TIDAL Lossless Streaming--Thoughts?

mmann68

Active Member
Wondering what folks' thoughts on lossless streaming is. Been reading some stuff on this over the last couple of weeks. I guess Neil Young is going to have a service, and I am on a list for this service TIDAL for when it gets started. A lot is dependent on what sort of clearances they have (they say they will upwards of 25 million songs). But it seems pretty promising to have access to lossless streaming. Cost seems like it will be around $15. I stick with free service when it comes to sites like Spotify, but I think I could be willing to pay $15 a month for lossless. Access to that much quality sound for the price of one CD a month is at least intriguing. Anybody have any feelings on the possibilities?
 
Already listening to losseless via Deezer. See the Deezer thread. $10/mo for first one or two years if full period bought in advance.
 
Already listening to losseless via Deezer. See the Deezer thread. $10/mo for first one or two years if full period bought in advance.

Can you hear a difference in sound quality between Deezer and the 320k services?

Isn't Deezer (the lossless version) only on Sonos?

FYI I got my first email from Tidal today. It says the service is coming "very soon".
 
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I'll check out the Deezer thread but, yeah, I thought you had to have Sonos to get Deezer, too. I'm definitely more interested in TIDAL for now as something to stream through the PC. Wondering about sound quality, too. I also got an email from them today. I guess it's more like 20 bucks a month. That starts to make it slightly more borderline for me. But if sound quality is markedly better than normal streaming, I think I'd have to strongly consider it.
 
Just got my email for a 30 day free trial of Tidal. Clicked on the link and I am asked for a credit card. No thank you. I am really put off by companies that take your CC information and expect you to remember to cancel or they will charge you. Let me try it for free first and I will make the decision if I want to pay you if I like it.
 
I'm on but not at my main rig so can't say anything about SQ. UI offers just what I need and no prodding to use extraneous social media crap. Appearance is perfect (nice and dark). A quick search of the catalog for some of the more obscure stuff I like has produced results. So far so good. :yes:
 
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^^^

I hear ya. For these types of free trials I started reading "free trial" as "free trial contingent upon" a long time ago. I'm just glad this one doesn't force me to use or corral me toward social media features.
 
^^^

I hear ya. For these types of free trials I started reading "free trial" as "free trial contingent upon" a long time ago. I'm just glad this one doesn't force me to use or corral me toward social media features.
Since they currently own the US market on lossless (unless you only listen on Sonos), I am going to try it out.

I doubt I will switch from Rdio, but I am definitely curious enough to try it.:thmbsp: On one hand, I would like to support lossless streaming, on the other hand, I am pretty happy with Rdio.

I will just sign up with Paypal.
 
Listening to tidal now, Steely Dan; Showbiz Kids, sounds good, from my phone to Tivoli Model 2 clock radio. Will try my pocketamp v2 next.
 
I'll try anything once. I just accepted my invitation and am listening now at work. It sounds pretty good so far but the real test will come when I get home and can compare directly with FLAC rips I've made there from the CD's....
 
Listening now from my laptop to my stereo

. Lossless is only supported on Chrome right now. Sound is EXCELLENT

:banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::ban
 
Just heard about this new Tidal service earlier this month while I was @ RMAF, then got an email from them this morning that it was now available.

I'm impressed so far..been listening to Gary Clark Jr. Live, Joe Bonamassa Different Shades o Blue, and Santana The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time :yes:

I may have bought my last CD :scratch2:
 
Streaming Tidal now.

Since we're now lossless, how can we bypass the Windows mixer? Volume control on Windows works as well as other sounds - on top of the stream.

This is clearly not bypassing the windows mixer, which leads me to believe that we're not getting bit-perfect playback, even though we're now streaming cd quality. The Tidal desktop software does not appear
to have an option for tweaking this nor does the Tidal web interface.

I wouldn't mention it except for the fact that in my experience bypassing the windows mixer with wav files straight to the dac on my computer makes a giant difference in sound quality. The stream sounds ok through my big rig but could it sound better bypassing the Windows crap mixer?

Anyone?
 
Tried it out today. Sounds great, but so do the 320k services on my system.

A few things I was happy with are:

1. The Bluetooth audio will send song and album cover info to my car's display. Beats and Spotify never worked properly. Rdio works properly, which is one of the reasons I am subscribed to Rdio.

2. The landscape setting looks great on my iPhone 6 Plus. I wish I could actually access everything in this limited mode, but it is nice for controlling what I already have playing.

3. Sound Quality - Great to have lossless

4. I like the Genre sections with album, playlists, and some suggested tracks,

5. I like the way you can pull up a song and click a button to pull up a lot of extra features. One useful tool is the "track info" that gives you the mixing engineer, Producer, Featured players, and composer.

