Tidal: The Worst Music Service Online — Except for All the Others

[gene]

Tidal has earned notoriety as a new online music business since it arrived last spring. But, unfortunately, it’s making headlines for everything but its CD-quality music stream. Sadly, a Tidal Hi-Fi subscription is your only option (known today) in North America for an all-you-can-hear online music service that provides greater than 320Kbps. It’s nothing less than a crime that CD audio resolution is what the music industry now refers to as Hi-Fi, and that it’s so rare.

Read: Tidal: The Worst Music Service Online — Except for All the Others

What is your favorite music streaming service? Please vote in our poll and tell us why.

 

[3db]

I stream my own music form my own library. I like listening to whole albums rather than listening to a mix. I get a better idea about the artist over a whole album rather than a song.

 

[Irvrobinson]

If Apple offered lossless streaming for iTunes Match they'd be my favorite by far. I think the challenge is that serious listeners are a niche, for cars and workouts 320Kbps is probably good enough, so the business case for large-scale lossless streaming is probably pretty weak.

 

[jfalk]

Google Play nicely integrates my home-stored music so that it's accessible via mobile devices and in my second home. For the vast majority of listening 320Kbps works great. The ability to download to mobile devices is a boon when wireless connections are spotty, eg at a football tailgate. It is not without its annoyances, particularly with the non-configurability of the interface (particularly on the Nvidia Shield) and with a baffling inability to weed out duplicates. But for $10/month and never purchasing a CD ever again, it's good enough for me.

 

[Wayde Robson]

Totally agree. Most people are fine with 320-bit and that services are a huge convenience. I like radio with random songs in a certain theme depending on my mood. I've tried all the streaming service and love having one going for instances of casual listening. But I have a deep library at home I stream locally that is where I do my real listening with nothing but FLAC, at least CD quality. Although I admit 320 bit is awful close.

 

[corey]

It’s nothing less than a crime that CD audio resolution is what the music industry now refers to as Hi-Fi

Why would that be a crime? I'm not aware of any blind testing that has found any format better than CD.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Why would that be a crime? I'm not aware of any blind testing that has found any format better than CD.

I agree. I've downloaded several 24/192 albums from HDtracks, of albums where I own or have access to the CD versions, and listened on my fairly good system, and I can't hear any advantage to the 24/192 recordings, except in one case it was obviously remastered and was superior for that reason. For home reproduction use I'm convinced 16/44 CDs are equal to as good as it gets.

 

[3db]

If Apple offered lossless streaming for iTunes Match they'd be my favorite by far. I think the challenge is that serious listeners are a niche, for cars and workouts 320Kbps is probably good enough, so the business case for large-scale lossless streaming is probably pretty weak.

I can't tell the difference between a 320PS MP3 and the CD I ripped it from and I bet you dollars to donughts that most people wouldn't be able to diiferentiate between the two in a blind listening test.

 

[Irvrobinson]

I can't tell the difference between a 320PS MP3 and the CD I ripped it from and I bet you dollars to doughnuts that most people wouldn't be able to differentiate between the two in a blind listening test.

A few months ago I tried VBR with 320Kbps max MP3 on the Telarc recording of Beethoven's 9th with FreeRIP, and I could definitely tell the difference. For popular music I can see where many people might not be able to tell the difference.

 

[3db]

A few months ago I tried VBR with 320Kbps max MP3 on the Telarc recording of Beethoven's 9th with FreeRIP, and I could definitely tell the difference. For popular music I can see where many people might not be able to tell the difference.

I don't use VBR but maintain 320Kps. I should give it a go with classical music but I really don't have any good CD labels such as Telarc to judge with.

 

[Wayde Robson]

Why would that be a crime? I'm not aware of any blind testing that has found any format better than CD.

You're confusing the crime.

Tidal streams at CD quality. All the other services stream way below. That is the crime. This is not about high-res or higher than 16/44K. I know of no services that stream 24/96 or higher, and I don't think anyone would get too bent outta' shape over it.

The crime is that nobody is streaming CD quality! Except Tidal which happens to be an relatively bare bones service in other respect but audio resolution.

Why is that? Storage and bandwidth are no longer issues. Yet, we're paying a monthly fee for digital music that is a step down from what you could buy in 1984.

 

[AllanMarcus]

I belive Tidal has "Premium" pricing for $10/month.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Why is that? Storage and bandwidth are no longer issues.

Storage is cheap, WAN bandwidth is still pricey by comparison. Lossless takes, what, 4x the bandwidth per stream over VBR 320? And, as I mentioned, the business people think the demand for lossless is a niche (and they're probably right).

 

[corey]

Wayde, I've re-read Gene's words a number of times. He states: "It’s nothing less than a crime that CD audio resolution is what the music industry now refers to as Hi-Fi". I can't see any way to read this other than as a statement that he believes there is some audio resolution that has better fidelity than CD, and that it is not a small difference.

 

[gene]

Wayde, I've re-read Gene's words a number of times. He states: "It’s nothing less than a crime that CD audio resolution is what the music industry now refers to as Hi-Fi". I can't see any way to read this other than as a statement that he believes there is some audio resolution that has better fidelity than CD, and that it is not a small difference.

Again I am NOT the author of the article. Please go back to the beginning of the article and note Wayde is the author.

That said, I do believe SACD and DVD-A does offer higher resolution than CD. From a technical standpoint this is easily proven. The higher sampling rate of DVD-A allows for gentler rolloff filters for one and better sampling above nyquist has advantages out to 20kHz for linearity. Are these differences audible? That depends on a lot of things such as the quality of the mastering, resolution of the audio gear, room acoustics, how good the listener is, etc.

I don't just take a couple of DBT's as the holly gospel in determining if higher res audio is "better". Even DBT's can be flawed and rejecting the null hypothesis doesn't mean there isn't an audible difference, it just means there may not have been one for a particular test under a particular set of circumstances.

That said, I have SACD and CD versions of many recordings and I usually do prefer the SACD, perhaps NOT necessarily b/c SACD is a superior format, but b/c the mastering of the SACD is better than the CD counterpart. In the end, who cares as long as it sounds good!

CD is a severe limitation in one area. In can only do 2CH. This is where SACD, DVD-A are CLEARLY superior!

 

[AJM]

I love TIDAL for one specific purpose; to check out music that I see referenced in forums or reviews.

Even for obscure titles, I often find the full album there and can check it out for as long as I want without spending a penny.

It easily pays for itself every month because now I only buy music I really like.

 

[lbkwhitney]

What about Qobuz? I don't stream, but Qobuz offers that. They are the best Website on the planet for downloading any kind of music.

 

[Irvrobinson]

What about Qobuz? I don't stream, but Qobuz offers that. They are the best Website on the planet for downloading any kind of music.

Thanks. Qobuz is interesting. They may be what I'm looking for.

 

[Billkmg]

I'm not sure why, but nobody has mentioned Deezer Elite, for $12/mo if you sign up for a year. I signed up a few months ago and I love it. Like Tidal, it streams lossless audio and has a huge library, 35 million songs they claim, although I haven't had the chance to check them all out yet.

 

[TLS Guy]

I used to be down on streaming and lossy codecs. Not any more! As usual the classical arena leads the development, not the world of pop.

The big advantages are codecs that do better with less. I never liked mp3 and its past its sell by date.

I like AAC plus the best, especially if coupled with MPEG Dash.

In my view AAC and AAC plus are better than MP3.

The BBC now use AAC plus coupled with MPEG DASH, the latter being codec agnostic. DASH is an adaptive streaming system. It times with bursts, often 20 sec or more apart. It knows your buffer capacity and when it has a clear shot to your rig. It pretty much stops stream interruptions.

The other advance is native decoding in Windows 10 which does not need flash player. It decodes Dolby Digital plus which my pre/pro can not, so I now have Netflix in 5.1.

When I get BBC UK radio or TV the audio is AAC plus with MPEG DASH. This is equivalent to 320 kbs, but remember the streaming is dynamic. The Proms I down loaded and could watch for 30 days, had superb HD video and audio download the bit rate was 640.

Of course it does not end there. The BBC microphone system and mix is absolutely wonderful and this year was astonishing for realism and dynamic range. I have to say I think most of these broadcasts were the best audio I have ever heard.

For US audio only iPlayer the bit rate is equivalent to 96 kbs. The Stream out of Salford UK though is definitely better and is true HD audio.

The Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall and Medici TV have also improved apace.

AAC plus 320 kbs at least MPEG DASH. I can tell it is MPEG DASH.

MPR have gone to AAC plus. Live stream seems to be 96 to 120 kbs, and the archived 320 kbs. They are not using MPEG DASH.

Some of the Medici TV broadcasts have been superb, especially a concert including the Saint Saens organ symphony.

The BPO is uniformly excellent. However for shear impact to deliver the full impact, with beautiful string sound, brass, woodwind, totally realistic percussion and organs that shake the floor, the BBC are now in the lead. In fact when it comes to strings I have never heard them more realistically captured that at this year's Proms. It was a wonderful season, and quite frankly I think as good or better than being there.

The BBC have just announced that they will start a subscription iPlayer service in the US in 2016. The starting date is not even hinted at yet, nor what will be on offer. Some or all programs will be on offer for purchase as a permanent download, not one that vaporizes in 30 days.

Every day that passes I rejoice I do not have to deal with the pop culture with its offerings and very second rate (probably third or fourth rate at best) engineering and technology. If that is all you listen to then probably a very basic system is all you need.