AudioNervosa

Systemic Development => Digital Audio Devices => Streaming Players => Topic started by: mdconnelly on October 30, 2014, 09:11:10 AM

Title: Tidal
Post by: mdconnelly on October 30, 2014, 09:11:10 AM
Anyone giving Tidal a try?   I was able to get a 30 day free trial and have been playing it for the last 2 days.   Sound quality is excellent (streaming lossless), UI is overall very good and available for most any platform you can imagine.   
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: sleepyguy24 on October 31, 2014, 06:37:13 AM
Is this the service you are talking about?

http://tidalhifi.com/us

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbyowsinski/2014/10/30/tidal-starts-the-streaming-race-to-the-top/

I was told Spotify was awesome. I'll check this out eventually.
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: machinehead on October 31, 2014, 07:47:21 AM
How is the selection? I have spotify at 320kb... but wouldn't want to give up the variety of music I can listen to. Is it just classical and jazz plus audiophile artists?
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: tmazz on October 31, 2014, 08:24:43 AM
it is interesting that the Forbes article includes that Tidal is a service for audiophiles , but then says that its biggest obstacle is the $20/month price. Personally I think that is missing the mark. How many of us spend less than $240/year on software now. If you are talking about selling to the audiophile community you are talking about a group of people who often refer to $500 cables or $1300 DACs as "bargins." I don't think spending $20 a month on music is a stretch for any of us. What I do see as their biggest problem is that their service is meant to appeal to people who care about SQ (i.e. audiophiles.) and while most true audiophiles wouldn't think twice about spending $20 a month on the hobby, they also tend to in a large part, are traditionalists who have a long term "relationship with owning physical media. We go through almost ceremonial rituals in obtaining and using software. Think about the whole routine many of us go through upon obtaining anew LP, the unpacking , cleaning, protecting with outer sleeves and filing that goes on over an above just listening to the music contained on the record.  (Guilty.  :roll:  :D)  
To many of these folks dealing with the physical media is a big part of the fun and they are not ready to give that up and just listen to downloaded music music of any kind.

So from where I sit it looks like Tidal in in a kind of catch-22 situation. As the article said, most of the people who are open to that type of service are not willing to shell out that type of money and a large portion of the people who a) care about SQ enough and b) would not be put off by the price are just not interested in using a streaming service to obtain music. Hopefully for them they will be able to find enough progressive audiophiles and quality mined young folks to give this service enough traction in the marketplace for them to reach critical mass and become profitable. But IMO it is going to be a tough sell.
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: tmazz on October 31, 2014, 08:43:47 AM
And BTW - I hope they can make a go of it because sooner or laterstreaming and computer downloads are going to take over the vast majority music distribution business. And the more high quality services that get up and running now the better off we will be as audiophiles in the long run. I shudder to think  of a world where all music came as MP3s.  [-(
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: mdconnelly on October 31, 2014, 08:59:48 AM
Interesting Forbes article.  The times, they are a changin...

Certainly Spotify has quite a large library of music.  I like the software and the paid subscription version quality is good.  What differentiates Tidal is that it can stream losslessly (they call it HiFi) and I swear it does sound better.  of course it can also stream at 320 or less depending on bandwidth as needed.   As far as I can tell, Tidal has an equally vast library but I've only started discovering it.

I also like that it works on most any platform I have (iphone, ipad, computer, android devices) and has the ability to downloaded music for offline playback -- great for traveling which is exactly what I've been doing the last couple days.  I've been playing via an iFi Micro iDSD from my iPhone to either car audio, headphones or powered speakers -- have music, will travel.  It's pretty awesome.

But, what I like most is that it reinforces the value of lossless music of highest quality.  As tmazz suggested - I fear a world where all music is compressed and only available in mp3.

I'm tempted to say that what I don't like is the $20/month, but truthfully, that's not it.  I certainly spend more than $240/year to own or gift music in one form or another and will likely continue doing that.  I do prefer music ownership to music service.  But damn if there aren't times when a good music service is just incredibly useful.

The question... as these services get bigger, better, cheaper -- will there be a time when the value of music ownership, at least in digital form, is of little value?  I suspect we'll be seeing a whole lot of competition in this arena.  It's an interesting time...

Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: mfsoa on November 03, 2015, 02:31:57 PM
I'm listening to Tidal now through the SB Touch.

It's cool. It's way cool.

Last Sunday I search for  "Brendel Beethoven" and I see an album of the complete piano sonatas. Hit play and it cues up 10h 15m of tunes.

Way way cool.
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: richidoo on November 03, 2015, 03:11:03 PM
Last Sunday I search for  "Brendel Beethoven" and I see an album of the complete piano sonatas. Hit play and it cues up 10h 15m of tunes.

I was listening to that set just last night, my favorite by far. Sonata #20 on heavy rotation! I own the box set, for $60 or something...  :roll: Also his Schubert Sonata box set. There's half a year subscription to Tidal right there!

