# Tidal music streaming service



## ajinfla (May 10, 2009)

https://tidalhifi.com/us

Anyone else here trying it? Free for first week, $20/month after trial. "CD Quality" lossless audio.
Into my 2nd day and in Classical music heaven. Tough to assess the SQ listening to new (to me) music, it's good, but HF seems a tad soft....however, no direct comparisons yet vs something I have in disc.

cheers


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## tesseract (Aug 9, 2010)

I heard a pretty impressive demo and am thinking about getting this after the holidays. 

If you get a chance to compare vs. CD, please let us know.


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## ajinfla (May 10, 2009)

Hi Dennis, yesterday I compared The Bad Plus "Big Eater" lossless 1411kbps stream vs my HD WAV version and even without precise level matching (a must!), it was difficult to hear any difference, i.e., if there was any to hear.
I plan to use it next show I do, allow attendees to tell me if they hear any difference...without knowing which is playing. 
Nice to have that much music at fingertips.

cheers,


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## admranger (Jul 12, 2013)

Tidal is nice, but at $240/yr you better have the equipment to fully utilize it, the bandwidth to stream it, and the time to do a lot of critical listening. 

While it may be heresy, I find that the dacs in my Marantz 8801 make Pandora very listenable, at a fraction the price. It's filler music, not 'critical listening' music. I don't do enough 'critical listening' to make something like Tidal worthwhile.

Great idea, no doubt. I just wish there was a step between Pandora and Tidal at an affordable price.


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

I just signed up to try it... I have to say i am very impressed with the sound quality. I compared it to Youtube, and there is no comparison! Youtube sounds muted , and cloudy compared to Tidal. My only problem with it is I would like to be able to download the songs I like and stream from my NAS instead of using my bandwidth all the time.


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## dougc (Dec 19, 2009)

I had some time today for critical listening with Tidal and am impressed with the sq, but not so much the interface and selection. It has the edge on Spotify with bitrate, but it lacks the ability as far as I can tell to back up to the previous screen, which is important to me when scrubbing the library for the next track. Also, there are only parts of album libraries by some artists. Spotify has an impressive library and includes obscure live albums and compilations of many of the artists that I had no idea existed. I'll continue to find the best in it over the next month because I really, really want to like it for the lossless files it offers, but won't be able to pay the $20 per month if I can't listen to what I want. I think the libraries will grow as subscribers increase...


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## tesseract (Aug 9, 2010)

I have not signed up, yet, but intend to, soon. Part of the draw, for me, is the high definition music videos and concerts. 

Has any one streamed Tidal video content? If so, how was it?


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## NBPk402 (Feb 21, 2012)

Last night a friend of mine and I were listening to DVD-A discs, and i decided to show him how good Tidal was... Big mistake listening to it after DVD-A discs! It sounded horrible. I decided today to cancel my subscription, and spend the saved money on buying the music i like.


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## Champster (Mar 30, 2014)

I've used TIDAL for 3 months now and love it! I do wish the interface were a bit easier to navigate but the sound quality is first rate and the selection is pretty good and getting better.


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## JBrax (Oct 13, 2011)

ellisr63 said:


> Last night a friend of mine and I were listening to DVD-A discs, and i decided to show him how good Tidal was... Big mistake listening to it after DVD-A discs! It sounded horrible. I decided today to cancel my subscription, and spend the saved money on buying the music i like.


 Hmm…I didn't realize there was such a thing. Is the quality better than CD's? I really want to get into higher quality downloads because some of the iTunes MP3's sound horrible! I also looked into Tidal and for the most part people seem happy with the quality. The only complaints I could find was the monthly fee was high. I'm waiting for Apple to start offering high res downloads and from what I've read they've begun collecting high res libraries.


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## BobNY (Apr 27, 2015)

I have been a Tidal subscriber for about 3 months. I love it so far. I listen mostly to vinyl and Tidal supplements that perfectly. I would easily spend more than it's monthly price on music if I didn't have it. To me it's very worth its price.


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## fillysun (Dec 25, 2019)

I'm a subscriber of Tidal for a long time. I can download music from it, but I found that the downloaded music can't be played on other devices. And I found some tools called Tidal Music Converter on the web that can help fix this issue. Had anyone use those kind tools ever?


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## flm09 (May 9, 2020)

ajinfla said:


> TIDAL - High Fidelity Music Streaming
> 
> Anyone else here trying it? Free for first week, $20/month after trial. "CD Quality" lossless audio.
> Into my 2nd day and in Classical music heaven. Tough to assess the SQ listening to new (to me) music, it's good, but HF seems a tad soft....however, no direct comparisons yet vs something I have in disc.
> ...


I use it I like it but off promo now.


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