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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
johsti's avatar
johsti
102 posts
 
Dbarger - I also thought something sounded off with Tidal the first time I played it with the Mac application. I didn't hear an improvement over premium Spotify. I opened audio midi and found the sampling rate was set for 48kHz. When I changed that to 44.1kHz, it sounded much better. Hope this helps others who have been underwhelmed with Tidal on their Mac.

Deezer sounds like a great alternative, but I don't have Sonos.
roggae
95 posts
 
i've been using tidal as per cymbop's suggestion. pretty satisfied. some music i like is not available but not a major swath. now i just need to upgrade my dac. suggestions? currently using a vdac.
mcanaday
148 posts
 
In response to the comment above about setting the sampling rate to 44.1, this raises a question for me: I'm planning to get a Sonos Connect box to stream Tidal (or possibly Deezer Elite). I am planning to either get the Wyred4Sound modified Sonos unit, or use Empirical Audio's Synchro-Mesh with a stock Sonos unit to help with jitter from Sonos. Either route enables me to select a sampling rate up to 96 kHz (which is usually recommended). I am wondering if, given that Tidal is 44.1, if I should actually select that sampling rate for the Wyred4Sound modified Sonos or with the settings for the Synchro-Mesh clocking device. My DAC, by the way, is the Bryston BDA-1. And I am not planning on using Sonos for much else besides streaming lossless cd quality. Any idea what I should do? thanks! Margot
cerrot's avatar
cerrot
1,606 posts
 
Been listening to Tidal all day and its great! $19.99 and loads (LOADS! - there is ALOT there!)of music and LOSSLESS. The web player doesnt sound as good as JRiver (to my little crooked ears) but just the first day so no tweaking settings yet. A pure internet streamer (homebuild) player on its way for me so I can start tweaking this.
dbarger
179 posts
 
Are there any streamers that have an app for Tidal yet? I have been looking and cannot find any. I am using Sonos righ now, and satisfied with it, but would like to add a Tidal option without having to fire up my Mac. Preferably just a streamer without a dac as I use my hex, but I haven't found any such device either...
I think there may be a Squeezebox option but don't really want to go there again as it has been abandoned by Logitech.
I do have Deezer also, but I do like the Tidal catalogue a bit more.
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