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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
rhanson739
269 posts
 
Signed up with Tidal yesterday, running the OS X app off my Mac Mini to a Directstream DAC.

I'm impressed. Not quite as good quality as my library, but certainly satisfactory+, and I've already found and heard a wide variety of new music that makes it, in one day, worth the higher price. I can easily forsee buying far fewer CDs, save for those special ones you just have to have.

I hope they don't crash... The discovery makes it fun to listen, explore, and try new things.
cerrot's avatar
cerrot
1,606 posts
 
Totally agree on buying less CD's. That is a win - win.
evank's avatar
evank
86 posts
 
Bluesound Node has the Tidal player
eastein
82 posts
 
Just got an Auralic Aries which works with Tidal and sounds night and day better than the Mac Mini it replaced, not even close.

"The ARIES serves as a “bridge” between music files on network storage or high quality online streaming services and the consumers’ DAC — enabling DACs for the first time to stream high-resolution music quickly and wirelessly in virtually any sampling rate, including DSD, Double-Rate DSD and DXD."
dbarger
179 posts
 
Yes, the Aries is the type of device I am looking for. Are there any other similar devices out there? Less expensive would be great.
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