About to give up on Tidal...

[Left Channel]

@Elecroestatico you're not alone. Good luck with Deezer. Qobuz is another option. They are launching in the US later this year with a range of tiers including MP3, CD quality, and Hi-Res, both streaming and downloads, and I've never had freezing/hanging/buffering problems with Qobuz. They currently offer over 1,000,000 Hi-Res tracks, vs. 100,000 Tidal "Masters" tracks: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/qobuz-lossless-streaming-service-thread.856101/page-3#post-14115257

 

[canthearyou]

I have had very few times where it would buffer or just not play, but not enough to cancel it. This is on a $150 laptop, a $900 laptop and my $$$ gaming PC. Also with a low tier 28mbps broadband internet.

Now that I'm using Roon it is very cool to integrate my ripped CD library and Tidal.

 

[Elecroestatico]

@Elecroestatico you're not alone. Good luck with Deezer. Qobuz is another option. They are launching in the US later this year with a range of tiers including MP3, CD quality, and Hi-Res, both streaming and downloads, and I've never had freezing/hanging/buffering problems with Qobuz. They currently offer over 1,000,000 Hi-Res tracks, vs. 100,000 Tidal "Masters" tracks: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/qobuz-lossless-streaming-service-thread.856101/page-3#post-14115257

That's great news, I wasn't aware Qobuz is coming to the USA, but so glad tidal finally will see competition from 2 more companies. Even if tidal starts to work, I think I will still switch to deezer or qobuz if they happen to work without bugs from the begging, no need to reward a company with customer loyalty if they haven't solved a crucial problem in their service for 2 years. I get hifi streaming is much smaller market compare to low res streaming music services, but they haven't done the basics to keep the relatively small market of customers they have. Also a third of tidal was acquired by a big cell phone company so they have plenty of resources to fix what it seems a fairly basic software that streams music.

 

[Bliss139]

I use Tidal at home with iMac through Audirvana to DAC/AMP with zero issues.

Then I use it at work with Win7 laptop and DAC/AMP and Tidal desktop app. Clicking and hanging and slow response. Slowness could be due to company VPN and data rates. But the clicking I don't know, the pc being quite new and well performing, it should deliver. But it doesn't. I have given exclusive to Tidal for DAC, but it doesn't solve anything.

Now the question is if I should switch to iPad / iPhone 7 >> Lightning >> USB >> DAC/AMP? The MQA would be lost, but most of the songs I listen are not available in MQA, so don't care about that.
All the clicking and hanging issues would be solved with iOS device instead of Win laptop, but how about sound quality? Should iOS device be able to deliver same lossless hifi quality?
...and I know, I could test it myself, but I'd like to know how this is in theory (or practice) and skip extensive A/B experiments. You can call me lazy

 

[Elecroestatico]

on Android the app played hifi cd quality when I had it (last time I used tidal on android was like 6 months ago). The only thing is that the streaming is not bit perfect because the android operative system is not bypassed by the tidal app and it goes thru the internal android sound mixer (similar to what happens in windows when you dont give exclusivity to the sound card you are using), then it's sent to the external dac or sound card. Quality is just slighlty less transparent for this reason, . Anyways I dont know about iphones/ipads via lighting cable, but i suspect a similar thing happens in the internal process of the operative system.

 

[Left Channel]

on Android the app played hifi cd quality when I had it (last time I used tidal on android was like 6 months ago). The only thing is that the streaming is not bit perfect because the android operative system is not bypassed by the tidal app and it goes thru the internal android sound mixer (similar to what happens in windows when you dont give exclusivity to the sound card you are using), then it's sent to the external dac or sound card. Quality is just slighlty less transparent for this reason, . Anyways I dont know about iphones/ipads via lighting cable, but i suspect a similar thing happens in the internal process of the operative system.

With UAPP you can bypass the system and send bit perfect output directly to an external USB DAC. Tidal is fully integrated, including MQA support.

 

[Elecroestatico]

With UAPP you can bypass the system and send bit perfect output directly to an external USB DAC. Tidal is fully integrated, including MQA support.

very interesting, last time i tried UAPP was couple years ago and I dont think they had integrated exclusive control of audio card on android for tidal.

BTW I also tried Deezer and I just cant stand a white background when listening to music, they should let you change background color on the desktop apps, but the real dealbreaker was their software not being able to take exclusive audio control on windows. I guess I will just have to wait and see if Qubuz is truly audiophile oriented.

