[peterinvan]

MQA?

Has anyone heard when Tidal will start streaming MQA?

 

[Sonic Defender]

MQA?

Has anyone heard when Tidal will start streaming MQA?

Ignore, it wasn't Tidal playing MQA that I saw. My bad.

 

[Madman242]

Is it just me or is the SQ on Tidal extremely hit or miss? Many tracks do indeed sound near CD quality, but a large number are just horrible. I notice this mostly on Tidal playlists where there is a wide mix of artists/tracks. I suspect that a good portion of their inventory is not from CD quality sources and is just being upsampled. It's really annoying to be pay $20/mo for something and not get what you pay for. It's even more annoying to have to click 'skip' on every other track because they aren't unlistenable. 
 
Is Spotify any more consistent in SQ? If their 320kbps service was truly 320 on every track (transcoded from high res sources) , I would consider switching.

 

[CFGamescape]

  Is it just me or is the SQ on Tidal extremely hit or miss? Many tracks do indeed sound near CD quality, but a large number are just horrible. I notice this mostly on Tidal playlists where there is a wide mix of artists/tracks. I suspect that a good portion of their inventory is not from CD quality sources and is just being upsampled. It's really annoying to be pay $20/mo for something and not get what you pay for. It's even more annoying to have to click 'skip' on every other track because they aren't unlistenable. 
 
Is Spotify any more consistent in SQ? If their 320kbps service was truly 320 on every track (transcoded from high res sources) , I would consider switching.

I can't comment on Spotify's quality, but any "HIFI" content on Tidal is indeed hit or miss because its contingent on how it was recorded, IMO. A crappy recording in HIFI will still be crappy.

 

[Madman242]

 
I can't comment on Spotify's quality, but any "HIFI" content on Tidal is indeed hit or miss because its contingent on how it was recorded, IMO. A crappy recording in HIFI will still be crappy.

Agreed, quite a lot of modern pop is badly mastered. I'm talking about Tidal using low quality sources, upsampling, and calling it Lossless. Am I way off base in this suspicion? I find it hard to believe that the awful sounding tracks I'm hearing are due only to bad recording/mastering.

 

[Billheiser]

Agreed, quite a lot of modern pop is badly mastered. I'm talking about Tidal using low quality sources, upsampling, and calling it Lossless. Am I way off base in this suspicion? I find it hard to believe that the awful sounding tracks I'm hearing are due only to bad recording/mastering.

I think that poor quality recording, and deliberate but poor choices made by producers, etc., are much bigger factors than bit rates,

 

[Sonic Defender]

I think that poor quality recording, and deliberate but poor choices made by producers, etc., are much bigger factors than bit rates,

Yes, it is essentially as established as possible that 16 bit depth is all that is required for the full reproduction of all audible content our brain can detect and process, so there should be no effect of bitrate in this context.

 

[Zojokkeli]

  I find it hard to believe that the awful sounding tracks I'm hearing are due only to bad recording/mastering.

 
That is exactly why some stuff sounds really bad. A well mastered 320kbs track can sound very good, whereas a poor quality high-res track will sound bad no matter how high the bit-rate is. Nothing Tidal can do about, except choose a well mastered version of the album, if one exists.

 

[Billheiser]

Yes, it is essentially as established as possible that 16 bit depth is all that is required for the full reproduction of all audible content our brain can detect and process, so there should be no effect of bitrate in this context.

And one does not have to conclude that 16 bit cannot be beat, in order to rank poor recording/mastering as a factor that is often bigger than the difference between 320kbps and 1411kbps.

 

[Sonic Defender]

And one does not have to conclude that 16 bit cannot be beat, in order to rank poor recording/mastering as a factor that is often bigger than the difference between 320kbps and 1411kbps.

Well, if more bit depth can't contain truly audible information that isn't already contained in 16 bits ....... Anyway, I'm sure if we get into this debate somebody will run to the admin and tell them people are discussing science forum topics so we should stop. Plus, it does take the thread off topic. Cheers.

 

[mofolepo]

I'm not sure if this has been asked and answered, but does anyone have issues with the offline content? I once was on a plane and wanted to listen to my offline content, but when I open up Tidal, it said it was unavailable. When I was camping once, I wanted to listen to music and same thing. I think for some reason... to access your offline content, you have to at some point be online. I'm assuming this is so Tidal can verify you're still paying for their service and not somehow hacking your phone to allow it to play the music that's stored on it. Is this a problem only I experience, or is my assumption correct? If so, how do I bypass this when I'm in a situation where I really cannot get any service? Help?

 

[Sonic Defender]

  I'm not sure if this has been asked and answered, but does anyone have issues with the offline content? I once was on a plane and wanted to listen to my offline content, but when I open up Tidal, it said it was unavailable. When I was camping once, I wanted to listen to music and same thing. I think for some reason... to access your offline content, you have to at some point be online. I'm assuming this is so Tidal can verify you're still paying for their service and not somehow hacking your phone to allow it to play the music that's stored on it. Is this a problem only I experience, or is my assumption correct? If so, how do I bypass this when I'm in a situation where I really cannot get any service? Help?

Yes, if you haven't been online within 30 days to confirm you are a paying subscriber, offline content becomes unavailable.

 

[ScottFree]

I'm not sure if this has been asked and answered, but does anyone have issues with the offline content? I once was on a plane and wanted to listen to my offline content, but when I open up Tidal, it said it was unavailable. When I was camping once, I wanted to listen to music and same thing. I think for some reason... to access your offline content, you have to at some point be online. I'm assuming this is so Tidal can verify you're still paying for their service and not somehow hacking your phone to allow it to play the music that's stored on it. Is this a problem only I experience, or is my assumption correct? If so, how do I bypass this when I'm in a situation where I really cannot get any service? Help?

I've certainly had issues with offline content from Tidal before and it is one of the main reasons why I will not go back to Tidal unless I have no choice. At the moment I use Qobuz HiFi.

In terms of verification I'm not sure but I've downloaded albums for offline playback and 15 minutes later while I am online the little red pop up bar has come up in the app saying that the track is damaged and I need to redownload the music and this would happen frequently even when I have not touched the player at all.

IMHO Tidal is a very good idea but very poorly executed.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[mofolepo]

Thanks Sonic and Scott. I will try to log in more than once every 30 days (which I think I'm doing).

 

[Sonic Defender]

IMHO Tidal is a very good idea but very poorly executed.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Not to discount your views, but I have never heard anybody else have those issues. Certainly my experience with Tidal has been almost without issue. Sorry to hear you had problems.