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Who has tried "TIDAL" vs other streaming applications?

Hello, I'm new to Audiogon, this is my first posting into Forums.

I enjoy streaming audio from my PC and have been using Spotify for a number of years now (college student discount to premium $5 a month). I just recently stumbled upon a App called TIDAL, that streams Lossless 16/44.1FLAC with their "HI-FI" subscription (Student $10 a month). Since I can queue up Spotify and Tidal at the same time, I was able to do an A/B and used Dire Straits Brothers in Arms. I noticed that TIDAL indeed sounds better to me but am convinced none of my family members could tell a difference. I then did an A/B with TIDAL and the actual Brothers in Arms CD, to my surprise TIDAL sounded scary close, if not just as good as the CD! This is hard for me to believe, I think I'm just trying to justify the extra cost of TIDAL on a crazy tight student budget, maybe its a placebo effect? I need to drop one of the services, but which one? I would appreciate your thoughts please... Thank you!
My system:
PC = Gaming Rig I built myself, using dedicated high quality audio card.
Krell KAV 400xi integrated
Sonus Faber Electa's with Sunfire HRS Sub
Cambridge AZUR 840C CDP/DAC
Luxman T117 Tuner
Sony SCD - C2000ES SACD Player
Kimber Silver Streak throughout  


grm
kacz
177 posts
 
I'm still on Spotify premium. Which sounds fantastic. But this is what I started doing; I have my extensive play list, but when I find songs that are my favorite and high quality recordings I go and buy the WAV files some place online. Usually $1 each (from like bandcamp or something, I like a lot of smaller artists, and a lot of them use simple mic techniques and very little post processing so they sound amazing) . So I can buy 10 songs a month, 120 songs a year for what the additional cost of TIDAL would be. Only now I own the songs and put them in my library forever. To be honest I don't buy close to that many anyway. I feel I'm getting everything I need with this plan. Just only wish I could find more bands that have WAV files (or flac or whatever).

What I wish is that some day spotify would just sell any song as a WAV file if you choose to download it. So listen for free, or the premium, and choose to buy any song as a WAV at any time. That would be perfect.
cerrot's avatar
cerrot
1,700 posts
 
...or, use Tidal.  
kacz
177 posts
 
No I don’t want to spend $20 a month for Tidal. Still think it’s over priced. My point is I pretty much have $120 extra a year to spend if I wanted. That’s 120 songs I can buy and actually own forever if I wanted. And also already have all the streaming I want on Spotify premium. I can just buy actual music that I own forever and listen anywhere even if I don’t have internet. Eventually you have a large library and can go months without even using or paying for any services if you want. Best of both worlds. And to be honest most music doesn’t even benefit from lossless to much if at all over full bitrate mp3. It’s those audiophile quality ones that do and those are much more fewer and far between. Which I can just buy and still save money over Tidal. Just saying it’s a good option for me and might work well for others too. Tidals selection is still no where near comprehensive enough either. I'd probably have to go hunt down and buy some of my music still anyway on top of the $20 a month.
ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
4,312 posts
 
"And to be honest most music doesn’t even benefit from lossless too much if at all over full bitrate mp3. It’s those audiophile quality ones that do and those are much more few and far between."

EXACTLY. kacz - as far as I’m concerned, you are preaching to the choir. I doubt Tidal’s content managers have tapped into a hither to unknown and unavailable mother lode of high resolution masters for their mostly back catalog stuff. See my comments above. Something like OMI’s Me4U as commented on by grm (also above) might be one of those "few and far between" exceptions (or an argument for the placebo effect...if I spend 2x more, it must be better). Regardless, I use Spotify much like you do albeit when I find something exceptional I am purchasing most often as physical CD unless only available as a digital file. Haven’t run into many cases where only MP3 is available. The things I’ve purchased from Bandcamp, fortunately, have been available as WAV. But as always, whether it’s Spotify or Tidal that makes you happy - it’s the music that matters most.


sbank's avatar
sbank
3,379 posts
 
"to be honest most music doesn’t even benefit from lossless to much if at all over full bitrate mp3." 

What kind of system are you listening to when you draw this conclusion? 

I agree that IT'S ALL IN THE PROVENANCE as to what recordings really sound great,  but find that most mp3s fall short on even moderately well setup modest systems. The only times the better formats aren't noticeable is on overly-produced compressed pop and similar recordings that were mixed and mastered with iPods in mind; often with auto-tuned vocals to make it even worse.
There's plenty of great sounding red-book out there, sounding good when ripped in lossless aiff or wav, but mp3s of the same will sound compressed, undynamic and full of glare. Cheers,
Spencer
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