Is Tidal messing up for you? Would you Choose Amazon over it?
for me, no and no
Is Tidal messing up for you? Would you Choose Amazon over it?
For the last month, I’ve been battling with all kinds of issues, from corrupt audio files (primarily noticed in my Tesla, from main stream bands like Metallica etc), to songs buffering, skipping and so on).
Initially, I noticed the corrupt issues which always repeated on the same songs in my car, and I assumed they must have downloaded wrong, then when they came back to play again, were playing off a cached copy on the car that was already corrupt. I’d get issues with random buffering issues here and there, but once again, thought it was an issue with my car and it being on a cell service.
At home, I stream from a Sonos player and have also had buffering issues, but I’m also having internet connectivity issues here, so I didn’t correlate the problem as a universal problem. I also constantly had issues with Alexa unable to select a song from Tidal, or skipping to a secondary music service because it couldn’t communicate with Tidal, yet I’d open up the Sonos app and was able to select the Tidal song without a problem, so thought it was once again, an internet issue.
Today, I was having the buffering constantly issues. I left the house to run some errands. Same on my car. Got home, continued problem. Checked my internet.. 0 packet loss yet same problem. Stream from my phone, same problem. Switch music services and works great. I’ve also had some songs sound distorted (at loud volumes, but it felt like a file problem and not an amplification problem).
Have you all had any issues like this before? My phone is tmobile, my car is ATT, and my home is cable internet, so 3 entirely different internet sources, same
problem. I’m considering switching to Amazon’s hifi, but it doesn’t have built in support for my car yet. How have your experience been, and any of you tried both side by side and found benefits or downfalls to one over the other?
Already did and wouldn't look back. Amazon with a Prime membership is much cheaper than Tidal (look at the annual plan) and a much better selection. Device support is much more limited though and playing in the car thru the pone works really well for me. I do believe that Sonos supports AmazonHD so that shouldn't be an issue. I don't use Alexa so I can't comment on that. I've been using Amazon for well over a year and except in no service spots its worked. |
I use Amazon HD with a Bluesound Node 2i and am very happy with it and have not had any issues. Great sound quality on high res and CD quality songs and Amazon has a great library for my taste in music which is mainly Rock and Americana. I stream Amazon from an iPhone in my car and at the gym and it has worked great for me.
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tidal and qobuz are clearly a cut above spotify, amazon, deezer, etc etc in sound quality in their higher res feeds the delta between tidal and qobuz is more subtle, there are other recent threads describing the sonic differences tidal has the mqa issue, but smart users largely ignore this, just enjoy the music... if you have roon, it decodes mqa when it is there... set the setting and you don't need to think about it both are thoroughly enjoyable and with an excellent system, the source feed is as good as any... |
@jjss49 darn you. I really didn't want to believe it but Qobuz is better than AmazonHD. Just signed up for the Qobuz free trial and with WASAPI (exclusive) mode it's just better. The bass is tighter and there is an increase in clarity which isn't what I wanted to hear as I just renewed the Amazon annual plan. errrrrr!!!
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Ironically, I contacted Tidal support, pointing out the fact that identical songs played both, through my sonos on my home system with the cable internet, and my car playing, using AT&T cell service to stream, have the same corrupted issues…. Their response.. “Try using a VPN of XYZ”. So are they implying that America’s streaming service has corrupt files, and I need to VPN to get their service through another country? I don’t know that it’s even possible to make my Tesla use a VPN, and I haven’t put in a business class router, so I have no way to set a VPN for a specific device, and I’m not passing all of my internet through a free vpn which would basically throttle my internet service.. wtf are they smoking over there? “What? We have a file that’s corrupt through two entirely different internet providers? You should just VPN so you pull from a different server!”… how about you fix your files! |
It’s free to try a Qobuz subscription, so just do that and see what happens. I will say that when I took my kid to soccer practice and the area had a not great WiFi signal Qobuz wasn’t great and I’d think Tidal’s compacted files may have worked better. But, from home, I much prefer Qobuz and will never go back to Tidal and their silly MQA crap. Just my opinion FWIW. |
I listen to Tidal in my home office 5-12 hours a day 5 days a week for the last 2 years (thankyou, covid), and in my car (via iPhone) when I'm out and about. I can count on 1 hand the times I had a temporary problem related to the service. Your problems lie elsewhere. That said, I prefer the quality of Qobuz (and think MQA to be pure bs), and would switch to Qobuz 100% if they had a connect feature (ala Tidal/Spotify). Until then, I wait. |
Incidentally, Tidal’s MQA algorithm alters the original content to what “they think” sounds better. No thanks. Also, MQA greatly restricts your choice of DACs. IMHO the ONLY reason to consider Tidal is if you have WiFi data limitations that cause dropouts with other services. But, 3G will make that a non issue. Strike 3! Qobuz also has a better user interface. Strike 4! Go with Qobuz. |
@jjss49 Roon only does the first of two Tidal "unfolds". You need a MQA DAC to do the second "unfold". IMHO, rather than bother with any of this I use Qobuz with which I can enjoy hi-rez files without a special streamer or DAC. |
@bkeske Yeah, I get it. But is the non-MQA in true HD? Also, since your Denafrips doesn’t do MQA, why not try Qobuz? It’s cheaper and most here seem to think it sounds better. I had both and will never go back to Tidal if nothing else because I found the Qobuz interface to be much more user friendly. Cheaper, easier to use, potentially better sound quality, and free to try — you do the math. |
Tidal now has a plan that is the same cost as Qobuz. It has ’high definition’, but does not include MQA. That is what I switched to. it is called their ’HiFi’ plan and plays files up to 1411 kbps (CD quality and all I need). I did the math. Pretty easy. Many files are still labeled ’master’. Their old plan with MQA is called ’HiFi+’, and includes MQA. I don’t need that, so saved money switching. In addition, my iFi Zen Stream has Tidal Connect to get the best sound. I do not have ’Qobuz Connect’ with the iFi Zen Stream, unless I used Roon, which I do not. |
@bkeske Yeah but, it’s absolutely free to try Qobuz so why not when so many members here prefer it and think it sounds better? You have nothing to lose! |
Because it does not have a ’Connect’ feature with the iFi Zen Stream. I won’t use (in my case) Airplay to play Qobuz. I know Airplay does not sound as good as ’Connect’. Ive tried both. You made some untrue statements regarding Tidal, was just trying to clear that up. I realize you like Qobuz, great, good for you. Many folks do. But let's not make untrue statements regarding Tidal. |
Perhaps so, and I use DNLA to connect to one of my hard drives on my network, and it shows up inside the iFi app in order to use it/stream from it ‘directly’. But, that doesn’t work like Tidal or Spotify Connect does, where it connects directly to the iFi Stream via the Tidal or Spotify app. As I said, yea, an easy way to connect, for me, would be via Apple AirPlay, but that has limitations. I’m on Mac iOS and Mac OS systems only. Perhaps DNLA with mconnect, Roon, or similar is possible. Don’t know. I imagine you may need a third party app for non-Apple hardware/Qobuz as well (from what I have read). I’ve read a few postings about this, but not many, as at this time it does not concern me. From an iFi rep:
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