Who has tried "TIDAL" vs other streaming applications?

http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/when-high-resolution-audio-isnt-hd/

The link here is worth reading.
A text-based, summary of some of Dr. Waldrep’s key points and a good explanation for why calling something hi res don’t always make it so. The sampling rate of the format won’t create data that isn’t present in the source material. Conversely, it won’t necessarily lose data that wasn’t captured in the source material and so lower res formats can sometimes sound as good as so-called, "hi res" formats.

Ghosthouse, that article was basically laughed at by everyone in the audio industry.  Its like saying resolution is not a telltale of the quality of a color photo.  All due respect if you system cannot easilly distinguish an MP3 from a CD, you need to take a look at your rig.  These are night and day differences.  Even with the best recorded MP3 (hurts saying that) and a poor red book, you should still hear the difference, unless you are listening through a transistor radio.  Now, we are talking about native signals, not an MP3 "upsampled" to a higher sampling rate.  That is not hires and is still crap.  

Cerrot - I’ll not question your qualifications for speaking for "everyone in the audio industry" but I do think we continue to talk at cross purposes. You seem to be making judgements based on limitations of the package. I’m not saying those limitations are completely irrelevant but am saying it’s more critical to look first at what’s IN the package before we can evaluate the adequacy of the package.

The point I get from Dr. Waldrep’s discussions is that understanding "provenance" is a key determinant in predicting the likely sound quality of an audio file; that is, knowing the resolution of the original source material in comparison to actual specs of the resulting "file". If the source itself is "low res", an MP3 might possibly be adequate to faithfully convey that info while a "hi res" format won’t do anything to enhance it - using exaggeration to make a point. Again, not all MP3s are created equal because of differences in source material as well as differences in the as-presented-resolution. I’m not advocating everyone switch to MP3s or arguing they always sound as good as anything else. By the same token, not everything from Tidal HiFi is going to derive from a source of sufficient resolution/quality to benefit from their lossless delivery or (ultimately) sound much better than Spotify’s Ogg/Vorbis-based 320k bps Premium service.

Instead of format types or capabilities, our focus needs to be on the actual resolution of the source material and what meaningful data from that source is conveyed within the limits of the format. That’s a bit different than blanket claims of better SQ because something is packaged as lossless/hi res.

By the way, on a different but somewhat related topic...
I mostly avoid buying MP3s from Amazon due to their generally poor sound quality which, yes, I can hear vs CDs (or even Spotify!). What’s interesting to me is that if you compare the SQ of Amazon samples vs the purchased MP3, the samples sound markedly better! Don’t know details but that’s always struck me as a bit of a bait and switch.

Ciao (by the way, you’ve got some very nice gear in your posted systems).

Ghosthouse I just don't see how compressing a signal and shaving off bits, or however it's done sorry not an engineer, can't make it worse sounding. If compression is lossy then there is a loss of information right? It seems to make common sense that a lossless recording is going to sound better than a lossy recording. I am not talking about any sort of upsampling or high rez here. I listen to redbook cd and my Dac doesn't upsample. The difference between mp3's and flacs or wav files isn't just noticeable its pretty glaring.

jond - Please re-read my last post. I’m not saying that "compressing a signal and shaving off bits" can’t make it worse sounding. What did I say about the Amazon MP3s? Lossless/Hi Res is definitely to be preferred assuming there’s data in the original source to benefit from that "superior" format. BUT if there’s no meaningful data in the region that gets removed, hi res might not sound better that a lower res file.

It’s the old "can’t judge a book by its cover" - whether the "cover" is MP3 or Lossless/Hi Res. What matters is the content and how that compares to the original source (so think of the book we’re reading as a translation!).

OR to use another analogy (I’m no EE either) it’s like you have 2 boxes...one larger than the other. The boxes hold data. The data capacity of the larger box is greater than the small box so everybody wants the larger box. But that larger size only matters if the extra space of the larger box is actually filled with meaningful sonic info. If it’s just filled with a bunch of ’zeros’ the extra data carrying capacity won’t make things sound better. If the original source material didn’t have the data to fill the extra space, the extra space in the container won’t magically produce it. A smaller box might be adequate to convey all the data from the source.

Check out that longish YouTube video via the link a couple of posts above this one. Dr. Waldrep is saying it ain’t an automatic "given" that hi res offerings are always conveying a greater quantity of meaningful sonic data than more conventional lower res sources. "Quantity" might not be the best choice of words but it conveys the point I think. Hope that clears things up a bit.