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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
audiofreak32's avatar
audiofreak32
281 posts
 
All the times I have heard Tidal, I was extremely unimpressed.  I could tell right away that it sounded compressed.  If you are more into having a million songs at your fingertips than the ultimate in hi-res file quality, then it is fine.  Anyone on here thinking that streaming Tidal is the same as having 24-192k files fed into a decent DAC has a screw loose.
mofimadness's avatar
mofimadness
4,988 posts
 
Anyone on here thinking that streaming Tidal is the same as having 24-192k files fed into a decent DAC has a screw loose.
Tidal has NEVER been associated with 24/192, (except maybe when MQA is talked about).  Tidal is a CD quality (16 bit, 44.1khz) service in a LOSSLESS format. Most of the other services are MP3 (lossy) and sound that way. The MP3 clocks in at 320kbps, Tidal is 1411kbps. Over 4 times the resolution.

If you compare Tidal to the other services (which I have extensive knowledge and experience with), it’s not even close.

I agree with your statement about 24/192’s sound quality, but comparing THAT to Tidal really isn’t fair...


devilboy
1,176 posts
 
@audiofreak32...I must have a screw loose because I don't care for upsampling at all as it sounds less natural and more artificial than a good NOS R2R DAC to me.
Too each his own, I guess.
jyprez's avatar
jyprez
241 posts
 

The good news, grm, is that we are on the verge of a music revolution that young people like yourself will enjoy and old folks like myself can get a taste of today at far greater cost than you will ultimately need to pay.

I have a musicvault m7 running Roonserver into a PSAudio Directsream DAC. I have subscriptions to Spotify, Pandora and Tidal HIFI. I also have lots of downloaded hi resolution files as well as ripped redbook CD on the 3 terabyte drive of the M7 (as well as a full vinyl system which I will not get into here).  I realize this system is well beyond the means of a college student (well into 5 digits) but as I said the cost of these systems is coming down just as your means are, presumably, going up. In the future everyone will have a music server at the core of their system which will stream music and coordinate it from other sources, like a preamp does today.

First let me say that Tidal HIFI is far and away better than what you can get on Spotify and Pandora for sound quality. I have these other two services simply for other features they offer.

A good quality system for you to consider on your budget would be Tidal HIFI (web version, no need for Roon subscription yet), a basic music server (build one from a Rasberry PI or use your PC), into a good USB DAC like the Dragonfly, into a good headphone amp (I built a Bottlehead tube amp but you might need a device that works with lower impedance headphones than my Sennheisser HD580's).

As you upgrade you can get better music management with tools like Roon, a better music server, DAC etc....

reubent
6,996 posts
 
jyprez,

Do you know how to get Tidal integration on a Raspberry Pi? I built a Rasberry Pi 3, HiFiBerry Dac+ Pro, iFi power supply music server and run the moOde Audio OS. There is no ability to integrate Tidal. If there was, I would be a very happy camper. However, when you boot it using the moOde Audio OS image, you are limited to the functionality built into moOde and streaming services are not yet integrated into the OS.

Are you familiar with any specific audio OS for the Raspberry Pi that has Tidal integration?
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