Impressions of Tidal

F1nut

This got me thinking....when we had CD, SACD and DVD Audio fighting it out I recall hearing a lot of people complain about all these different formats and which one was going to win. Now there is streaming, downloads, files and whatever. There are vast differences in sound quality, but people seem ok with that because they have 500,000 songs at their fingertips that they don't own or they lose all their music because this or that failed.

To those I say, ya'll got sucker punched.

erniejade

@F1nut Have you tried Qobuz yet? I feel it sounds better then tidal but, still the CD or ripped cd \ sacd sounds best to me.

F1nut

No I haven't and have no desire to do so.

joecoulson

I’ll sucker punch you old man.

Nightfall

GoldenMidnight

I am satisfied with Tidal and love the experience.

tonyb

F1nut wrote: »

This got me thinking....when we had CD, SACD and DVD Audio fighting it out I recall hearing a lot of people complain about all these different formats and which one was going to win. Now there is streaming, downloads, files and whatever. There are vast differences in sound quality, but people seem ok with that because they have 500,000 songs at their fingertips that they don't own or they lose all their music because this or that failed.

To those I say, ya'll got sucker punched.

I dunno about that Jesse. Streamed musical formats can be just as bad, or good, as any other, depending on the associated gear.

I will admit though, there is a slight trade off, convenience for a bit of sound quality. It's a small bit though, depending.

Most today don't care about that small bit after you reach a certain level of quality anyway. The convenience factor makes up for it. Heck, we still have many listening to MP3's, cdp's are going the way of dinosaurs. The earbud crowd is ecstatic to hear cd quality on their phones from the likes of Tidal, but most are just as happy with their MP3'S from iTunes or Google/apple music.

displayname

This so true. When we're talking to audiophiles it seems shocking that every streaming service hasn't moved to lossless. But when I talk to everyone I know that's in my age group (early 30s) and I mention high res/lossless the common response I get is "what's the difference?".

Not only do most people not care about high res. I would be willing to guess the mass majority doesn't even realize that MP3 files are not high res. What I find more interesting is the number of people who don't know these things about digital, but do own a turntable.

rooftop59

tonyb wrote: »

F1nut wrote: »

This got me thinking....when we had CD, SACD and DVD Audio fighting it out I recall hearing a lot of people complain about all these different formats and which one was going to win. Now there is streaming, downloads, files and whatever. There are vast differences in sound quality, but people seem ok with that because they have 500,000 songs at their fingertips that they don't own or they lose all their music because this or that failed.

To those I say, ya'll got sucker punched.

I dunno about that Jesse. Streamed musical formats can be just as bad, or good, as any other, depending on the associated gear.

I will admit though, there is a slight trade off, convenience for a bit of sound quality. It's a small bit though, depending.

Most today don't care about that small bit after you reach a certain level of quality anyway. The convenience factor makes up for it. Heck, we still have many listening to MP3's, cdp's are going the way of dinosaurs. The earbud crowd is ecstatic to hear cd quality on their phones from the likes of Tidal, but most are just as happy with their MP3'S from iTunes or Google/apple music.

Yah sorry but I don’t think I got sucker punched lol. If I bought two albums a month for the last 3-4 years that I have been using tidal at $20 a month, I would have maybe 100 more albums than I do now. And I would have at best a mid level cdp to spin them on. Right now I have access to more music than I will ever listen to at probably the same SQ or better than I would get on the players I am willing to invest in.

And @DSkip has noted that tidal can sound just as good as anything else in some of his setups, so I have a feeling the rig Jesse heard was not ideal. But either way, I am willing to give up that extra smidge of SQ for the convenience and cost savings I get with tidal...

F1nut

The rig was excellent.

Cost savings? You don't own squat. I call that throwing money away.

rooftop59

F1nut wrote: »

The rig was excellent.

Cost savings? You don't own squat. I call that throwing money away.

You're correct, I own little media of my own. Should I also purchase all the movies and TV shows that I stream on Netflix and youtubetv??? Am I saving money by renting rather than buying?

verb

What's interesting here is that the quality of streaming continues to improve. Even now, there are folks that claim Qobuz is better than Tidal. Competition at it's finest.

As it continues to improve, users, like me, will still have access to a vast quantity of music that ordinarily would never have been exposed to.

Kex

Wot @verb you are exposed?!
Heaven forbid! 😬 😱

GlennDog

Once I sift through all that I’m not interested in ... I find the really good stuff, then source and buy as needed.
I don’t want my pictures, photos or files/documents in the cloud period.

