TIDAL-Who knows what you are hearing? Don't Ask, Don't Tell.


I recently signed up with Tidal's HiRez service.

After I started using this service, I asked their CS

if there is a way to see what level of HiRez  I was receiving.

 Read from the bottom up to follow this exchange.


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Dec 11, 7:41 AM EST 

Hello again,

Even if you choose the HiFi option, you will have access to the full library of tracks no matter what quality.
Thank you for choosing TIDAL. 
If you have any other questions let me know.

Best Regards,

Andrea
TIDAL Member Support


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Dec 10, 4:11 PM EST 

Andrea,

So even though I signed up for Hi-Rez only I will get low rez too ?


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Andrea (TIDAL) 

Dec 10, 2:51 PM EST 

Hello again,

Let me try to clarify. You can not search by rez quality. You can, however, recognize whether the song that is playing is either standard or HiFi. I hope this answers the question.
Thank you for choosing TIDAL. 
If you have any other questions let me know.

Best Regards,

Andrea
TIDAL Member Support


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Dec 10, 2:48 PM EST 

Andrea,

In order to confirm that I understand your responses, please advise:

#1 -You answered 'No" to my question about whether all my search results will be limited to Hi-Rez only.
However your next comment seems to contradict that answer. Is there another associate who could
answer this question ?

Your response to # 2,3,4 was also "No". 
You seem to contradict your self again with the following statement about looking "at it while it is 
playing towards the bottom right". Would you be able to send me a picture of what/where you are referring?


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Andrea (TIDAL) 

Dec 10, 1:30 PM EST 

Hello again,

Thank you for clarifying the questions.

1. No, at this time there is no way to search by quality. 2,3 and 4. No, at this time we do not have an option to pull up specific bit rates for songs. The only way to tell whether a song is standard, cd, HiFi, etc is by looking at it while it's playing towards the bottom right.

Since these would be great additions I have forwarded your feedback to our Product department, we meet up with once a week to discuss our customer feedback in detail.

I can't provide you with an immediate response to confirm the status of your request. Please know that we truly appreciated your feedback and use it to help shape TIDAL to fit the wants and needs of our TIDAL members. 
In the meantime, feel free to send an email to feedback@tidalsupport.zendesk.com if you have any additional feedback.

Thank you for being a TIDAL Member!

Best Regards,

Andrea
TIDAL Member Support


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Dec 10, 11:21 AM EST 

Andrea,

Questions restated:

1. I am subscribed to the Hi-Rez service. Does that mean when I perform a search
all the results will be limited to Hi-Rez only?

2. Is each song's bit rate listed somewhere in the description?

3. If yes, where do I locate it?

4. If no, how do I know what I am actually listening to?


I only hope Qobuz delivers a product as advertised.



128x128firstnot
I believe it's actually pretty straightforward and what she was telling you is accurate and their advertising isn't deceptive.  With a HiFi subscription you get a FLAC stream at 44.1 kHz / 16 bit at a minimum on everything.  What you also get is access to the MQA  typically at 96 kHz / 24 bit.  She is correct, you cannot search for MQA versions but they are clearly marked.  Using my Auralic streamer/DAC I can always see exactly what Mbps rate I'm getting in real-time as I play Tidal.  Other than not having MQA-only title searchability I'm not really sure what the issue is that you're upset about.
It’s really easy. By the steps..
1. Try the service.
2. If you like it, keep it.
3. If you don’t like it, don’t keep it.
Why make the choice difficult?
When I look at the song playing it says CD or mqa . Whether I can only search for mqa I don’t know. 
Agree with @2psyop  Why overcomplicate?

Pull up the album you want to listen to and check the resolution.

You can also view other versions of the album, if offered.

You can view Tidal Masters selections, as well...this will give you a subset of albums, all offered in the highest resolution version.

I use Tidal via Roon, and Roon provides a color code to the right of the selected track. (I don't remember if this is also offered within Tidal) This makes it easy to check resolution. It can be clicked (within Roon) to see Source resolution. (There are other ways to view file resolution, if using Roon)
In my experience with the music I select and listen to, almost every track is high resolution or CD quality, as advertised. For me, this means resolution isn't a factor within the Tidal music universe. In other words, I don't give it a thought.

Further, the MQA offerings keep increasing in number, so I've stopped looking for MQA specific titles. The Artist and Album are primary in my searches. Genre a distant second.

Rarely (usually with obscure foreign titles) 1 in perhaps 100 -150 album titles are lower resolution. I'm simply happy they are offered at all, despite the lower resolution. 
A more important thing to do is turn off the loudness compensation unless you are listening to playlists all day long and want the levels matched.
Not all hi rez recordings sound great.  
I also look at my DAC to tell me the bitrate.  So far I've been very happy with Tidal.
On my Aurender N10, I can search on Tidal Masters that are MQA only. This is my preferred way of finding and listening to music on Tidal. 
Accessing Tidal through Roon, all albums sorted to the Tidal Masters list are MQA, but there are many more MQA albums in Tidal that don’t sort to the Tidal Masters list. You have to stumble through each artist to find all the MQA ones. With Roon, you can then add them to your Library for easy access.
As an aside, using Node2, has anyone seen any 192k content fromTidal HiFi? Looks like 96k is the highest rate unless 192k is only through the analog output which would be difficult to verify.