Warning, this will be a long post but for people that love music, it may be worth it.

Some time back I bought a new car and was really disappointed in the sound system

I started researching sound upgrades and found a 20 page blog post specifically on my car and the stereo in it.

Lots of suggestions to replace the subwoofers

Around page 17 or so, someone posts that everyone on the blog is an idiot and the engineers spent 18 months designing the stereo just for that car.

He says we are probably listening to MP3s over Bluetooth and that the issue is not the stereo but the source. Go sign up for a 30 day free trial at Tidal.com and thank him later.

I look the site up and it turns out Tidal.com offers MP3 quality, CD quality, HD ( record quality) and master track quality. Who knew?

So I sign up for the free trial online, break out my iPad and B&W headphones and played a song that I have been listening to forever - Exit by U2 on Joshua Tree. Blew my mind. First 30 seconds, what has always been clicks in the background, was now 2 wooden drumsticks and I could hear the wood resonate from the strikes!

Down a rabbit hole for 5 hours til 3am listening to almost every song I ever had listed in a top ten at one time or another.

Since then I continue to hear things I have never heard on songs that I have been listening to for years:
-In the air tonight by Phil Collins - there is a male backup singer I never heard
-Son of a preacher man by Dusty Springfield - there are 3 distinct backup singers
-The acoustic guitars on Yesterday by the Beatles are insane

If you have other song recommendations that really shine on HD or Master Track, please share! It's like I just started listening to music again!

Data compression has always been the enemy of the audiophile.

I recommend using a decent outboard DAC unit at home too if you don't have premium equipment already. It helps more than most suspect it will.

I wonder though if the HD streaming and non-HD streaming (Spotify) are basically the same if you hardwire in vs Bluetooth though.

I found a DVD Audio copy of the Black Album by Metallica and did a at home sound test to see how it held up. I compared the DVD Audio to the CD, streaming on Spotify, cassette, and vinyl record. I found that DVD audio was probably still the best but that Spotify was extremely close and don't think could tell the difference in a blind test.

I heard the same differences and minor things i'd been missing on the DVD audio and Spotify I hadn't heard before even though i have listened to it many times on Spotify. I really wonder if the big difference is Bluetooth more than anything else as listening on some form of Bluetooth 90% of the time these days.

I have been listening to music a lot more around the house, but using headphones.

In the car, I changed from bluetooth to AppleCar which uses wireless instead and to me it sounds better,( but I could be biased)

Tidal is Amazing. FLAC and master audio recording. True lossless audio. The difference between these and mp3 etc. is compression. You will hear the difference through Bluetooth, wired or on a hard drive.

The better the speakers, headphones the more pronounced. If listening on Apple ear buds or a blue tooth speaker etc it's not worth the money as those won't play what they are missing anyway.

And Tidal >>>>>>Spotify on sound but not if you don't have the equipment to exploit

I agree with all of this. I tried Tidal for a while, but I'm too cheap to upgrade my earphones. I went back to Spotify, which is perfectly fine for me. I'm more worried about access to the music I want to hear than hearing it with pristine quaity.

If you are active or former military, they have a 50% cost break.

I'm not, but that's a very cool thing.

I like the idea of discounts for military/first responders - but if you have the margins to give ppl 50% off, you're badly devaluing your product to the people you're asking to pay full price.

Tidal subscriber here. Only did it because of their contractual exclusives (at the time of subscription) matched my musical tastes. Past that, can verify that the sound quality compared to other streaming services is noticeably better. Especially with the mastered recordings.

Eliminatus said:

---

Data compression has always been the IMAGINARY enemy of the audiophile.

I recommend using a decent outboard DAC unit at home too if you don't have premium equipment already. It helps more than most suspect it will.

---

FIFY. People can't tell the difference between 128 and 320kbps.

Also, DAC is a mature technology. The one in your phone or home PC will perform equally as well as some $500 aftermarket doorstop.

