Systemic Development > Bipolar System Disorders

Question Regarding Tidal Streaming- Premium vs HiFi

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James Edward:
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?

Nick B:
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.

James Edward:
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-

Nick B:

--- Quote from: James Edward 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-

--- End quote ---

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:

tmazz:
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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