I hope Tidal survives long enough to inspire strong competition to get the price down. My wife and daughter use Spotify. I was driving my daughter the other day, I put on my bebop station on Pandora, I'm always frustrated that it rarely plays really good bop. So she offered to demo Spotify for me. I called out bands and she played them quick, Squeeze, MJQ, Duran Duran, Schnitter, Mulligan. I think it sounded better than Pandora which sounds bad on mobile.
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: tmazz on November 03, 2015, 05:46:14 PM
I'm listening to Tidal now through the SB Touch.

It's cool. It's way cool.

Last Sunday I search for  "Brendel Beethoven" and I see an album of the complete piano sonatas. Hit play and it cues up 10h 15m of tunes.

Way way cool.


How did you get it running through the Touch? I was looking to try it but did not see any logic tech listings under supported devices.
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: Nick B on November 03, 2015, 06:46:08 PM
Not interested in Tidal right now. Even though I'm spending money on audio right now, it's money I budgeted for. I don't much care for monthly subscriptions. I'd consider paying $10, but don't like going to $20. As I have 450 CDs and lots of records my sister in law just gave me, that'll keep me busy for quite a while. I'm getting closer to pulling the trigger on an Aries streamer and that may come with a brief freebie Tidal subscription. If so, that may change my mind
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: richidoo on November 03, 2015, 06:56:26 PM
When I was 15 I listened 6 hours a day to less than 10 records all year. But they were really good. Great music can tolerate "stuck on repeat."

My cheap side would compel me to "make use of" all that pricy Tidal has to offer, rather than binging non-stop on one special record.
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: hometheaterdoc on November 03, 2015, 07:20:07 PM
AURALiC Aries Mini network music players are finally shipping and it now comes with a free year of TIDAL... just saying :)

given how much I have spent on NAS equipment recently, having someone else host the vast repository of music for $20 a month rather than me store it locally has appeal... 

sound quality is much better than spotify and pandora....  i cant listen to those services...  but tidal is still not as good as the physical media or your own ripped copy.  i've done head to head listening sessions with exact tracks on physical disk, ripped digital file on NAS and the tidal streamed version...  local files still better...

tidal has been great for listening to new artists and new music discovery...  now when someone tells me about something,  a quick search on tidal and i am playing it in lossless format...  pretty sweet... if customer forgets their music when they come for a demo, they can play anything they want....  I've really been enjoying the user experience of the AURALiC and Lumin network music players....  both have built in tidal integration...  even my three year old can fire up those apps and get music playing on the stereo now....  wife loves it, too....  she hated the audio PC experience, but loves these new apps....
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: mfsoa on November 04, 2015, 03:36:42 PM
Quote
How did you get it running through the Touch? I was looking to try it but did not see any logic tech listings under supported devices.

You need the ickstream app for the Touch.

Search for ickstream tidal touch and you'll probably find good directions.

I didn't have much trouble setting it up
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: tmazz on November 04, 2015, 06:57:31 PM
Quote
How did you get it running through the Touch? I was looking to try it but did not see any logic tech listings under supported devices.

You need the ickstream app for the Touch.

Search for ickstream tidal touch and you'll probably find good directions.

I didn't have much trouble setting it up

Thanks. I figured it had to be some kind of third party software.

I'll give it a try.
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: Nick B on November 04, 2015, 07:59:57 PM
When I was 15 I listened 6 hours a day to less than 10 records all year. But they were really good. Great music can tolerate "stuck on repeat."

My cheap side would compel me to "make use of" all that pricy Tidal has to offer, rather than binging non-stop on one special record.

Yes, I get your point. I was in the Barnes and noble store where my wife works and they were playing nonstop Beatles stuff. What a treat. Do you or anyone know if Tidal lists what artists they carry or what songs from an artist might be excluded for any reason?
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: richidoo on November 15, 2015, 10:27:04 AM
From what I've heard they've got 30 million+ tracks and growing. They have the three big distributors which means anything pop/rock/jazz that's currently published. Classical and weird stuff maybe not, but if there are others who want to hear it too then it should be on there.
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: Nick B on June 12, 2016, 03:49:51 PM
I have a trial subscription of Tidal because I bought an Auralic Mini. I am impressed with Tidal. I was playing Smokey Robinson the other night, then the Beatles, Byrds. It's fun to do a search and see what's available. Some of the older stuff is a bit hard and edgy, but it's still very enjoyable. My dac tells me that 44.1 is being played.
Way cheaper than buying CDs 👍
Title: Re: Tidal
Post by: mdconnelly on June 12, 2016, 05:26:53 PM
After I started using Roon, I was able to snag another 3 month free trial of Tidal.  Roon + Tidal = Awesome!   I love the integration Roon has done with Tidal.  It makes Tidal simply an extension of your own music library with all the Roon tools at your disposal.

Sadly, my Tidal trial came to an end recently.  I thought I could do without the $20/month fee but I am finding myself missing it.  I'm thinking of going back to school just to get the student discount  :rofl: