Who has tried "TIDAL" vs other streaming applications?


Hello, I'm new to Audiogon, this is my first posting into Forums.

I enjoy streaming audio from my PC and have been using Spotify for a number of years now (college student discount to premium $5 a month). I just recently stumbled upon a App called TIDAL, that streams Lossless 16/44.1FLAC with their "HI-FI" subscription (Student $10 a month). Since I can queue up Spotify and Tidal at the same time, I was able to do an A/B and used Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. I noticed that TIDAL indeed sounds better to me but am convinced none of my family members could tell a difference. I then did an A/B with TIDAL and the actual Brothers in Arms CD, to my surprise TIDAL sounded scary close, if not just as good as the CD! This is hard for me to believe, I think I'm just trying to justify the extra cost of TIDAL on a crazy tight student budget, maybe its a placebo effect? I need to drop one of the services, but which one? I would appreciate your thoughts please... Thank you!
My system:
PC = Gaming Rig I built myself, using dedicated high quality audio card.
Krell KAV 400xi integrated
Sonus Faber Electa's with Sunfire HRS Sub
Cambridge AZUR 840C CDP/DAC
Luxman T117 Tuner
Sony SCD - C2000ES SACD Player
Kimber Silver Streak throughout  


grm
I am a JRiver on Windows user. I was disappointed that they decided not to integrate Tidal and I had to find another way to try Tidal. I wanted it for CD quality and I am do not use Chrome. The solution was Bubble UPnP on an Android tablet, sending the Audio to JRiver via DLNA. You could use any DLNA rendered if you do not use JRiver. Bubble UPnP has pretty much a full Tidal implementation and easily streams to DLNA on my PC. Very simple solution.

I have only been using TIdal in this mode for about a week, but so far I have found the selection excellent, except for classical, and the sound quality is very good. So far, I am happy with this solution.

If you do not have a DLNA renderer, you can also use a Chromecast Audio streaming from Bubble UPnP on the tablet, although you need a DAC with a Toslink input if your want to use the digital output on the Chromecast - no coax, unfortunately.
Cerrot, I use a Mac with Roon and Tidal, and I don't have to download anything.  I just point to a tidal based track, and play...

In order for Roon to play Tidal for me, I had to download the playlists or albums, which was just crazy.  It also did not like my JRiver and Pono apps so I dumped it.  JRiver is awesome for the hi res and I use Ickstream via my Transporter for Tidal and it is pretty incredible.
Cerrot, I'm really curious how you got Roon to download the playlists and albums. If I could do that, I would download a couple hundred thousand tracks and then cancel my subscription to Tidal. Seriously. 

Cerrot...you don't need to use ickstream anymore, if you don't want to.  They have added the Tidal app to mysqueezebox.com.

You can just add it right onto your Transporter's menu system.