 

[aldinho878]

Long term Tidal user here and can confirm the app is extremely extremely buggy for both android and Mac desktop. android app has finally become usable recently with updates, but Mac app is still almost unusable at times. clicking on a song for example, there is like 3-5 second delay just for the "click" to even register. scrolling, buffering, everything lags at times, and there is that same delay for everything (clicking on albums, etc etc). And I have a Touch Bar Macbook and fast wifi speeds so I know its not my hardware limiting anything.

Interestingly enough, every now and then I'll open the Mac app and things will run very smoothly. but 85% of the time, everything is laggy/buggy as mentioned above.

 

[Bozzunter]

If it helps (it doesn’t, I know), Qobuz is the same s@#t, albeit not present in US yet. I couldn’t even download hi-res files that I purchased and I got a reimbursement through the credit card.

Unfortunately, I’m back to Spotify, where 20% of the times the quality is on par with Tidal/Qobuz, 80% it is not but the interface and everything else is an order of magnitude better.

 

[Left Channel]

Long term Tidal user here and can confirm the app is extremely extremely buggy for both android and Mac desktop. android app has finally become usable recently with updates, but Mac app is still almost unusable at times. clicking on a song for example, there is like 3-5 second delay just for the "click" to even register. scrolling, buffering, everything lags at times, and there is that same delay for everything (clicking on albums, etc etc). And I have a Touch Bar Macbook and fast wifi speeds so I know its not my hardware limiting anything.

Interestingly enough, every now and then I'll open the Mac app and things will run very smoothly. but 85% of the time, everything is laggy/buggy as mentioned above.

Some have seen improvements after changing their DNS:

Google
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using?hl=en

or CloudFlare
1.1.1.1
1.0.0.1

This is not something users should be asked to do...

 

[Left Channel]

If it helps (it doesn’t, I know), Qobuz is the same s@#t, albeit not present in US yet. I couldn’t even download hi-res files that I purchased and I got a reimbursement through the credit card.

Unfortunately, I’m back to Spotify, where 20% of the times the quality is on par with Tidal/Qobuz, 80% it is not but the interface and everything else is an order of magnitude better.

The Qobuz download service has long had issues, but I've yet to have a problem with their streaming service. I regularly stream Hi-Res tracks up to 24/192 with no pauses, stuttering, dropouts, etc., via the Qobuz desktop and mobile apps plus the LMS/Squeezbox plugin. (I subscribe to their UK service from the US; signed up via VPN, then direct for streaming. But they'll be launching in the US later this year. I also have a Tidal HiFi account... for now.)

 

[trellus]

This is a common complaint, by some but not all Mac and Windows users, and there seems to be no clear explanation. App updates help, sometimes, but more often it appears to be Tidal's regional servers, internet backbone partners, or other stuff in the cloud. Being in an area well-served by broadband doesn't seem to matter. Tidal reps probably don't know, and probably wouldn't be allowed to tell you if they did know. All I can say is that performance here has improved since recent updates, but I don't know if that is the reason it improved, and the app still sometimes hangs between tracks.

+1, I think you're spot on that it has to do with regional servers, which would explain the different experiences by different people. Speaking for myself, it's been a couple of months since I used Tidal (subscription lapsed), but I don't recall any buffering issues in a long time, I do recall them early on when I first subscribed over a year ago, so presumably they addressed some of those issues.

 

[Bozzunter]

The Qobuz download service has long had issues, but I've yet to have a problem with their streaming service. I regularly stream Hi-Res tracks up to 24/192 with no pauses, stuttering, dropouts, etc., via the Qobuz desktop and mobile apps plus the LMS/Squeezbox plugin. (I subscribe to their UK service from the US; signed up via VPN, then direct for streaming. But they'll be launching in the US later this year. I also have a Tidal HiFi account... for now.)

Last post as we’re going OT. One problem with Qobuz, for instance: play it through Chromecast on iOS, switch to another app, go back... the play will start again but from the beginning of the song.

The support is a joke, I would really suggest no one to pay 12 months upfront with them. Also, as soon as you leave jazz and classic, the selection has so many holes that it’s almost ridiculous.

 

[aldinho878]

Doesn't changing DNS to public google have lots of privacy and security issues though?

 

[Left Channel]

Last post as we’re going OT. One problem with Qobuz, for instance: play it through Chromecast on iOS, switch to another app, go back... the play will start again but from the beginning of the song.

The support is a joke, I would really suggest no one to pay 12 months upfront with them. Also, as soon as you leave jazz and classic, the selection has so many holes that it’s almost ridiculous.

Qobuz excels as a Hi-Res audiophile streaming service, and to get the best out of it I stream over a wired network. And yes I am a jazz fan. For the latest rap and pop, which usually isn't in Hi-Res anyway, Spotify is fine.