I love and want my faves in the physical form.
But nothing compares to 10s of thousands of songs at your fingertips

verb

GlennDog wrote: »

Once I sift through all that I’m not interested in ... I find the really good stuff, then source and buy as needed.
I don’t want my pictures, photos or files/documents in the cloud period.

I love and want my faves in the physical form.
But nothing compares to 10s of thousands of songs at your fingertips

How many times have we all purchased a disc, 'cause a song or two piqued us, only to find the rest of the album, well, meh.

verb

GlennDog wrote: »

Once I sift through all that I’m not interested in ... I find the really good stuff, then source and buy as needed.
I don’t want my pictures, photos or files/documents in the cloud period.

I love and want my faves in the physical form.
But nothing compares to 10s of thousands of songs at your fingertips

Same here Dog! My recent discoveries on Tidal, liked em so much, that I went and bought the discs!

verb

Dang Dog, I just quoted you twice! Must be tired. Long past couple of weeks!

displayname

verb wrote: »

GlennDog wrote: »

Once I sift through all that I’m not interested in ... I find the really good stuff, then source and buy as needed.
I don’t want my pictures, photos or files/documents in the cloud period.

I love and want my faves in the physical form.
But nothing compares to 10s of thousands of songs at your fingertips

How many times have we all purchased a disc, 'cause a song or two piqued us, only to find the rest of the album, well, meh.

This is where streaming saves me the most money. I'll by an album after I find myself coming back to it.

joecoulson

DSkip wrote: »

Like everything implementation is key. Tidal must not be that bad if I’m getting vinyl enthusiasts to switch to streaming.

I’ve been doing some comparisons to Qobuz and I hear what others say about it being a little more detailed vs rounded but I still find myself still falling more to tidal.

Me too, there was not enough content on QB for me to stay subscribed. I know there is a slight edge given to QB for the most part, but for the convenience of having almost EVERYTHING at my disposal, it’s worth it by far.

Jesse you have a fantastic vinyl setup so I would imagine it would be very expensive and difficult to match or even get close with streaming quality with Tidal, or any non physical digital media, but $$ could make all the difference. Just my 2 c

tonyb

verb wrote: »

GlennDog wrote: »

Once I sift through all that I’m not interested in ... I find the really good stuff, then source and buy as needed.
I don’t want my pictures, photos or files/documents in the cloud period.

I love and want my faves in the physical form.
But nothing compares to 10s of thousands of songs at your fingertips

How many times have we all purchased a disc, 'cause a song or two piqued us, only to find the rest of the album, well, meh.

Bingo. I can only remember a handful of albums that I liked more than 3 songs on. I have about 400 cd's sitting in a box right now. When I downloaded the songs I liked from them, I came up with about 30 cd's worth of music.

steveinaz

Where ever you land on streamed music, the high res companies are certainly providing music that is far better than FM Stereo could ever hope to be. Streaming has become what everyone hoped satellite radio was going to provide--but failed miserably.

I have tried all 3, Qobuz, Tidal, and Amazon HD, they all have somewhat of a "softened" presentation. I prefer Amazon simply on the way it works, it's interface, and it's ability to select tracks I like.

jdjohn

joecoulson wrote: »

Jesse you have a fantastic vinyl setup so I would imagine it would be very expensive and difficult to match or even get close with streaming quality with Tidal, or any non physical digital media, but $$ could make all the difference. Just my 2 c

Having analog playback equipment good enough to best digital is one thing...finding a vinyl pressing good enough to match is another. I was doing some real-time A/B comparisons the other night between vinyl and digital, toggling between inputs as both played, and the results were dependent on the quality of the vinyl pressing...and I'm not talking about clicks/pops/scratches from dirt or damage...I'm talking about the actual pressing. A good, quality pressing sounded better to me (and my wife) than digital, but even a slightly marginal pressing was not as good as digital. The thing is: visually, a pressing may look good to the naked eye, but groove damage often has to be heard, and then compared to a digital source in order to discern whether it's the pressing OR the original recording. At that point, it may be too late to return the record, so the quest continues for a quality pressing.

You can chase your tail quite awhile trying to find a good pressing, so sometimes digital just makes sense.

BlueFox

Just based on the fact of compression done to record on vinyl, along with the poor frequency response of vinyl, along with the clicks and pops in vinyl playback, it is impossible for vinyl to even equal, let alone surpass, a good digital source and system. The facts speak for themself.

Also, I am not talking about streaming, but, rather, CDs ripped to digital files, or high res files downloaded from HDTracks, or other vendors.

jdjohn

BlueFox wrote: »

Just based on the fact of compression done to record on vinyl, along with the poor frequency response of vinyl, along with the clicks and pops in vinyl playback, it is impossible for vinyl to even equal, let alone surpass, a good digital source and system. The facts speak for themself.

