Tidal updates

[Electro]

I have found this video that shows the difference between Tidal HiFi lossless and other types.

It also plays the bits that are missing or have been removed in the lossy versions.

It's quite interesting to be able to hear the missing music. *smile*.

http://tidal.com/gb/video/lossless-explained

 

[drummerman]

One thing annoying with tidal is that it can be very spell sensitive ie. often misplace one letter or mis-spell slightly and it won't find it. I've noticed that a few times now.

Spotify on the other hand is much more easygoing and normally finds the required artist, even if spelt wrong.

Yes, Tidal have quite some way to go to match spotify's interface.

PS. No jokes about my grammar please

 

[tonky]

Spotify is very good - intuitive. I won't joke about your granma either!!

tonky

 

[steve_1979]

One thing annoying with tidal is that it can be very spell sensitive ie. often misplace one letter or mis-spell slightly and it won't find it. I've noticed that a few times now.

Spotify on the other hand is much more easygoing and normally finds the required artist, even if spelt wrong.

Yes, Tidal have quite some way to go to match spotify's interface.

Funny you should say that but I find that Spotify won't show the right results unless I spell everything exactly right.

PS. No jokes about my grammar please

I'll ignor your grammer if you ignor my spelling.

 

[steve_1979]

Why the differences in percieved sound quality then? *unknw* I doubt I can tell 320 Ogg Vorbis from 320 AAC. Isn't in some way (HF) Ogg Vorbis better than AAC?

When I used JetAudio as my main player I prefered .ogg because to me they sounded clearly better than MP3.

Ogg Vorbis, like AAC, is a more modern codec than MP3. They both have more methods of compressing audio than MP3 which has a limited range of 'tools' available.

It only really makes a big difference at very low bit-rates though. Once you get to 320kbps they'll all sound identical to lossless audio for the vast majority of people anyway.

 

[knaithrover]

One thing annoying with tidal is that it can be very spell sensitive ie. often misplace one letter or mis-spell slightly and it won't find it. I've noticed that a few times now.

Spotify on the other hand is much more easygoing and normally finds the required artist, even if spelt wrong.

Yes, Tidal have quite some way to go to match spotify's interface.

PS. No jokes about my grammar please

Spotify is definitely the better looking and more user friendly of the 2. Hopefully Tidal will catch up.

 

[MajorFubar]

None of Apple Music's competitors offer a 'family' option, so it's unlikely I'll be trying anything like Tidal any time soon. Presumably users of other streaming services don't have family members who want to create their own playlists, favorites and so on, but as soon as Apple Music launched with its 'family' option, it was a killer USP for me. I couldn't drop my four year old Spotify subscription fast enough and my wife and kids were delighted.

 

[Electro]

Why the differences in percieved sound quality then? *unknw* I doubt I can tell 320 Ogg Vorbis from 320 AAC. Isn't in some way (HF) Ogg Vorbis better than AAC?

When I used JetAudio as my main player I prefered .ogg because to me they sounded clearly better than MP3.

Ogg Vorbis, like AAC, is a more modern codec than MP3. They both have more methods of compressing audio than MP3 which has a limited range of 'tools' available.

It only really makes a big difference at very low bit-rates though. Once you get to 320kbps they'll all sound identical to lossless audio for the vast majority of people anyway.

If you looked at the video in my previous post it allows you to hear the parts of the music that are missing even from 320kbps , I doubt that anyone could not hear it ! *shok*

Here it is again .

http://tidal.com/gb/video/lossless-explained

 

[tonky]

I do understand what you mean steve 1979 - and it's all interesting - the links to the graphs etc - very revealing too. But in the context of listening on a decent hifi the difference is obvious. It might be quite close but it is discernible. On a phone or fairly decent mp3 player - In the gym - I can't tell the difference between what's lossless and what isn't - but it's not exactly critical listening tho.

