Author Topic: Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi  (Read 1863 times)

Offline James Edward

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Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi
« on: July 29, 2020, 01:34:51 PM »
Does anyone know if the ‘CD quality’ sound available through the lower (9.99) tier streams at the same quality via the higher priced tier (19.99)?
Put a different way- is there any reason to pay the higher price if I only use the CD quality files?
I occasionally stumble upon some songs that are in MQA format or Hi-Res, but most are not my cup of tea, or maybe I just don’t care.
Anyone know for certain?
« Last Edit: July 29, 2020, 05:48:28 PM by James Edward »
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Offline Nick B

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Re: Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2020, 04:42:41 PM »
Jim,
This is about the best explanation from them that I found. I subscribe to both Tidal and Qobuz and am happy with both services. My dac is nos and no mqa either. I believe I pay $4 a month less for Qobuz.
Nick

Here’s the Tidal link:

https://tidal.com/whatistidal/

Premium for $9.99 / month

For $9.99 per month, TIDAL's Premium tier gives users unlimited music across multiple devices including smartphones, computers, and tablets, as well as access to exclusive TIDAL X events. TIDAL Premium subscribers can also create playlists and download songs to their devices for offline listening – all without intrusive advertisements.

HiFi for $19.99 / month

TIDAL's HiFi tier gives subscribers all the same great content and experiences as a Premium subscription, except music is delivered in lossless, CD and Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) quality (1411 kbps vs. 320 kbps for standard streaming).

HiFi streaming delivers an uncompressed sound file, which means that you can hear every instrument and every note – as the artist intended. This tier costs $19.99 per month.
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Offline James Edward

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Re: Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi
« Reply #2 on: July 29, 2020, 06:03:34 PM »
Not exactly definitive though is it... I saw that and I still wonder. I’m going to try and contact them directly and see what they have to say.
I guess if someone has a dac that displays the actual bitrate playing, and has a friend that also has a dac with a display, and one has Tidal premium and one Tidal HiFi, we could work this out. There, I’ve gone too far.
I’ll report my findings.
I ask this question because I had the 9.99 service for about 7 months, and thought the sound was quite good. I upgraded thinking nirvana was just round the bend. Though the MQA tunes do sound MQA-ish, the cd ones sound the same. Just looking to validate this. First world problem as they say...
Thanks Nick-
« Last Edit: July 29, 2020, 06:20:10 PM by James Edward »
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Offline Nick B

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Re: Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi
« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2020, 06:39:10 PM »
Not exactly definitive though is it... I saw that and I still wonder. I’m going to try and contact them directly and see what they have to say.
I guess if someone has a dac that displays the actual bitrate playing, and has a friend that also has a dac with a display, and one has Tidal premium and one Tidal HiFi, we could work this out. There, I’ve gone too far.
I’ll report my findings.
I ask this question because I had the 9.99 service for about 7 months, and thought the sound was quite good. I upgraded thinking nirvana was just round the bend. Though the MQA tunes do sound MQA-ish, the cd ones sound the same. Just looking to validate this. First world problem as they say...
Thanks Nick-

I’ve never tried the lesser/cheaper service. Happy to be getting the sound I am. I looked for 10 minutes and that’s  the most definitive explanation I saw  :roll:
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Offline tmazz

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Re: Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi
« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2020, 10:13:36 PM »
Tidal Premium is a compressed MP3 based service. When you move up to Tidal Hi-Fi the files are delivered as FLAC files using at a native 44/16 speed. If those files are MQA encoded they will unpack to 96/24 or 192/24 files depending on the file and the hardware and/or software you use to decode them.
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Offline Nick B

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Re: Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2020, 12:11:00 AM »
Tidal Premium is a compressed MP3 based service. When you move up to Tidal Hi-Fi the files are delivered as FLAC files using at a native 44/16 speed. If those files are MQA encoded they will unpack to 96/24 or 192/24 files depending on the file and the hardware and/or software you use to decode them.

Thank you  :thumb:
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Offline rollo

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Re: Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2020, 09:04:05 AM »
  Qobuz plays Hi-rez without MQA. Using Qobuz Studio now. 24/192 no problem, 24/96 and native DSD.  To my ears and others better sonics than Tidal. For what it is worth.

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Offline tmazz

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Re: Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2020, 10:27:10 AM »
I have to agree about Qobuz. Not only did the native high res sound better than the MQA on Tidal , but I though it sounded better when comparing the identical CD resolution releases (tough to do because you never know if they are using the same master on an album, but when I compared a new album on the first day it was released I thought it was a pretty good bet that it was the same mastering on both services.)

I gave up on Qubuz when it was pulled from Android Auto and I couldn't use it in the car. But I recently found out that it is back again and  I'm thinking maybe I will have to give it another try.


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