Tidal lossless vs. lossy test

[Laurens_B]

Tidal offers a free test with 5 fragments of tracks and you can choose which one you think is high fidelity. Link:

http://test.tidalhifi.com/

I just did the test and scored two out of five, it was pretty much guessing, nothing to gain for me with Tidal I guess.

 

[EvPa]

Extremely high-end end equipment was used, a Panasonic RP-HTX7 and my laptop's Realtek audio chipset.

(and it was likely sheer luck)

 

[Anderson]

1/5 using iPhone 6 with Apple earbuds, I honestly couldn't hear a difference anyway. Will have to try this on my system.

 

[Jota180]

2/5. Congratulations, you've saved yourself a fortune.

Only having 5 tracks in the test is a problem imo. You've a decent chance of guessing correctly. It would be interesting if they could randomise the hi rez from the other and then people take the test multiple times. As it happens I was not sure on any track so I couldn't tell with any conviction.

You might think they may be doing themselves out of business if people take the test, don't get them all right and then think why bother.

 

[Jota180]

Curiouser and curiouser...

http://www.head-fi.org/t/743658/tidal-lossless-listening-test-whats-going-on-here

In the test, Tidal guides you in what to look for...

Tip -

"Compressed music weakens for instance the pressure in the bass, details in cymbals and gives the sound less headroom."

 

[MajorFubar]

Just tried it and it refused to play B of the last two tracks no matter how may times I clicked. So I quit without without knowing if I got the first three right. Might try again later, maybe their website was having an eppy. But chances are I won't.

 

[drummerman]

Wasn' there a thread not so long ago where it was discussed that Tidal on certain computers/Mac's doesn't actually stream in HR?

Are you guys sure you actually receive CD quality files on this test?

 

[Anderson]

I don't think I was getting anything different between the tracks and I don't think Safari is capable of playing them anyway.

 

[Laurens_B]

Wasn' there a thread not so long ago where it was discussed that Tidal on certain computers/Mac's doesn't actually stream in HR?

Are you guys sure you actually receive CD quality files on this test?

I think this only concerns 16/24bit differences and sample rates higher than 48kHz, but I am not sure. Anyway, I played it on my system streaming through Airplay, so my system did the D/A conversion.

 

[Jota180]

The link I posted shows that people downloaded the tracks then analysed them and noticed some artifical boost on the high rez tracks and not on the low rez. They surmised this was done by an equaliser and was not the difference between two encoding technologies.

Basically they smelt a cheat.

 

[manicm]

Tidal specifically states the test is to be done on a full blown hifi, they state mobiles won't cut it.