6. I could play different music on my iPhone and laptop at the same time. Not a big deal for me, but others may find it to be a nice feature.

The downsides compared to Rdio:

1. Rdio will allow you to control what is playing on a computer via its iPhone app. I do not see any way to remotely control Tidal (with the exception of using Splashtop or something similar).

2. Continue play (when an album is over, Rdio will play similar music)

3. Artist radio doesn't have the same level of control as Rdio.

4. Rdio has two separate settings that allow you to chose bit rate over wifi and a separate choice for cellular. Tidal only has one option that it uses for both.


I don't think Tidal has the same degree of "curation" that you have with Rdio. I also don't see a way to match up my music with what they have in their library.

Anyway, these are just my intitial impressions. I think Rdio is a more full featured service, but Tidal has lossless. I need to compare SQ on a variety of songs to see if it actually matters with streaming. Without independent settings for cellular and wifi, it worries me that I am going to burn through my cellular data if I am not careful. Also, Tidal costs twice as much. If Rdio had lossless for another $10 a month, I would just pay it and be happy.

I haven't looked at the Tidal video features, yet.
 
I sat here for about 15 minutes and tried to remember how I missed this. I apparently had just forgotten about it; buried in my gmail "promotions" folder was my trial offer. I took it.

When it comes to streaming services, I'm used to Rhapsody. I used that for so many years it's almost not funny. This is obviously not as polished or curated as Rhapsody, which had one of the best "radio" systems I ever used and a plethora of editor and user created playlists. Rhapsody has also been around much longer. This still feels very new.

It'd be moot to talk about the sound quality; it's lossless. When I saw the 1411 bitrate; I remembered this was the second of the lossless providers that was doing raw PCM rather than FLAC. I'm not entirely wild about that idea, and it's not even a bandwidth issue; I've got plenty. The few Devo tracks I've heard that are already in my collection...sounded like they did in my collection.

Since we're now lossless, how can we bypass the Windows mixer? Volume control on Windows works as well as other sounds - on top of the stream.

This is clearly not bypassing the windows mixer, which leads me to believe that we're not getting bit-perfect playback, even though we're now streaming cd quality. The Tidal desktop software does not appear
to have an option for tweaking this nor does the Tidal web interface.

I wouldn't mention it except for the fact that in my experience bypassing the windows mixer with wav files straight to the dac on my computer makes a giant difference in sound quality. The stream sounds ok through my big rig but could it sound better bypassing the Windows crap mixer?

Anyone?

This is also a concern of mine; and believe me, I'm going to be sending them an email about this.

There are zero sound configuration options in either the browser client or the desktop client. The browser client I would expect to have none; it is going to be playing to whatever the browser uses. However, this option could prove useful if included; which it's not. To make matters worse, the desktop client is ignoring the "default output device" selection in WASAPI; no matter what that is set to, it always loads up and plays to the laptop speakers. That might be fine and dandy....if I wasn't using a USB DAC. I could probably "force" this by disabling everything but my USB DAC in sound properties. I shouldn't have to though; the program should let me at least select a output device.

The Windows mixer is another problem; since there's obviously no sound options, this thing is going to be using "shared mode" output if you're on Win Vista/7/8 (I forgot what XP was like, sorry). That's where software mixing and, possibly, resampling occurs. You can "bypass" that by setting exclusive mode; but that's moot because you can't change any of the sound options.

The best you can do at this point is assume everything they play is going to be 44.1kHz, and set the "default output rate" in the device properties to 44.1kHz. While Windows will still be mixing application sounds; it's going to occur at (hopefully) the native rate. You can actually mute System Sounds in mixer; as well as other applications that might be making sound. This is what I'm currently doing and it seems to be working.
 
Also streaming now on the 30-day "free look" period, earned by giving up my e-mail address to them a month ago, tipped off by John Darko's brief preview here. I'm using my Airbook, offloading through the new Dragonfly into ATH-M50s. Had to load Chrome for the HiFi stream, which was markedly better sounding than lower rez through Firefox. Definitely sounds nice, but I am sure my comfy pillow and the cozy looking nightime-friendly interface are helping. Someone get me a hot chocolate. Will know more once I hook 'er up to the big rig later this weekend.

I can't compare to other streaming services as this is my first foray into this as a listening medium. It would be a listening lifestyle change if I continue, but I like it so far. Comparing same songs to what I have ripped lossless to the Airbook, I detect a fair bit of warmth through TIDAL.

Selection is, so far, pretty darned good. Its a nice night when one can stream some Jack Bruce (nice of TIDAL to do a memorial tribute - Godspeed Jack), and reunite with my long lost Billy Cobham Spectrum album. Will it be worth $20/month? Keith Richards' sassy guitar on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" is trying to provide the answer...
 
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