[SomeGuyDude]

I noted this morning that Tidal often includes CD Quality and MQA versions of the same album. So I spent a few minutes this morning doing comparisons (Toshiba laptop -> Oppo HA-2 with bass boost on -> AKG 701). To my surprise I was consistently able to hear a difference. I listened to about half a dozen albums - Modern Jazz Quartet, Joni Mitchell and Crosby Stills and Nash, all from the analog era. In the case of MJQ's "Blues on Bach" I also compared it with my ripped ALAC copy, but switching between versions on Tidal was faster, making comparison easier. I try to avoid hyperbole, so I won't say the difference was drastic, but it was significant in the sense that it changed my appreciation of the music. It was more significant than the difference between the SACD vs. redbook layers of many of the hybrid discs I have compared over the years.

As I said, I was quite surprised by this result. I don't consider myself to have golden ears (and I'm 65). Did the albums I tested derive from different source tapes? Was it the higher resolution of MQA or some other aspect of the process? Were there minor variations in the volume level? (In one case the volume level on the MQA version was substantially lower than the redbook, but I still preferred the MQA. I don't know, but I do know that the instruments on the MQA versions had more apparent color and in some cases more detail.

20 minutes of flipping back and forth is not the same as extended close listening, so I will continue to explore this.

It's a fairly good bet that MQAs are coming from a different source, but not only that the only way to really do a comparison would be if someone else was using the computer and swapped between the two and had you try to guess which was which.

Considering there has never been any successful test showing people can tell 320 from lossless, the idea that you can tell FLAC from MQA is incredibly suspect.

 

[castleofargh]

we have close to zero information about the provenance or job done on each specific MQA file, so pretty much all your hypothesis are possibilities to consider. I wish I knew more but I don't.

edit: I was answering to @jegnyc ^_^. but it doesn't change much.

 

[I3eyond]

My free trial is running out soon, and while I love the service, if I can't get this resolved, I won't be renewing it.

I have Spectrum, 60 down/5 up.

Tidal frequently just spins when loading a song, be it a Master or HIFI, and sometimes never loads.

Likewise, if I connect my iPhone as a hotspot, no issues whatsoever.

What could the problem be here?

 

[jegnyc]

I have a question for someone using the Tidal app on Windows. When I am playing music and I right click on another album and select "Add to Queue" it adds it immediately after the track playing - not at the end of the Queue. In other words it acts as though I clicked on "Play Next." Is this the same for others? I believe I tested this on the iPhone App, and add to Queue did added the album to the end of the Queue.

 

[eruditass]

Has anyone found their TIDAL app (on Android) was using huge amounts of local storage, even without any offline content?

I've found it repeatably taking huge amounts of storage: 2 GB on my phone (not on the SD card, since there isn't even an option): after clearing uninstalling/reinstalling: 500 MB after a day of usage. It also doesn't seem to go down: even after selecting the lowest quality streaming, the storage usage only went up from 500 MB.

I did find one other person discussing this issue, but no solution. I've been messaging support for over a week and they don't seem very helpful.

 

[To.M]

Go to "settings" and click "delete offline content". I had no offline material (but had different playlist in the past) and Tidal occupied over 4GB on my SD card. After deleting offline content it has gone down to 20MB.

 

[eruditass]

My Settings -> "Delete Offline Content" is greyed out?

Edit: I did "Restore Offline Content" from a former device which does have some offline Albums, and it did actually clear my space then try to download albums. Wonder if that somehow keeps getting downloaded yet doesn't show up in my app.

 

[tomwoo]

I have been comparing the sound quality differences between Apple Music and TIDAL for the last few days. I'm surprised to find Apple Music is much closer to TIDAL than I expected. The improvement of TIDAL's 1440bps streaming over Apple's 256bps is definitely there (e.g., more spacious sounding, better instrument separation and bigger soundstage), but just not as big as what it says on paper. I would say TIDAL is 15% better than Apple Music in terms of sound quality. Is it worthwhile to pay 2X for TIDAL? I'm afraid not. (4X in my case, somehow I'm eligible to Apple Music's 50% discount but not to TIDAL HiFi). Of course, YMMV.

 

[jegnyc]

I have been comparing the sound quality differences between Apple Music and TIDAL for the last few days. I'm surprised to find Apple Music is much closer to TIDAL than I expected. The improvement of TIDAL's 1440bps streaming over Apple's 256bps is definitely there (e.g., more spacious sounding, better instrument separation and bigger soundstage), but just not as big as what it says on paper. I would say TIDAL is 15% better than Apple Music in terms of sound quality. Is it worthwhile to pay 2X for TIDAL? I'm afraid not. (4X in my case, somehow I'm eligible to Apple Music's 50% discount but not to TIDAL HiFi). Of course, YMMV.

