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Who has tried "TIDAL" vs other streaming applications?

Hello, I'm new to Audiogon, this is my first posting into Forums.

I enjoy streaming audio from my PC and have been using Spotify for a number of years now (college student discount to premium $5 a month). I just recently stumbled upon a App called TIDAL, that streams Lossless 16/44.1FLAC with their "HI-FI" subscription (Student $10 a month). Since I can queue up Spotify and Tidal at the same time, I was able to do an A/B and used Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. I noticed that TIDAL indeed sounds better to me but am convinced none of my family members could tell a difference. I then did an A/B with TIDAL and the actual Brothers in Arms CD, to my surprise TIDAL sounded scary close, if not just as good as the CD! This is hard for me to believe, I think I'm just trying to justify the extra cost of TIDAL on a crazy tight student budget, maybe its a placebo effect? I need to drop one of the services, but which one? I would appreciate your thoughts please... Thank you!
My system:
PC = Gaming Rig I built myself, using dedicated high quality audio card.
Krell KAV 400xi integrated
Sonus Faber Electa's with Sunfire HRS Sub
Cambridge AZUR 840C CDP/DAC
Luxman T117 Tuner
Sony SCD - C2000ES SACD Player
Kimber Silver Streak throughout  


grm
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,381 posts
 
"to be honest most music doesn’t even benefit from lossless to much if at all over full bitrate mp3." 

What kind of system are you listening to when you draw this conclusion? 

I agree that IT'S ALL IN THE PROVENANCE as to what recordings really sound great,  but find that most mp3s fall short on even moderately well setup modest systems. The only times the better formats aren't noticeable is on overly-produced compressed pop and similar recordings that were mixed and mastered with iPods in mind; often with auto-tuned vocals to make it even worse.
There's plenty of great sounding red-book out there, sounding good when ripped in lossless aiff or wav, but mp3s of the same will sound compressed, undynamic and full of glare. Cheers,
Spencer
hgeifman
2,296 posts
 
I like Tidal Streaming because of its excellent sound quality and albums like the one below.

Search Tidal for Rodriguez and select the album "Searching for Sugar man".  The move is highly recommended and so is his outstanding music. Rodriguez made 2 albums in the US and they did not sell (zero sales).  Somehow these albums landed in South Africa and the sold like crazy (bootleg copies).  Unbelievable.

The movie "Searching for Sugar man" tells his incredible story. Everyone thought he committed suicide and an investigative reporter started looking for him.  His story is wonderful and his music is outstanding.   This movie is a must see and so are his albums.   Enjoy.



mofimadness's avatar
mofimadness
5,192 posts
 
The movie "Searching for Sugar man" tells his incredible story. Everyone thought he committed suicide and an investigative reporter started looking for him. His story is wonderful and his music is outstanding. This movie is a must see and so are his albums.
+1 Excellent documentary.
Post removed 
andynotadam's avatar
andynotadam
170 posts
 
For the last few days I've been streaming Tidal HiFi through my Bryston BDP-2 (using the Bryston beta software) and compared to the same songs ripped to AIFF and played off a SSD, Tidal sounds a bit more two dimensional, but otherwise very comparable to the SQ of the ripped CDs. This is not an issue to me. In 2007 I sold several thousand LPs collected over a good part of a lifetime and, while I have replaced a great many LPs with  CDs, it simply isn't practical financially or otherwise to continue. With Tidal, If I can think of it, I can play it. It works well for me because my tastes run to various flavors of rock, folk, blues and jazz and less so to classical which some say is lacking in Tidal. I'm still getting used to the UI and am investigating Roon, but I'm very happy with Tidal so far...
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