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View Full Version : TIDAL Hi Fi vs. Other Music Streaming Services



Meloski
14-05-2015, 09:40
I currently enjoy a subscription to Spodify and I do realize all of its shortcomings as compared to my vinyl collection.
I wanted to know had anyone been using TIDAL Hi Fi? How did it compare to other music services?

Yomanze
14-05-2015, 09:50
I have used Spotify for years, and have been very surprised by the wide range of artists available on TIDAL.

Via the HiFi the benefits of FLAC vs. 320kbps are obvious too. I also prefer the TIDAL interface.

I still use Spotify though if only for the ability to have offline playlists on my app for portable listening via iPhone.

lovejoy
14-05-2015, 11:03
I've been through a few of them now. I was a paying member of Spotify for the longest time and there are still things about Spotify I find better than the rest:

1. The interface is the most intuitive if you're using the desktop app
2. The music catalogue is still the biggest - or certainly I find a lot more of the stuff I'm looking for on Spotify compared with Tidal or Qobuz
3. Support for various platforms is the best: My car stereo supports Apple Carplay and Spotify supports this and it's an absolute joy to use. No-one else supports car play
4. The social aspect. I'm connected to my friends accounts and I can share playlists with them which I love. It's like making compilation tapes for your mates brought into the 21st century (although it's not as much fun as making tapes).

There's only one thing I don't like about Spotify and that's the sound quality. I'm convinced I can hear the watermarking at work as I just cannot listen to it for more than about 30 minutes at a time. I also find that what I do listen to never really sinks in. Many times I've explored a new artist and concluded 'Meh!' and having revisted them on other platforms, or just taking a punt and buying an album, I find myself questioning why I dismissed them. It took a while to work out that it was Spotify's audio quality which just prevented me from getting interested in new music. Still not quite sure why this is but I'm putting it down to audible watermarking.

Currently, I'm using Tidal because:
1. Sound quality is great and I really am exploring a lot more stuff now that I'd never normally listen to and genuinely getting into new music
2. I like the curated playlists. There's some interesting stuff in there and over time, Tidal does adapt to your listening tastes unlike Spotify which just keeps pushing the top streamed content
3. Tidal has music videos. Not something I've ever been all that interested in but it works in the context of the whole package and it's fun to trawl back through some old videos now and again.
4. The promise of MQA streaming. This was the reason I joined up having bought a Meridian Explorer2 DAC. Nothing yet, but hopefully soon.
5. Tidal works through my Pi and IQAudio DAC using Minimserver from my NAS and sounds excellent. No support for Qobuz at present.

Tidal downsides:
1. It's expensive - I'm lucky enough to have a 3 month free trial which came with my Meridian Explorer, but £20/month is a bit steep and I suspect that the MQA version when it arrives might be even more. That said, the premium version still sounds better than Spotify, so it'll be interesting to see whether I decided to go down this route or return to Spotify at the end of my trial. The majority of listening is done on my phone, so do I really want to be filling it up with lossless audio?
2. No (official) desktop app at present. The mobile apps are great, but you're supposed to use a web browser for desktop use which I find infuriatingly clunky (especially if you're trying to edit playlists). You can however still use an older version of the desktop app which is OK, but the Tidal website says that the desktop app is currently down for maintenance which it has been for some time now, but I guess there'll be a swanky new app at some point.

I'm sure I'll think of more...

Yomanze
14-05-2015, 11:33
Absolutely lovejoy, a great summary especially the sound of Spotify.

User211
14-05-2015, 11:39
I use TIDAL. On a good system even Spotify premium is hard to cope with SQ wise.

Pay the extra if you have a very nice system.

User211
14-05-2015, 15:06
Few extra points:

1) Spotify premium I found acceptable on a £1500 quid odd pair of Mark & Daniel speakers. On my main system using £10K speakers, I did/do not find it acceptable.

2) The Android app is just superb. It also lets you buffer albums locally. Buy something like a Motorola Moto G 2nd Gen (£160 or less a masterpiece of a 4G budget phone) with a 32GB stick for 20 odd quid and download loads of albums in CD quality. Then stream in car via A2DP Bluetooth for an ace setup.

If only all Android apps were as good as TIDAL's. Seriously impressed with it. The Qobuz one is a comparative joke. Spotify, when I used it, kept losing my music, forcing re-download. Qobuz did that too. Unacceptable.

3) You really need more than 2Mbps but it will work with that, just about excluding videos, but TBH they are mostly on YouTube anyway, with bandwidth control if needed.

rallye666
14-05-2015, 21:55
I've been through a few of them now. I was a paying member of Spotify for the longest time and there are still things about Spotify I find better than the rest:

1. The interface is the most intuitive if you're using the desktop app
2. The music catalogue is still the biggest - or certainly I find a lot more of the stuff I'm looking for on Spotify compared with Tidal or Qobuz
3. Support for various platforms is the best: My car stereo supports Apple Carplay and Spotify supports this and it's an absolute joy to use. No-one else supports car play
4. The social aspect. I'm connected to my friends accounts and I can share playlists with them which I love. It's like making compilation tapes for your mates brought into the 21st century (although it's not as much fun as making tapes).

