Right on cue, Tidal begins rolling out hi-res FLAC streaming

[What Hi-Fi?]

With over six million songs now available in hi-res FLAC format, has there ever been a better time to switch over to a lossless streaming service?

Right on cue, Tidal begins rolling out hi-res FLAC streaming : Read more

 

[Titntin]

Far too late to ever regain trust from this previous user. The whole attempt to sell us on a losy format and sell licenses to decode it was a an obvious attempt to 'snake oil' users to paying for something inferior to the free, bit perfect format they have had to come back to.
Having ran tidal and qobuz for some months through Roon, Tidal has demonstrably worse sound quality, even playing redbook standard flacs. Almost anyone who has compared for any length of time reaches the same conclussion.
It costs more to subscribe and pays less royalties to artists too. It also deosnt allow you to purchase and download high resolution albums either.

Nice to see them climb down and finally offer users real high res files, but this is still an inferior and expensive service compared with the best alternative, and I would never go back, and never trust them again.

 

[Navanski]

Absolutely. I mean, nobody else fell for the illusory MQA format.
Just to remind you that some very reputable hifi manufacturers also jumped on board. Bluenode, Cambridge Audio and LG to name just a few. I fail to see the reason for highlighting Tidal as the main contributor to an industry faux pas.

 

[Titntin]

Absolutely. I mean, nobody else fell for the illusory MQA format.
Just to remind you that some very reputable hifi manufacturers also jumped on board. Bluenode, Cambridge Audio and LG to name just a few. I fail to see the reason for highlighting Tidal as the main contributor to an industry faux pas.

Tidal were the only streaming service offering this nonsense and they had a deal with MQA to push it.
Hi fi manufacturers simply had to offer the tech, or risk being seen as 'non-compatible' with a major steaming service. Without Tidal, no one would have paid a licencing fee to decode a new lossy format.
There are also well documented cases of Tidal deliberately trying to ensure people could not decode and check their 'MQA' encoded files, and Artists who never submitted a Studio Master file, who's files were then offered as such. The whole situation was very 'dodgy' and a good example of why many people believe all 'Hi Fi' talk is snake oil.

The above reasons are a clear indication as to why Tidal were as guilty as the parent company of foisting this nonsense on people, whilst hi fi manufacturers were simply trying to remain compatible.