Tidal

Not "bad" but it's the genre where the fewest new releases I want to check out seem to turn up.

is there something I'm missing, or is music discovery basically non-existent on Tidal? Spotify seems to have a massive advantage as it relates to discovery as well as catalog breadth.

I'm currently paying for both Spotify and Tidal Hi-Fi. outside of the exclusives and a higher fidelity that I personally can't hear, I'm not finding anything that would make me choose Tidal long-term.

I've been rotating through the streaming services for several months now (In April I did Apple Music, next month I'll do Deezer again) and I have consistently found Spotify to be the least lacking since Rdio died.

this was good. had no idea Deezer was such A Big Deal.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/23/music-streaming-services-playlister-sam-lee-deezer?CMP=share_btn_fb

i know there's an all-encompassing thread for all things stream-y but so help me i can't remember what it's called

Thread For Chatter About The Streaming Music Economy

ah thanks.

I'm about a month in and been doing a lot of A/Bing and I prefer Tidal's HIFI sound quality to Spotify's Extreme quality

the music discovery and selection isn't as broad but it's pretty good. Honestly if they added Chromecast Audio support (which I tweeted at their official account and they said something like we're looking into new streaming options but def noncommittal) I think I would go for it, but the HIFI is something I would get the most use out of at home on my good stereo through Chromecast so it kinda defeats the purpose

I'm curious about how you were A/Bing

just on my computer thru headphones and an outboard DAC/headphone preamp, play song for like 20 seconds on spotify, pause, switch to tidal go to 20 and pause, then basically just listening to the same 10-15 seconds on each one back to back and pausing

on some level i realize how sad this all sounds

also in general, Tidal volume level seems lower which I generally take as a good sign wrt to compression

That last statement may be true, but on its surface it seems to conflate audio and file compression. If you like something more about another service, I'd do a volume-matched blind A/B before trading off for perceived sound quality improvement. Unfortunately, you can also run into the issue of different masters showing up on two different services.

I say this as someone who hasn't been able to detect a difference in such tests, but your ears may be better

I dropped Tidal. I couldn't justify another $20/month just for access to Prince and Neil Young, esp since I already own most of the Neil Young albums I like. The sound was at best slightly better, and the overall depth of selection was worse. Also there were some little nits about the interface that I found annoying.

is the quality of Tidal an extra £10 worth of quality though?

I dropped Tidal. I couldn't justify another $20/month just for access to Prince and Neil Young, esp since I already own most of the Neil Young albums I like. The sound was at best slightly better, and the overall depth of selection was worse. Also there were some little nits about the interface that I found annoying.

― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Friday, June 3, 2016 1:41 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wouldn't necessarily argue with this and i'm probably going to drop it, though the Neil Young factor might be relatively more important to me personally and obviously this last month it's been really important to be able to listen to Prince

i bought (like really bought!) all the prince forever ago, so for me it's been more like getting reacquainted with how shitty itunes is

is Bob Seger on Tidal?

Yes, Bob Seger's "The Little Drummer Boy" off the original A Very Special Christmas is on Tidal

Seger selection is six songs - up from 3 songs on Spotify

Also Atmosphere apparently has a rap song called "Bob Seger"!

Tidal does have "Heavy Music" and "Sock it to Me Santa" by Seger & the Last Heard, two great ones off the Never Mind the Bullets bootleg comp

Trying to look soberly at why i would quite like Tidal to fail, and I realise it's partly due to my feelings of either loathing or at least mild dislike for pretty much every musician involved in that ludicrous contract-signing ceremony.

How do you feel about the major executives at Spotify? Please name them and discuss your feelings about them. Like Gustav Söderström for example. I hear he often goes through the express line at the supermarket with more than 12 cans of Surströmming. Seriously, fuck that guy. It's 12 items or less. Just for that, I want Spotify to fail.

tbf maybe Gustav had trouble parsing a sign that should say "12 items or fewer"

The sign was likely in Swedish, so probably didn't have controversial American-English usage issues. But seriously, what about Oskar Stål. I mean, we all know he's a major asshole. I heard that he once complained about the sales tax. Just for that, I want Spotify to fail.

And don't even get me started on Stefan Blom. I mean, you want to talk about people I hate and want to fail, there's no getting past Stefan. Let's not even go there. Let's just say I'd like Spotify to fail just based on Stefan Blom. He likes to spend time in "the archipelago"? What the hell is wrong with him? I loath Stefan Blom.

Oh jesus, I forgot about Martin Lorentzon. How I loath him. He "enjoys all kind of sports and cultural pursuits"? What the hell does that even mean. Commit to something, Martin! I want Spotify to fail just based on him and his wishy-washiness.

can a mod lock this thread? spotify is a big company, and I'm worried that they have more than 5 "major executives".

I hope Tidal ads Chromecast support but that's kind of a dealbreaker right now -- or I should say mobile support you can do it from the web player

It took awhile for spotify to get to where they are with "spotify connect", so it is probably coming eventually

yeah they must've said publically they were working on it, saw it come up on a few audio forum posts but nothing official for time frame

though selection and discovery has a loooooooong way to go to catch spotify

Actually, now I think my main reason for hoping Tidal will fail is that it would annoy dlp

it's annoying, that's for sure.

Wall Street Journal Digital ‏@WSJD
Apple is in talks to acquire Jay Z’s Tidal music service

finally catching up to Dr. Dre eh

I wonder if that's related to this:

http://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-and-apple-are-at-war-2016-6

If I understand correctly, Spotify is upset that a large company that they're essentially obligated to work with is screwing them out of profits. That sounds horrible. Maybe David Lowery can offer them some legal advice.

the new Tidal Masters (using the MQA codec) sound really great, though there is some controversy re: MQA in the audio industry per the Wikipedia page

http://tidal.com/gb/masters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated

also kinda of a bummer it only works w/Tidal desktop app not mobile....but yeah I don't know I think Tidal HIFI sounds great already I think this might put me over the top to switch from Spotify to Tidal....

also Tidal's curation is a lot better, for example they only have one Metallica album, Lulu

lol

i got this free for 6 months. it has Coil - Horse Rotorvator. can't complain.

Wow. Norwegian journalists with an exposure. It seems like it's a scam. Fake listener logs has inflated the success of The Life of Pablo and Lemonade, not only making Tidal seem like a succes, but also inflating the amount of money the two artists get at the expense of everyone else.

https://www.dn.no/staticprojects/special/2018/05/09/0600/dokumentar/strommekuppet/

looks like a scandal!

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/did-tidal-falsify-streams-to-bulk-up-kanye-west-and-beyonce-numbers/

Record companies used to buy millions of lps to guarantee their success

Not much has changed

Well, now they're actively taking money from other artists to give their own.

this is fraud, right?

this is on top of them already giving "free albums" to all their subscribers? hah the music industry is such shit these days at least with radio payola people still bought albums.

it is fraud, yes

hard to imagine how anyone could have thought they would get away with it - wonder if Jay Z authorized this...

He either knew or should have known. I think the more thorny question is how much Kanye and Beyoncé knew. If the figures are right, it should be hundreds of thousands of dollars that they've personally gotten, right?

Another TIDAL subscriber, music critic Geir Rakvaag, supposedly played tracks from Kanye West’s The Life Of Pablo 96 times in a single day – with 54 plays in the middle of the night.

are you suggesting that there's some kind of... geirbot involved