Real world listening for pleasure - sat in the "listening zone" that's what counts and that's when differences are discernible.

tonky

 

[Vladimir]

When they switched from mp3 to 'hi-fi' I didn't notice any difference or dramatic boost in livelyness. Then they played the sound that gets removed in lossless compression, to me that is completely unimportant. It doesn't take away from the music enjoyment at all. All it does to my ears is make it a bit crisper sounding, but veeery subtle if at all detectable addition.

If I had a very good hi-fi setup that can play 27Hz-20kHz -/+2dB with ease at 100dB continuous + 20dB in peaks, I would care about the missing chunk of music. As it is now with desktop speakers and headphones, not so much.

BTW the video is hosted on Vimeo, which at best streams 320 kbps AAC-LC.

 

[woodster]

Had Spotify, now I have Tidal. Used the free trial to evaluate Tidal, its my obvious choice with the Auralic mini streaming for me. I have even successfully (Largely) migrated my spotify playlists.

The overall quality of sound is considerably superior and I prefer the GUI over Spotify.

There you have it.

 

[jjbomber]

Presumably users of other streaming services don't have family members who want to create their own playlists, favorites and so on,

No, the rest of us are successful and can afford to pay for quality. Unfortunately your family have to put up with cheap rubbish.

 

[steve_1979]

BTW the video is hosted on Vimeo, which at best streams 320 kbps AAC-LC.

The irony.

 

[steve_1979]

I do understand what you mean steve 1979 - and it's all interesting - the links to the graphs etc - very revealing too. But in the context of listening on a decent hifi the difference is obvious. It might be quite close but it is discernible. On a phone or fairly decent mp3 player - In the gym - I can't tell the difference between what's lossless and what isn't - but it's not exactly critical listening tho.

Real world listening for pleasure - sat in the "listening zone" that's what counts and that's when differences are discernible.

tonky

It is possible for a very small number of people to tell the difference at 320kbps but this really is very rare and it's only the people who have been trained to specifically listen for very subtle telltale signs that it's a compressed audio file and even then they have to really concentrate and focus to spot a difference. When using good quality headphones for the vast majority of people around 190kbps, give or take a bit, is usually where they can no longer hear a difference between lossy and lossless. With MP3 it's a bit easier to hear differences than with AAC or Ogg Vorbis.

Try the test that I suggested above. It doesn't take long and is a real eye opener. Like most people I used to think that it's easy to hear differences but when you do a proper blind test with all of the variables removed it's much more difficult than you'd expect.

I'm younger than most people on here (in my mid 30's) and have better than avarage hearing for my age too. With Sennheiser HD700 headphones or AVI DM10 speakers I can't tell the difference at 256kbps or above. Even at 190kbps it sounds the same as lossless most of the time. I've never tried to educate and train myself to learn what specific sounds to look out for that make it easier to spot a lossy codec. So it may be possible for me to do it at a higher bit-rate with a bit of training and practice.

 

[Electro]

BTW the video is hosted on Vimeo, which at best streams 320 kbps AAC-LC.

The irony.

To be fair to Tidal they do point out at the beginning of the video that it is for illustration purposes only as neither vimeo or youtube are lossless . I was more interested in the bits that are removed from the music to save space on lossy formats, these are exactly the bits of detail that "audiophiles" spend loads of money on equipment to hear. *biggrin*

 

[MajorFubar]

Presumably users of other streaming services don't have family members who want to create their own playlists, favorites and so on,

No, the rest of us are successful and can afford to pay for quality. Unfortunately your family have to put up with cheap rubbish.

They are lucky though. They don't have you as a dad. Hopefully one day someone will smash your teeth in and you'll have to go round to intensive care and wait to be treated by those nurses you think are under-worked and over-paid and spend their days pissing around in corridors. Inbetween time keep your lousy insults to yourself.