Big Cat `93 said:

---

I agree with all of this. I tried Tidal for a while, but I'm too cheap to upgrade my earphones. I went back to Spotify, which is perfectly fine for me. I'm more worried about access to the music I want to hear than hearing it with pristine quaity.

---

I was on Sprint so I got six months of free Tidal and winded up barely using it. The music selection was mostly the same and I did like they had some music videos but it is truly a wasteland compared to Spotify in users.

They are missing all the cool music discovery features Spotify has and user created content like playlists as well. There was some real potential there, they had some cool deep dives in to some Jay-Z albums I liked but they don't have the resources to do that for any other artists. Spotify on the other hand has a ton of original content and podcasts now that I enjoy and the fact that Spotify works on every device I own seamlessly is a huge plus.

I'm EXTREMELY picky about audio quality. I hate using the standard players.

I discovered the iAudioGate app from Korg a while back and the eq options really enhances the sound of MP3's...adds so much fullness!

But I'll have to check out Tidal.

Yeah Bluetooth sucks

If you are listening over Bluetooth you are not going to be able to tell the difference between 192k and flac / lossless.

Headphones also kind of suck. Even expensive ones. There is a reason people will track with headphones but always use studio monitors to mix.

I suspect that the audio equipment in my house can't actually play HiFi music even if I had it. The best speakers I have are a set of Denon HEOs speaker which says it can run Tidal HiFi (but can't run Amazon HD), but honestly i'm not sure it actually can. They can play flac files so maybe i'll buy a flac album to download just and see if there is a difference.

This is a fun test for those that think they can easily discern the differences across bit rates:

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

On Bluetooth, AirPods, I'm around 60%. Regular headphones, I think I missed one. My studio monitors... too easy 100%.

Only missed Tom's diner.

Don't have anything to add except that it's owned by Jay-Z and was the only place you could listen to Kanye's The Life of Pablo when it first came out

I don't stream music, because I don't like the low quality. (Never tried Tidal) I have 2000 of my favorite songs on my phone at 256 kbs, whatever that means. I upgraded a bunch from 128 over the years. How does Tidal streaming compare to 256 kbs. I use Bluetooth with Bose products or Beats headphones.

Philo,

When I did the free trial, I spent the 30 days walking around the house with headphones on.

Tidal learns what type of music you like by what you listen to and creates mixes based on your music choices. I have found new songs I would have never listened to and have been enjoying artists and albums I forgot about.

Sign up for the trial, if you cannot tell the difference, cancel the service after 3 weeks.

For me, the access and quality is worth it

Philo - for what you are doing, Spotify or Amazon Music or Apple Music streaming quality is going to be as good as your 256k MP3's.

Ha that's the easy one

I have trouble on the Neil young song, until the last few seconds of it. The percussion gives it away on the one imo

zip90 said:

---

Philo,

When I did the free trial, I spent the 30 days walking around the house with headphones on.

Tidal learns what type of music you like by what you listen to and creates mixes based on your music choices. I have found new songs I would have never listened to and have been enjoying artists and albums I forgot about.

Sign up for the trial, if you cannot tell the difference, cancel the service after 3 weeks.

For me, the access and quality is worth it

---

Literally every streaming/music service does this. Seems like the differentiator for tidal would be the playback quality options and the exclusivity of certain artists.

I will admit that Tidal is the first streaming service I have used,

I had built up a library of 1500+ cds that I had converted to 192 mp3s and the quality difference of Tidal is night and day above the CD Mp3s

I assume that standard in ceiling speakers in a home, landscape speakers, etc., probably aren't high enough quality to tell the difference in streaming services?

For comparison Spotify these are the different levels of streaming quality they have

• Low - 24 kbs
• Normal - 96 kbs
• High - 160 kbs
• Very High - 320 kbs

You may also want to try Amazon Music HD. Not sure if the library is as good but from what I've read, the bit rate and audio quality is as good if not better than Tidal. Think it's a little cheaper too.