AudioNervosa

Systemic Development => Digital Audio Devices => Streaming Players => Topic started by: Emil on December 21, 2017, 04:29:52 AM

Title: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: Emil on December 21, 2017, 04:29:52 AM
Are they in trouble.....again?

The day I buy a Bluesound Node is the day they close. Just watch :lol:

"Lossless streaming music service Tidal is reported to be running out of cash, having run up losses of around $44M last year. Jay-Z and other owners are said to have lost more than half a billion dollars in all.

Norway’s Dagens Næringsliv says that the company now has only enough cash to last it six months, raising the prospect of the service closing down by the summer – despite a $200M investment by Sprint …"

https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/13/tidal-out-of-cash-may-close/
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: richidoo on December 21, 2017, 09:51:38 AM
Jay-Z and other owners are said to have lost more than half a billion dollars in all.

That makes my day!  :D

Softbank knows Jay Z and gang are not long for this content streaming world. They turned around Sprint, they will use failed Tidal as cheap entry into the content business. Tidal owes them 200M, so they take over when JayZs big adventure mercifully ends.

I think they will lower prices, educate the public through marketing on the value of full resolution music, and then go into video streaming as well. But other streamers will quickly follow them into highrez music. They avoid it now because the 192k "works fine" and the public doesn't know any better. Just like gasoline piston engines and social security.

But 4K video is successful, and it is causing excellent new TV shows to be made. I hope the same happens with high rez audio, once you can "hear it all," people will want better quality music too. They will want to hear beautiful tone again, since it is much more potent stimulant than the sizzling grit of mp3. You'll need a new army of entertainers to deliver beautiful tone.

Pipe dream?
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: Nick B on December 21, 2017, 02:54:01 PM
Jay-Z and other owners are said to have lost more than half a billion dollars in all.

That makes my day!  :D

Softbank knows Jay Z and gang are not long for this content streaming world. They turned around Sprint, they will use failed Tidal as cheap entry into the content business. Tidal owes them 200M, so they take over when JayZs big adventure mercifully ends.

I think they will lower prices, educate the public through marketing on the value of full resolution music, and then go into video streaming as well. But other streamers will quickly follow them into highrez music. They avoid it now because the 192k "works fine" and the public doesn't know any better. Just like gasoline piston engines and social security.

But 4K video is successful, and it is causing excellent new TV shows to be made. I hope the same happens with high rez audio, once you can "hear it all," people will want better quality music too. They will want to hear beautiful tone again, since it is much more potent stimulant than the sizzling grit of mp3. You'll need a new army of entertainers to deliver beautiful tone.

Pipe dream?

Rich,
I was concerned hearing the latest about Tidal. Listening to mp3 is not a pleasant option.  Never had heard of SoftBank before, so I hope they can do what you suggest. Hopefully Roon can work with the new “Tidal”. I don’t believe Roon  has any other streaming partner options right now.
Nick
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: richidoo on December 21, 2017, 04:25:47 PM
Softbank is a Japanese investment bank that owns 70% of Sprint. They tried to merge Sprint with T-Mobile but failed, so they will increase their stake in Sprint to 85%.

As Sprint they bought 33% of Tidal, though Tidal would have sold it outright for more money. But they had to sell part as a lifeline to keep going. They are still losing money so they will eventually have to sell more.

Tidal is not going away. It will change, as all things do, and in my view that can only be positive.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: djdube525 on December 22, 2017, 03:54:20 AM
Softbank recently put together a $93B (plan is to hit $100B) Technology investment fund which included a significant investment from Saudi Arabia.

Softbank has been investing large sums of moneys in many of the "unicorn" tech companies. They recently announced plans to invest $10B into Uber (they also have significant investments in ride sharing companies in China and India).

Softbank also owns mobile telecom properties in Japan (2nd to NTT Docomo) which has fueled much of it's investment operations.

They've had a pretty strong record as a VC like firm...
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: richidoo on December 22, 2017, 11:09:55 AM
Cool, thanks Dave! Mr tech whisperer!  :thumb:

The network is already here. 4K video burns 20Gbps, Tidal hifi only 2Mbps! There are more Netflix subscribers than cable TV, and a few more with Prime, so the network is big enough and fast enough. 8K video is coming. There's simply no reason for compressed audio anymore. Eventually some teenager will figure it out and it will become "a thing." That will be a great day for our hobby. But with only one hirez provider there's no competition to make a fair price.

It will be ironic if the traditional enemies of hifi, like Napster, iPhone and hiphop might turn out to be difficult but necessary steps toward a new hifi revolution. It's all about the kids, will they ever care about audio resolution? If the music was great, they would. But the music may become great again if the technology forces it. Maybe content publishers will realize that gritty low res media is only capable of carrying gritty low vibration message that nobody will pay for. Allow the beauty of human voice to survive the signal path all the way into the ear and then people may crave beautiful music again, and pay for it like we did for analog media.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: djdube525 on December 23, 2017, 05:22:09 AM
The network is already here. 4K video burns 20Gbps, Tidal hifi only 2Mbps!