 

[tonky]

+1

tonky

 

[steve_1979]

Many people think it's easy to hear a difference between a 320kbps lossy codec and a lossless codec. There are a couple of common reasons for this misconception. The first is that they often don't use a proper blind comparison test and as much as people deny it everyone is susceptible to expectation bias. The second common reason is that very often when you buy a digital download from a website they deliberately make the lossy and lossless versions sound slighty different at the mastering stage (usually a small tweak to the volume or dynamic range is made).

The only way to properly compare lossy and lossless codecs is to remove all other variables by doing it yourself.

1. Rip a CD to WAV, FLAC or ALAC lossless.

2. Convert the lossless codec to a high bit-rate lossy codec yourself (256kbps or higher MP3, AAC or Ogg Vorbis). Don't trust other people to convert it for you as other variables are often added to make them sound different. There are many good converters available such as dBpoweramp (free for a trial period) or LAME for Audacity which is totally free but is a bit more complicated to use.

3. Do a proper blind ABX comparison using the free Foobar2000 audio player with the ABX plugin installed.

4. Prepare to be shocked when those obvious differences that you clearly heard before dissapear and you can no longer hear any difference.

 

[steve_1979]

Well said major

+1

 

[Electro]

Presumably users of other streaming services don't have family members who want to create their own playlists, favorites and so on,

No, the rest of us are successful and can afford to pay for quality. Unfortunately your family have to put up with cheap rubbish.

They are lucky though. They don't have you as a dad. Hopefully one day someone will smash your teeth in and you'll have to go round to intensive care and wait to be treated by those nurses you think are under-worked and over-paid and spend their days pissing around in corridors. Inbetween time keep your lousy insults to yourself.

Plus another one Major, but I prefered your post before you edited it a couple of times *shok* *biggrin*

 

[MajorFubar]

Plus another one Major, but I prefered your post before you edited it a couple of times *shok* *biggrin*

No my initial response was too emmotive. First rule of successful arguing, never sink to their level. Just because I think he's a good for nothing oxygen robbing f'kwit and the world would be a better place had he been jizzed into a hanky doesn't mean I should risk getting myself banned for more or less saying so on a public forum.

 

[knaithrover]

Plus another one Major, but I prefered your post before you edited it a couple of times *shok* *biggrin*

No my initial response was too emmotive. First rule of successful arguing, never sink to their level. Just because I think he's a good for nothing oxygen robbing f'kwit and the world would be a better place had he been jizzed into a hanky doesn't mean I should risk getting myself banned for more or less saying so on a public forum.

I know that chap was insulting but your retorts are really rather unpleasant too, aren't we supposed to be talking about all things audio?

Just saying..

 

[steve_1979]

If you looked at the video in my previous post it allows you to hear the parts of the music that are missing even from 320kbps , I doubt that anyone could not hear it ! *shok*

Here it is again .

http://tidal.com/gb/video/lossless-explained

Yes with a lossy codec some of the audio is removed.

Yes when you listen to just the removed bits on their own you can hear them very clearly.

But that's missing the point. Those missing bits are the quiet bits that would be downed out by much louder parts of the music occuring at the same time. The idea of a lossy codec is that only the sounds that can't be heard are removed.

For example. If I drop a needle onto a table top in a silent room it will make a noise as it hits the table. You will easily be able to hear that noise. However, if I drop the same needle onto the same table at an Iron Maiden concert you wouldn't hear it because it'll be drowned out by the loud music. But the needle is still making the same noise. That is the noise that can be removed by a lossy codec.

 

[MajorFubar]

I know that chap was insulting but your retorts are really rather unpleasant too, aren't we supposed to be talking about all things audio?

Just saying..

Suspect you have to know the history behind it to fully understand, but you are of course quite right. Back on topic, which my original contribution actually was, before it was selectively quoted for no other reason than to inflame my anger. Which it did, and I was more the fool for even replying.

 

[steve_1979]

Apples idea of being able to get a discount for your whole family subscription is genius. I wonder why is hasn't been copied by the others. There must be quite a few households where a group of people want multiple subscriptions to a music streaming service.