Technically, Tidal does not stream at 1440 bps (or more correctly, 1440kbps). From what I've read it uses FLAC lossless compression (achieving a rate of anywhere from less than 400kbps to over 1000kbps in my experience), which can be fully restored to 1440kbps. For that matter, Apple's 256kbps is also restored to 1440kbps - however in the process, of compression and restoration some information is lost (hence the term lossy compression). However, the algorithms used for lossy compression are designed to remove the information least significant to the music. (I don't know enough to get more technical.) That's why the difference you heard is modest - many people can't hear any improvement. I certainly cannot on some recordings and/or environments.

Whether the improvement you hear is worth the extra expense is your decision. In my case, I use Tidal often in lieu of purchasing CDs. As such, it is saving me money in comparison with my pre-streaming days. Psychologically, at least, I don't think I would do that if streaming were at less than CD quality.

And let's save discussion of MQA for another day.

 

[tomwoo]

Technically, Tidal does not stream at 1440 bps (or more correctly, 1440kbps). From what I've read it uses FLAC lossless compression (achieving a rate of anywhere from less than 400kbps to over 1000kbps in my experience), which can be fully restored to 1440kbps. For that matter, Apple's 256kbps is also restored to 1440kbps - however in the process, of compression and restoration some information is lost (hence the term lossy compression). However, the algorithms used for lossy compression are designed to remove the information least significant to the music. (I don't know enough to get more technical.) That's why the difference you heard is modest - many people can't hear any improvement. I certainly cannot on some recordings and/or environments.

Whether the improvement you hear is worth the extra expense is your decision. In my case, I use Tidal often in lieu of purchasing CDs. As such, it is saving me money in comparison with my pre-streaming days. Psychologically, at least, I don't think I would do that if streaming were at less than CD quality.
And let's save discussion of MQA for another day.

I'm fully aware that FLAC is lossless compression of WAV, therefore it streams at a bitrate less than 1440bps. I'm not sure if Apple Music will be restored to 1440bps. Definitely not at Apple's end, otherwise it's pointless to stream 1440bps upsampled from 256bps AAC.
I agree it is a huge bargain to have millions of CDs at your fingertips compared to buying 2 CDs a month.
Sadly Apple couldn't care less about sound quality...(I don't think the new HomePod will be at audiophile level either)

 

[jegnyc]

I'm fully aware that FLAC is lossless compression of WAV, therefore it streams at a bitrate less than 1440bps. I'm not sure if Apple Music will be restored to 1440bps. Definitely not at Apple's end, otherwise it's pointless to stream 1440bps upsampled from 256bps AAC.
I agree it is a huge bargain to have millions of CDs at your fingertips compared to buying 2 CDs a month.
Sadly Apple couldn't care less about sound quality...(I don't think the new HomePod will be at audiophile level either)

You could be right about this. The DAC must accomplish two things: decompress the AAC file and convert it to analog. But it might do both in a single step.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Apple has never really cared about the raw quality in favor of user experience. The iPod sounded markedly worse than the Zune, just for starters. I'm pretty sure Apple would happily stream at 128kbps if they could get away with it. Pushing away from a 3.5mm jack was just step 1 in proving they aren't terribly concerned about sound quality.

 

[castleofargh]

You could be right about this. The DAC must accomplish two things: decompress the AAC file and convert it to analog. But it might do both in a single step.

except maybe some rare and pretty new all in one chips for portable gears(I think Sabre has one), the very vast majority of DACs don't speak AAC or FLAC. the media player/CPU uses a codec to convert whatever they get and turn it into what the DAC "speaks"(let's say WAV for the sake of simplicity).
of course real DSD DACs may "speak" only DSD, and MQA DACs speak MQA and "WAV". but those are still exceptions for the DAC market.
my point is, the digital to analog conversion is a separated process.

AAC is indeed turned into 16/44 or 16/48 or whatever it encoded, but that's the resolution of the box containing the data. the actual data is still limited to what AAC decided to encode with it's lossy codec(removing what is supposed to be audibly masked, usually starting at around -60db for high bit rate AAC so actual differences tend to be very quiet and almost always inaudible).

as for the kbps unit. it's the "weight" of data sent each second so it tends to be information about the "box" containing the signal, but it doesn't always relate to the resolution of the music. like the example given before, FLAC and WAV will have a very different streaming data rates (kbps), while the music content is identical(lossless compression). so it's sadly easy to get lost within formats and units without a clue about the actual resolution of the music content.

 

[eruditass]

If anyone is curious about my space usage issue: I had an old device with offline content (which was deauthorized), yet those tracks were being downloaded to my current account. Yet the app shows no offline content available, deleting offline content greyed out, etc.

After 3 weeks and 25 absolutely painful messages with proof back and forth, they finally said this:

I was informed by QA that the issue you have been experiencing is being investigated. A fix will be developed and will be released as soon as possible.​

 

[Mkoll]

I have a question for someone using the Tidal app on Windows. When I am playing music and I right click on another album and select "Add to Queue" it adds it immediately after the track playing - not at the end of the Queue. In other words it acts as though I clicked on "Play Next." Is this the same for others? I believe I tested this on the iPhone App, and add to Queue did added the album to the end of the Queue.

Mine does this too. Windows 10. The program has a lot of room for improvement.