Does Tidal Hifi really sound better than paid, highest quality Spotify?
I played Brian Eno’s Apollo and I couldn’t really tell. This was the remastered version.
Does anyone really find Tidal better?
I’ve tried them all and signed up with Qobuz for a year, which works out at £12.49/m
I've just been looking at my PC settings as just realised I get the W10 notification sounds coming through, so looked to see if Amazon takes exclusive control, and after a bit of googling realise it doesn't! So W10 is doing all of the things it does to the signal before presenting it to the DAC, and it appears the Qobuz has wasapi built in, so I'm going to investigate that, or resume Tidal and run it through Audirvana. Otherwise I'm about to waste money upgrading my DAC amp!
I tried Tidal v Spotify a few months ago.... both on highest settings, streamed from my phone to an Arcam rBlink to a PM6006 into a pair of Wharfdale Diamond 9.1’s.
Couldn’t tell the difference - so I stuck with Spotify. But then, my hearing is fifty years old, a bit knackered from attending hundreds of metal gigs since I was fourteen, and I know my system isn’t exactly high end.
However, I’m currently trialling Deezer and I have to say I like it. To me, and on the hi-fi/flac setting, it sounds a bit crisper and the stereo image is possibly slightly wider than I’m used to with Spotify.
I need to do a proper A/B test....
Does your DAC come with a driver ? If so you should be installing it and is probably why W10 still takes control.
Yes indeed it does., and worked exclusively with J River before I moved to streaming and replaced my home system with Sonos. Exclusive control isn't a downstream hardware control, it's in the app. Tidal can invoke it for Master and HiFi quality tracks, J River had to be configured, Qobuz I believe can be configured too. Audivarna could do it, but Amazon are not a partner, so whatever DAC you use, at the moment, Amazon HD can only run in shared mode.
No matter how good the Arcam is, I suspect you compromised your streaming audio by using Bluetooth, and is probably why you couldn’t hear much of a difference. By and large I would only use Bluetooth for casual use.
Are you also using Deezer that way? Does your phone have aptX?
I've tried them allI've re-subscribed to Tidal, and it's definitely streaming in exclusive mode, as you can't play anything else whilst its active. The Amazon app has an exclusive mode option, but it doesn't work!
I've spent some time comparing a few tracks streamed from Tidal in both 16/44 and 24/96 res to the same tracks and resolution from my J River PC app that has all my CDs and Hi Res files on it. I can't hear any difference , it's not noticeable to my ears if there is one. So I'm satisfied that Tidal can stream both CDA and 24/96 res quality as per it's claims.
I can hear a slight difference between Spotify and Tidal, usually a slightly mushy hazy treble in the former, doesn't seem as tight a rhythm. For many people it's maybe not worth the extra cost, and tbh most of the time when music is on in the background I'd never notice.
Now I've got a new DAC in place that has a display of the file type being streamed, I know that Tidal exclusive mode works, and that Amazon HD does not work in exclusive mode.I've tried them all
Qubuz, amazon hd, Tidal etc all sound much better the 320 kbps tracks
Amazon software is soooo bad i pay the £7 premium for Tidal
Marantz NR1200 into Focal 714's