Also, I am not talking about streaming, but, rather, CDs ripped to digital files, or high res files downloaded from HDTracks, or other vendors.

By "compression", do you mean application of the RIAA EQ curve? I would say that "clicks and pops" are optional, depending on quality and cleanliness of the vinyl.

But for the record (no pun intended), I do think digital wins more times than not.

tonyb

I dunno gents, when arguing about which format is better or worse, you gotta compare apples to apples. Good vinyl won't have too many pops and clicks but has better tone than digital. Digital has better dynamic range, but can lose some tone along the way.

Obviously, when talking digital, lots depends on the associated gear, same with vinyl. In vinyl, the player itself, needle, arm, platter, vibration control, all play a part in the quality you'll hear. Digital is more dependent on associated gear in my opinion, not that the player/streamer doesn't matter, cause it does, but you'll find dacs to be more highly upgraded in the digital domain than the players themselves. The source component in digital is mainly concerned with dac chips and implementation, software.

2 different circuses, 2 different monkeys to feed, but both can entertain to your hearts content.

displayname

tonyb wrote: »

I dunno gents, when arguing about which format is better or worse, you gotta compare apples to apples. Good vinyl won't have too many pops and clicks but has better tone than digital. Digital has better dynamic range, but can lose some tone along the way.

Obviously, when talking digital, lots depends on the associated gear, same with vinyl. In vinyl, the player itself, needle, arm, platter, vibration control, all play a part in the quality you'll hear. Digital is more dependent on associated gear in my opinion, not that the player/streamer doesn't matter, cause it does, but you'll find dacs to be more highly upgraded in the digital domain than the players themselves. The source component in digital is mainly concerned with dac chips and implementation, software.

2 different circuses, 2 different monkeys to feed, but both can entertain to your hearts content.

Totally agree with this. There are lots of reasons to keep both vinyl and digital chains in the system, and that's because it really is apples and oranges to an extent.

Plus I've always felt vinyl fulfills a different part(s) of the hobby for some. The collection factor. Finding the best pressings. The constant maintenance and tinkering along with marveling at a will set up piece of gear. It's very much comparing the best car you can afford that gets you everywhere vs a project vintage car or speedster that requires as much time under the hood as it does on the road. They can both be rewarding and exciting in different ways, even if they are both built to get you from point A to point B technically.

But at this point we're also getting pretty far off the Tidal topic, lol.

rooftop59

tonyb wrote: »

I dunno gents, when arguing about which format is better or worse, you gotta compare apples to apples. Good vinyl won't have too many pops and clicks but has better tone than digital. Digital has better dynamic range, but can lose some tone along the way.

Obviously, when talking digital, lots depends on the associated gear, same with vinyl. In vinyl, the player itself, needle, arm, platter, vibration control, all play a part in the quality you'll hear. Digital is more dependent on associated gear in my opinion, not that the player/streamer doesn't matter, cause it does, but you'll find dacs to be more highly upgraded in the digital domain than the players themselves. The source component in digital is mainly concerned with dac chips and implementation, software.

2 different circuses, 2 different monkeys to feed, but both can entertain to your hearts content.

I think you're right, Tony. The difference is that you can't "rent" a 50,000 album collection of vinyl for 20 smackers a month...nor can you whilst yelling at one child, helping another with homework, and cooking dinner play any of that vinyl on your main rig by pushing a button on your phone. If you have a busy life and are constantly on the go like I am, streaming makes sense even if it falls a bit short of the best analog reproduction. And it definitely makes sense if its a draw...

tonyb

I've already expressed my opinion of Tidal, being a bit rounded at the extremes of either end. Haven't tried Q yet, but you guys keep telling me about the limited library so what's the point then.

Have to try this Amazon thing though, you guys seem to like it.

steveinaz

I like the great blend of radio station type music retrieval, as well as specific artist lookup and play. I have the HD plan and really like it so far.

Polkitup2

I just signed up for the Amazon HD free trial and am impressed with the music selections. Vastly more albums and artists are available than I could ever accumulate via downloads/CDs/vinyl.

I compared some identical 24/96 albums downloaded from HDtracks with the Amazon ultra HD 24/96 versions and I found the HDtracks files always sounded somewhat better. The Amazon tracks sound more veiled/muddy in comparison. I suspect a little more grunge is picked streaming across the internet than playing a local file. Nevertheless, Amazon ultra HD does sound decent, certainly good enough when you just want some background music playing.

I think the Amazon service is an excellent tool for discovering new music. I also like the radio station feature that Steve mentioned where I can just select a genre such as ultimate jazz and just let it play in the background all day long while I'm doing other stuff.