Yeah, try Qobuz. I thought Tidal was done with cryptic algorithms making recordings sounding “better” after ditching MQA but apparently not. You’ll probably be happier with Qobuz.
Tidal SQ Issues
Has anyone experienced transient excessive harshness when streaming Tidal?
I'm a "high-res" streaming newbie, and was auditioning a friend's system last week. For the most part, I was really impressed by the quality of what I was hearing. But, a few tracks were accompanied by a discordant brightness that made the track virtually unlistenable. In trying to troubleshoot the root of the problem, I suggested that it might be due to the friend using coaxial rather than usb to connect the streamer to the dac.
Then, later in the week, I experienced the same issue on my own system. That got me thinking that Tidal Max's "better-than-cd-quality" algorithm was overcompensating for something in the original file and introducing some noise into the "up-res'd" version. I wonder, if the same effect would occur if I used their lower quality streams (but, really, why bother?). Going to try Qobuz out to see if it has similar issues.
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I'm wondering if the problem is that we stumbled onto some legacy MQA files. Both my friend and I are using Aurender devices (his N10; mine N150), played through Schiit dacs (his, an Yggdrasil; mine a Gungnir). It seems that we need to install a MQA Core-Decoder upgrade on the Aurender to play the files properly. Ugh. |
No do not install MQA. I use Tidal with Aurender N200 and I do not experience anything that resembles what you described. By the way with N10 SPDIF is the right connection. With your N150 you should be using USB. 1. shut down and power off dac and streamer. 2. Reboot network modem, router, any switches etc 3. Power on dac wait till it boots up 4. Power on aurender Also can you be specific what tracks you heard with this brightness artist, album, song?
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@audphile1 Unfortunately, I wasn’t tracking the issue that closely to notice the tracks being played. I’m on the alert now. |
Well you’re tracking it close enough to start a new thread here. And you don’t remember the recording you were playing. I’ll say it’s probably something you’ve not familiar with and you didn’t care for it enough to remember what it is. If it comes back to you post it here. Otherwise I’ll say it isn’t a significant enough problem to bother and start a new thread here questioning Tidal sound quality. Thoughts? |