There's only one thing I don't like about Spotify and that's the sound quality. I'm convinced I can hear the watermarking at work as I just cannot listen to it for more than about 30 minutes at a time. I also find that what I do listen to never really sinks in. Many times I've explored a new artist and concluded 'Meh!' and having revisted them on other platforms, or just taking a punt and buying an album, I find myself questioning why I dismissed them. It took a while to work out that it was Spotify's audio quality which just prevented me from getting interested in new music. Still not quite sure why this is but I'm putting it down to audible watermarking.

Currently, I'm using Tidal because:
1. Sound quality is great and I really am exploring a lot more stuff now that I'd never normally listen to and genuinely getting into new music
2. I like the curated playlists. There's some interesting stuff in there and over time, Tidal does adapt to your listening tastes unlike Spotify which just keeps pushing the top streamed content
3. Tidal has music videos. Not something I've ever been all that interested in but it works in the context of the whole package and it's fun to trawl back through some old videos now and again.
4. The promise of MQA streaming. This was the reason I joined up having bought a Meridian Explorer2 DAC. Nothing yet, but hopefully soon.
5. Tidal works through my Pi and IQAudio DAC using Minimserver from my NAS and sounds excellent. No support for Qobuz at present.

Tidal downsides:
1. It's expensive - I'm lucky enough to have a 3 month free trial which came with my Meridian Explorer, but £20/month is a bit steep and I suspect that the MQA version when it arrives might be even more. That said, the premium version still sounds better than Spotify, so it'll be interesting to see whether I decided to go down this route or return to Spotify at the end of my trial. The majority of listening is done on my phone, so do I really want to be filling it up with lossless audio?
2. No (official) desktop app at present. The mobile apps are great, but you're supposed to use a web browser for desktop use which I find infuriatingly clunky (especially if you're trying to edit playlists). You can however still use an older version of the desktop app which is OK, but the Tidal website says that the desktop app is currently down for maintenance which it has been for some time now, but I guess there'll be a swanky new app at some point.

I'm sure I'll think of more...

Great comparison, I'm in the process of building a pi with Dac and had resigned myself to not being able to stream tidal to it. How do you set up Minimserver? I had problems getting tidal to work on my SBT using ickstream so I hope it's more straight forward!

lovejoy
14-05-2015, 22:22
MinimServer is surprisingly easy to set up. Download the server software for whatever platform you want to run it on. If you have a Synology, Qnap or Netgear NAS box with your music on, then that's the neatest solution and there are versions of MinimServer for each. If not, then there are PC, Mac and Linux server versions too. All you have to do upon installing the server is tell it where the music files are that you want it to share. You can get as involved as you like as there are all sorts of customisable options where you can configure exactly how you'd like MinimServer to sort your music files, i.e. sorting solo artists by surname, or making sure that bands that start with The aren't sorted under 'The' etc. but you can start with the basics and delve into the more involved stuff later (or not).
Now you need a client - Any app that says it's uPnp compliant is fine. I use BubbleUpnp on my Android devices which I like a lot, but there will be uPnp apps for any platform you could mention.
Now all you need to do is run the server and the client, then point the client at the server as the music source (it should find this automatically over your network), then point at your Pi or whatever your player is as the receiving device (also should be detected over the network), and off you go. For playing music from your server, you point at the server and for playing from things like Tidal, you tell BubbleuPnp to use the local device as the server, at which point you get a new folder called 'Cloud', which contains services such as Tidal, Google Play etc.

rallye666
15-05-2015, 06:42
Excellent thanks for the info :)

User211
15-05-2015, 09:31
Just for the record... 2Mbps does just about work with TIDAL but you will experience some issues and possibly break up from time to time.

I got 38Mbps yesterday and unsurprisingly it is an improvement. I reckon 5-6Mbps will be enough to make it about as good as it will ever get.

The website says they are trying to implement gapless playback.

rallye666
15-05-2015, 18:06
MinimServer is surprisingly easy to set up. Download the server software for whatever platform you want to run it on. If you have a Synology, Qnap or Netgear NAS box with your music on, then that's the neatest solution and there are versions of MinimServer for each. If not, then there are PC, Mac and Linux server versions too. All you have to do upon installing the server is tell it where the music files are that you want it to share. You can get as involved as you like as there are all sorts of customisable options where you can configure exactly how you'd like MinimServer to sort your music files, i.e. sorting solo artists by surname, or making sure that bands that start with The aren't sorted under 'The' etc. but you can start with the basics and delve into the more involved stuff later (or not).
Now you need a client - Any app that says it's uPnp compliant is fine. I use BubbleUpnp on my Android devices which I like a lot, but there will be uPnp apps for any platform you could mention.
Now all you need to do is run the server and the client, then point the client at the server as the music source (it should find this automatically over your network), then point at your Pi or whatever your player is as the receiving device (also should be detected over the network), and off you go. For playing music from your server, you point at the server and for playing from things like Tidal, you tell BubbleuPnp to use the local device as the server, at which point you get a new folder called 'Cloud', which contains services such as Tidal, Google Play etc.

Might not be such good news for me! I cant seem to find an iPhone/ipad client that supports Tidal. BubbleUpnp has a definite USP here!