I've goten a promo of 3 moths for like .80$ and I'm using it now. Thing is that the differences between this (Hi-FI Version, the best one) and Spotify Premium is not very big, at least to my ears and the price is way higher than Spotify Premium (when the promo ends of course). I know that most smartphones do not favour this app, because they have shitty audio itself, but also with the PC sounds very similar.

I want to hear other opinions, maybe I just need to concentrate more on it, and I'll realize that the difference is actually bigger.

I'm not an audiophile, at least I don't consider myself as such, I only want to listen to what the artist wanted us to listen, and TIDAL guarantee that they do exactly that.
My headphones are: SONY MDR-7506

Honestly; you're not going to hear much difference. Tidal is High Fidelity; but so is every other service. The main attraction is the fact it'll stream lossless FLAC files if the connection is good enough; if the connection drops it will revert to MP3. You can tell what stream is currently going based on the WebUI.

https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthre ... reaming-at


The other issue is: It streams FLAC.. but most of it is 16 bit 44.1 kHz; which is to say "It's the same as a CD", the MQA subscription with Tidal offers some albums in 96 kHz / 24 Bit sample rate:

https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/arti ... AL-MASTERS

Though that's another option and only open to certain tiers; and again depends on connection and what's local. If you're a slower 4G network or a DSL connection; it's going to sound just as well as most things at the 44.1 kHz sample rate; it's also VBR FLAC streams (for Lossless) and MQA is Blu-Ray Audio audio quality streams in DTS-HD. Though that's nothing compared to a SACD that has a sample rate of 2.8224 MHz.


Another thing to consider; those headphones are awesome I love them I used to use them with my MiniDisc player; and still use them in studio. You'd need to make sure your computer has a good DAC that's capable of doing 24 bit audio; if not you're just going to hear down-sampled to 16-bit (though that in and of itself does have some benefits.) The biggest problem you're going to face though is.. the audio myth. That higher sample rates and "true lossless" are audibly better. The fact is; our own ears can't even register most things with the average range of human hearing being 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Though there are some who can hear sound as low as 12 Hz and as high as 28 kHz. (Normally those are the ones we call perfect pitched).

Sadly streaming FLAC that reverts to MP3 when it can't handle the load comes with a lot of disadvantages as does Ogg.. That's why most people who listen blindly will go with Apple Music as the best streaming service because AAC has a lot of advantages over other lossy formats.
https://medium.com/swlh/apple-music-bet ... f0fa4447f7

There's also the fact that with Apple Music you can get access to 24 Bit Apple Lossless if you download certain albums (most of the Full Dynamic Range re-masters for example, or the iTunes LPs) as far back as 2011 Apple wanted 24 bit for streaming:
https://www.geek.com/apple/apple-wants- ... s-1317517/


Though it does seem most people assume Tidal Hi-Fi/Lossless streaming as being "more than CD" and being disappointed when it's on CD par or stutters and defects below because the source can't keep up with a constant 1.441 Mbps stream for the Flac or I'd assume an even higher rate for the MQA..

Thanks a lot, man. I will then need to check a lot of this information and my internet connection right now is not so great actually.

+1. Good info, thanks!

I also tried the free trial a while back. I liked the audio quality better than Spotify for sure, but I'd need to be in a slightly better financial position to justify the price increase, especially when I have other means of finding 24-bit CDs.

Also it's not that great for mobile if you have a cap on your data, like we do in Canada, since you're eating 3 times as much per song.

So... FUCK streaming and play locally stored data.

I think that's the best solution.