Well... that's the thing. I remember back in the dot com days, it was said "voice will be free"... people scoffed. With 4K video driving BW consumption needs... 1080p based content will comparatively drive down to next to nothing... audio... even more so.

I keep thinking that if Tidal were to come in at the same price point as a Spotify/Apple/etc, then quality becomes the differentiator. They are banking on the "coolness factor" to justify the price... similar to how Apple can justify a $1K smartphone and sell a crap ton of it. But they are two separate things... an iPhone is a physical object, and every time you pull up your phone to your face to unlock it, you're telling the world... "I've got the cashola to buy one of these bad boys" (that's not the only reason to get one mind you, but status plays a contributing factor). How do you do that with Tidal vs Spotify? You don't (IMHO).

Granted... the services are all to easy to switch at first, but once their machine learning algorithms take hold, learn your likes/dislikes, it then becomes more of a hassle to switch. To that end, they need an aggressive push to acquire customers (look at T-Mobile and how they've become relevant).

In the grand scheme of things, storage, network capacity, etc continues to commoditize, and until that point, capital "buys" you customers which Softbank could help with.

Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: Nick B on December 23, 2017, 06:55:13 AM
I wonder why Tidal is losing money. How much do they have to pay each month for artists’ royalties? During the course of a month, I listen to many, many songs.
Anyone have an idea of the fee structure and how do other companies like Spotify make a profit...assuming they do.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: richidoo on December 23, 2017, 09:21:31 AM
It's failing, imo, because they market to thugworld and there's just not enough thugs. They could market to little girls like every other music seller does, but instead they publicly feud with Taylor Swift.

There's no physical media anymore, so publishers negotiate whatever royalty deals they can get with streaming services. Everyone makes a little money, nothing like when we paid $10 for every vinyl record. Streamers also sell ads to play between songs to the free stream listeners.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: DRN on December 23, 2017, 10:34:25 AM
"Thugs" good point, the whole interface the last time i've seen it was oriented that way.
I will NEVER use subscribe to Tidal for just because who owns it!
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: DRN on December 23, 2017, 11:13:37 AM
Hey Rich..............

 :p
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: richidoo on December 23, 2017, 01:14:47 PM
I will NEVER use subscribe to Tidal for just because who owns it!

Hey Den  :-P

I thought that til I tried it. :)

It's nice to have all that music at my fingertips. I can ignore President Kardashian featured albums. I don't see him at all in Roon, from where I play Tidal.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: rollo on December 23, 2017, 04:58:28 PM
  Roon and music server oh my !!!


charles
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: djdube525 on December 24, 2017, 04:37:07 AM
I wonder why Tidal is losing money. How much do they have to pay each month for artists’ royalties? During the course of a month, I listen to many, many songs.
Anyone have an idea of the fee structure and how do other companies like Spotify make a profit...assuming they do.

One could get a sense of how money could be spent by looking at Pandora's most recent 10Q filings...
http://investor.pandora.com/Cache/390921213.pdf

Last Quarter, they had $352M in revenue...

Expenses included:
Content Acquisition Costs: $171M
Sales & Marketing: $116M
General & Administrative: $42M
Product Development: $33.5M
Other: $26M
Ticketing Service (they completed purchase of Ticketfly): $15M

A smidge over 80% of revenues goes to cover Content acquisition costs (royalties) and marketing...

Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: richidoo on December 24, 2017, 08:48:47 AM
Details on what streamers vs radio stations pay for royalties.
https://davidtouve.com/2011/12/18/us-radio-versus-music-services-a-comparison-of-the-value-of-spins-versus-streams/
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: Nick B on December 24, 2017, 06:55:18 PM
Thanks for the financial information. The numbers are fascinating and the amounts per play are much smaller than I thought.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: richidoo on December 24, 2017, 09:04:50 PM
The real money is in the bonus royalties. If a song becomes a hit, or a standard (Christmas music) or a movie soundtrack, or played on TV, etc then you get more money per play. If it does all of the above you are sitting pretty. Plus there are other ways a songwriter gets paid royalties beside airplay.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: richidoo on May 18, 2018, 06:14:32 AM
Circling the drain...  (http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/05/17/report-jay-zs-tidal-months-behind-on-payments-rumors-of-artists-withdrawing/)
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: Emil on May 18, 2018, 06:25:59 AM
Sure. Just when I sold my PS Audio transport and committed 100% to streaming :shock:

Qobuz is coming soon. Anyone use Deezer?

Would you pay $40 a month?
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: Nick B on May 18, 2018, 06:33:15 AM
Was playing Tidal last night and it was great. Not only great sound from the kefs, but heard so much new material on Tidal. It would be a shame for these guys to go under. As to Quobuz, I’m quite curious about it, but not sure Roon has an agreement with them.

