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TIDAL Lossless Streaming Service

Has anyone else tried lossless streaming from Tidal? I've been a Spotify user for a while now. The catalog available is pretty stunning, and 320kbps is listenable, but I'm not satisfied with lossy material for serious listening.

Tidal launched a couple of weeks ago, streaming a lossless catalog in FLAC to a web-based player. They have a large catalog and the same kinds of curated playlists that Spotify offers.

I am clinging to my Squeezebox Touch until it dies, so I was not interested in a PC-based approach to stream the service. A user community, however, has created a SBT plugin called Ickstream that allows the Touch to play nicely with Tidal. It took me about an hour to get subscribed to Tidal (first seven days free) and get Ickstream implemented on my Touch.

Sound-wise, running into a PS Audio PWD II, Tidal is clearly more three-dimensional, tonally rich and satisfying than Spotify. Compared to FLAC rips from my hard-drive, however, it is lacking just a little bit of detail retrieval and seems a bit noisier in the spaces between the notes. The difference is small but definite.

So, I'm ditching Spotify in favor of Tidal. $20/mo is worth it to me to have damn-near best-available fidelity on damn-near every album I ever want to hear. And I can download unlimited mp3's to my phone for travel. Would love to hear your experiences.
cymbop
cymbop OP
254 posts
 
A data point on the depth of Tidal's catalog: I have recorded as a bass player in a studio precisely once, for a holiday compilation album of North Carolina bands. That track is on Tidal. Enter "Three Ships First Noel" in the search box to hear our track, recorded on a vintage analog tape console.

If everyone on A'gon listens to it, I'll get paid three thousandths of a cent. ;-)
davt
499 posts
 
I have used Tidal from day one here in US. Some problems with drop outs early, first few days. No problems since. I use Tidal daily on two systems and never have a problem.

One of the issues with streaming is the idea that free access will destroy the world. Hmmm. Think of the heyday's for recording artists, when gold records, platinum records etc were the talk of the town. Record stores were everywhere and people bought records, cassettes and then CD's by the millions. AND, music was free everywhere. Streamed on something called a RADIO. I never paid for listening to a radio, I just endured ads. Radio stations didn't pay artists to play their music. Artists, ( record labels ) paid the radio stations ( pay for play ). This way people heard about your music, album etc. So, in addition to getting paid three thousandths of a cent, some people who have never heard of you might buy the CD, download etc. I think that if we make music available and make it easy for people to purchase what they want at a higher quality we can have our cake and eat it too.
slanski62
42 posts
 
Lateboomer, I'm streaming TIDAL from my ipad to by BDP-2 via sharepplay. Works great.

Steve
audiolabyrinth's avatar
audiolabyrinth
4,483 posts
 
Hi Davt, I enjoyed reading your post, I believe it sums it up!, I agree with you, all the streaming services should go the way of the radio as you clearly explained why, this method never failed for everyone to make money, why would it fail with streaming services?
dbarger
179 posts
 
I was excited about Tidal, and signed up on the first day. Since there is no ap yet for Sonos, I was streaming it from my Mac Mini music server into my Metrum Hex. I was disappointed in the sound quality, even compared to Spotify and Beats, both of which I also have. I assume something was not optimized, but I don't know what...
This was a pain, as I usually just stream from my Sonos unit to my dac, without need to turn on my Mac. When Sonos released the Deezer ap, I signed up, also on the first day. It has the same CD quality content as Tidal, is only $10/month if you sign up for a year, a VERY deep library (at least for me), and has a great interface.
Call me a happy camper now.
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