FLAC Tidal vs Spotify 320

[anonymous-user]

Is there any difference ? I didn't think my hearing was that bad, maybe I'm listening to the wrong stuff !

[Westy65]

Schmed said:

Is there any difference ? I didn't think my hearing was that bad, maybe I'm listening to the wrong stuff !

FLAC is compressed but the same quality as CD ie 1,411 bps vs 320 for Spotify. So there is a difference but whether you can hear this is down to the equipment you are listening on and your hearing. It’s for you to decide!

You can also get FLAC on Deezer by the way, but only when playing through Sonos products.

[bristolracer]

If I listen on my Naim kit the difference can be heard,
The Tidal music has much more depth and detail.
If listening on any other kit in my house it makes no real difference.

If you were listening on say a Sonos i think you would be hard pushed to hear much difference.

[Podie]

Qobuz is another high res alternative.

[GravelBen]

As others have said there is a difference but you need pretty honest/detailed kit to really notice it, as well as reasonably sensitive ears.

[Finlandia]

Don't know about streaming, but for a local file, there is a big difference between lossy and lossless, at least to my ears, on all my systems (home, headphones, car).

[Podie]

Finlandia said:

Don't know about streaming, but for a local file, there is a big difference between lossy and lossless, at least to my ears, on all my systems (home, headphones, car).

Agreed

[mgv8]

For Tidal you are going to want the Hi-Fi subscription that is $20pm go get the best sound. This will give you access to Master as well but you will need a dedicated DAC to really make the best use of that. Overall not worth doing unless you are connecting to some good kit, but well worth it if you are.

[anonymous-user]

Thanks all- any recommendations of tracks that would illustrate the differences particularly well ?

[legzr1]

mgv8 said:

For Tidal you are going to want the Hi-Fi subscription that is $20pm go get the best sound. This will give you access to Master as well but you will need a dedicated DAC to really make the best use of that. Overall not worth doing unless you are connecting to some good kit, but well worth it if you are.

The Mconnect app using iOS will do the first ‘unfold’ of MQA Tidal Masters passing on 24/96 to any recent DAC giving excellent results - the DAC (whether separate or built into amp,receiver or streamer) doesn’t have to be MQA compatible.

I agree with you, well worth doing.

[anonymous-user]

I give up. Tidal masters sounds exactly the same as Spotify to me.

I bought a separate DAC and ran it through an expensive separates system and also tried a separate Sonos set up (which is just CD quality on Tidal I’m told).

I’m thinking all this lossless talk is just BS. Perhaps I’m just tone deaf

[Finlandia]

Schmed said:

I give up. Tidal masters sounds exactly the same as Spotify to me.

I bought a separate DAC and ran it through an expensive separates system and also tried a separate Sonos set up (which is just CD quality on Tidal I’m told).

I’m thinking all this lossless talk is just BS. Perhaps I’m just tone deaf

As I said earlier, I don't know about streaming audio, but could it be a slow connection? Like watching Netflix on a slow internet, it makes 4k and HDR look worse than a DVD.

[page3]

Schmed said:

I give up. Tidal masters sounds exactly the same as Spotify to me.

I bought a separate DAC and ran it through an expensive separates system and also tried a separate Sonos set up (which is just CD quality on Tidal I’m told).

I’m thinking all this lossless talk is just BS. Perhaps I’m just tone deaf

I couldn’t tell the difference either - Anthem MRX amp, Kef LS50’s, Sonos Connect. Pretty good quality and revealing system. As I much prefer the Spotify interface and its ability to control remote apps as if they were local, I’ve gone back to Spotify.

[matjk]

A lot of people claim they can hear the difference on their high end audio kit but in blind tests people mostly fail.
The difference in sound between the 2 is very very minimal , not much goes missing. But the audio world has always relied on people thinking they could or couldn’t hear tiny differences in sound . That’s why £1000 mains cables exists

[legzr1]

Schmed said:

I give up. Tidal masters sounds exactly the same as Spotify to me.

I bought a separate DAC and ran it through an expensive separates system and also tried a separate Sonos set up (which is just CD quality on Tidal I’m told).

I’m thinking all this lossless talk is just BS. Perhaps I’m just tone deaf

How are you accessing Tidal Masters?

What’s the rest of your system and which DAC are you using? Passing hires Tidal with MQA encoding isn’t as straight forward as people might think and there are many steps where the MQA ‘link’ will drop resorting to 44/16 flac - the Tidal servers automatically stream the lower res file when no MQA decoder is detected.

Having said all that, you should still be able to tell the difference between MP3 and lossless flac files, never mind MP3 vs hires.

If you really can’t tell the difference (or you’re not sure but don’t really mind) then congrats!! You’ve probably saved a fortune on subscriptions and equipment

If your system is capable of streaming Qobuz then a free trial of their hires stream. Other help you - it’s uses a different system to Tidal for streaming these files and is less suseptible to drop out.

[RowntreesCabana]

Schmed said:

Is there any difference ? I didn't think my hearing was that bad, maybe I'm listening to the wrong stuff !

I don't think there's any difference due to bit rate, as your ears can only hear specific sound frequencies. I recall a test on the gadget show where a professional couldn't tell the difference between various songs at 256kbit/s and flac, let alone at 320kbp/s.

I think there's a difference in the processing side of things, which is why some streaming sites sound better than others. To my ears, Qobuz sounded the best.

[mikef]

Schmed said:

I give up. Tidal masters sounds exactly the same as Spotify to me.

I bought a separate DAC and ran it through an expensive separates system and also tried a separate Sonos set up (which is just CD quality on Tidal I’m told).

I’m thinking all this lossless talk is just BS. Perhaps I’m just tone deaf

I’ve just started a trial of Tidal, as it’s built into a Yamaha WXAD-10 hi-def streaming box I got for Christmas.

As far as I understand, Tidal Masters is only available when streaming through a Mac/PC, not from mobile devices or the DAC itself.

I have to say that listening to Tidal masters on my Mac at work, through an Icon DAC and Audeze electro-planar cans, the sound is great, comparable to the same material that I own in hi-def downloaded FLAC, better than CD rips and much better than iTunes. I don’t subscribe to a Spotify so can't comment on how that compares

[chandrew]

mikef said:

I’ve just started a trial of Tidal, as it’s built into a Yamaha WXAD-10 hi-def streaming box I got for Christmas.

As far as I understand, Tidal Masters is only available when streaming through a Mac/PC, not from mobile devices or the DAC itself.

I have to say that listening to Tidal masters on my Mac at work, through an Icon DAC and Audeze electro-planar cans, the sound is great, comparable to the same material that I own in hi-def downloaded FLAC, better than CD rips and much better than iTunes. I don’t subscribe to a Spotify so can't comment on how that compares

In Feb Tidal launched Masters streaming via Android. At the moment I'm still streaming it off a Mac as I haven't been able to use my DAC (an old Benchmark DAC 1) via USB from the phone. When using the Mac as a source I select Master if it's available as with both this and Hi-Fi there seems to be no advantage otherwise. I've never bothered doing a A/B test with the same track on Hi-Fi streaming.

[CrgT16]

Quite noticeable for me. I agree Spotify interface is a bit better but TIDAL lossless is just better, the Spotify sounds about thin if that makes sense. Where I notice it more us on my Naim Muso and in my car. Maybe they are equalised differently at source?

[legzr1]

I posted this elsewhere on here recently but the Mconnect app on iOS used with with a recent iPad allows first unfold of Masters MQA files and sends the file at (up to dependant on original file) 24/96 to a streamer/DAC over WiFi.

It works well.