOT perfect, but man it’s awesome for what you get...

steveinaz

No doubt Tidal sounds great, it's a format issue I have with it. I have been playing with Spotify's radio function and seems pretty close to Pandora as far as choosing songs I like. The Node 2 and 2i do NOT have Pandora...apparently there's a bit of a childish back and forth between Bluesound and Pandora (Sirius/XM); each blaming the other for why it hasn't been integrated yet in the Bluesound products.

verb

So I've been dancing around the streaming thing, the extent of which for me has been ITunes via BT, and Pandora, which I like alot! Yep. Don't know what I don't know. Now after spending some time at Axpona, seeing all the streamers, talking to folks here, et., al., well you know the drill!

And, it looks like Tidal offers a military discount! Both active duty and retired! Anyone here that can verify that?

Oh God, help me!

joecoulson

No one can help you now!! Muwahahahaaa

verb

Following this thread, as I am now subscribing to Tidal!

rooftop59

verb wrote: »

Following this thread, as I am now subscribing to Tidal!

Sweet verb! Love tidal while it lasts, cause this model won’t last forever.

Do they offer a military discount?

joecoulson

Explain please @rooftop59

rooftop59

joecoulson wrote: »

Explain please @rooftop59

I just think that the writing on the wall after the Music Modernization Act is that streaming will either a) no longer be a profitable business model or b) get a lot more expensive for the consumer. Its pretty well known that almost none of the streaming companies actually turn a profit (other than spotify) and now it will be much more difficult to avoid paying royalties (which I think that they should be paying anyways).

Bottom line is that we have been in the wild west of music streaming that started back with napster, and I think we are about to see another big shift in the model. My guess is that the new model will offer different tiers much like cell phone companies, and you will pay to stream a certain amount of music per month, with unlimited being significantly more expensive than it is now. How long before that happens, I have no idea...