Wouldn’t want to pay more than $25 a month fo4 streaming.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: shadowlight on May 18, 2018, 07:27:46 AM
Sure. Just when I sold my PS Audio transport and committed 100% to streaming :shock:

Qobuz is coming soon. Anyone use Deezer?

Would you pay $40 a month?

I have tried all 3 - Qobuz, Deezer and Tidal.  I have not done any sound quality comparison but I found both Qobuz and Deezer to have better selection especially classical and international artists.  The one thing that I hate about Tidal the most is the constant push for rab/hiphop music. 

For guys who have Bluesound or Sonos you can get Deezer hifi streaming for ~15 bucks - https://www.deezer.com/us/offers/?referer=sonos.  Hifi streaming is also available if you use their desktop app and Logitech Media Server with ickstream plugin.  For Qobuz, you will initially have to sign up using VPN for one of the European region (for folks with English language only, me included) the cheapest options is if you sign up via Ireland Qobuz.  If you sign up via the UK site you end up paying in GBP v/s Euro for the Irish site.

I plan to turn one of my Pi as LMS server strictly as a streaming platform, since with ickStream you can get access to all 3 services.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: Nick B on May 18, 2018, 08:13:16 AM
Sure. Just when I sold my PS Audio transport and committed 100% to streaming :shock:

Qobuz is coming soon. Anyone use Deezer?

Would you pay $40 a month?

I have tried all 3 - Qobuz, Deezer and Tidal.  I have not done any sound quality comparison but I found both Qobuz and Deezer to have better selection especially classical and international artists.  The one thing that I hate about Tidal the most is the constant push for rab/hiphop music. 

For guys who have Bluesound or Sonos you can get Deezer hifi streaming for ~15 bucks - https://www.deezer.com/us/offers/?referer=sonos.  Hifi streaming is also available if you use their desktop app and Logitech Media Server with ickstream plugin.  For Qobuz, you will initially have to sign up using VPN for one of the European region (for folks with English language only, me included) the cheapest options is if you sign up via Ireland Qobuz.  If you sign up via the UK site you end up paying in GBP v/s Euro for the Irish site.

I plan to turn one of my Pi as LMS server strictly as a streaming platform, since with ickStream you can get access to all 3 services.

Good to know. As I may well dump my Auralic because of it’s pita indiosynchricies, it’s good to have other options including Bluesound. I have no idea how my Tidal signal gets to me, but you have no concerns about latency? If you signed up via Ireland and the currency is in Euros I believe, how do you transact the payment?
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: shadowlight on May 18, 2018, 09:10:17 AM
Good to know. As I may well dump my Auralic because of it’s pita indiosynchricies, it’s good to have other options including Bluesound. I have no idea how my Tidal signal gets to me, but you have no concerns about latency? If you signed up via Ireland and the currency is in Euros I believe, how do you transact the payment?

The brief time that I used Qobuz and Deezer I had no latency issues.  Now Tidal is a different story, even with a Gigabit Fios connection.  I never made any payment, I just signed up for the free trial but the payment options had both credit card and paypal.  They will do the conversion from Euro to USD for you.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: shadowlight on June 14, 2018, 11:08:43 AM
Question for Bluesound node owners.  Does the Bluesound have an option to send the stream to a UPnP renderer or is it strictly out either via spdif or analog only?
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: Nick B on June 14, 2018, 11:47:45 AM
Good to know. As I may well dump my Auralic because of it’s pita indiosynchricies, it’s good to have other options including Bluesound. I have no idea how my Tidal signal gets to me, but you have no concerns about latency? If you signed up via Ireland and the currency is in Euros I believe, how do you transact the payment?

The brief time that I used Qobuz and Deezer I had no latency issues.  Now Tidal is a different story, even with a Gigabit Fios connection.  I never made any payment, I just signed up for the free trial but the payment options had both credit card and paypal.  They will do the conversion from Euro to USD for you.


Yes, Tidal is a problem sometimes. But I like Roon, so there aren’t any other options right now and Roon seems unlikely to be able to partner with the other streaming services. Worst case, I ditch Roon and may try Quobuz or Deezer.
Title: Re: Tidal on the ropes again?
Post by: mdconnelly on June 15, 2018, 06:03:01 AM
I tried Tidal with Roon about a year or so ago.   I was quite impressed but ultimately let my subscription lapse.   Maybe just the dinosaur in me, but I enjoy buying new music and expanding my own library.   Tidal HiFi is a bit pricey but I notice they give a nice discount to students and military.   Now if they would include a senior discount, I'd jump back in  :thumb:

I have seen rumors in the Roon forums that Qobuz may be working with Roon on a future integration - but perhaps just wishful thinking.   I'm certain Roon would love to expand streaming services beyond just Tidal, but they had no luck doing so with Spotify.   Not sure if Deezer is a possibility.   I think Qobuz would be a great match for Roon, but not holding my breath.