Thread: Tidal’s Future

https://gizmodo.com/how-tidal-got-so-fucked-1826870560


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Originally Posted by Mike

https://gizmodo.com/how-tidal-got-so-fucked-1826870560


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Gizmodo sounds pretty delighted about Tidal’s impending crash. Then all the “I don’t care about sound quality” comments afterward. Not encouraging.


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Likely that not all of these allegations are true, but unlikely that they are all false, which is not good.

I’m not the biggest fan of tidal, but I am a fan of high quality streaming signals, so I hope there’s enough of a market to provide that service.


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Originally Posted by Hounddog

Likely that not all of these allegations are true, but unlikely that they are all false, which is not good...

OTOH, many of those allegations have also been made about each of the streaming services, except possibly Apple Music

Yep. Difficult to say. Irrespective of the other stuff, a subscriber base would seem to be a significant asset that someone would want (unless the reported numbers are off by several orders of magnitude).


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I hope Tidal can find the right CEO and battle back, I have to root for a service that provides at least CD quality streaming. On the other hand if the shady dealings are true I definitely don't approve. In fact, if I understand how the pool works, ifI was an artist I'd pull my library if it was true the numbers were manipulated to pay Biancee or West more than they sold.

In today's toxic environment I have to wonder how much of thenegativity toward Tidal is just due to the owner.

Tidal could use a better designed app. It's also interesting that I can find more albums in the Tidal library by using someone else's app. You'd think your own app would show all you have in order to satisfy customers. Maybe it just needs a better search engine or tweak.

Customer service is hit and miss for me. I began with a free trial from Sprint on my phone but neither sprint or Tidal could tell me how to use or transfer that trial to another device, like a home unit, or, even if it's allowed or possible, despite repeated attempts with both companies.

One other question took several days to receive an answer, I was surprised the question was answered, direct, no canned answer. It's puzzling to me how many companies don't realize the importance of customer service. Sometimes I think they get so big there's no control.

Another hurdle for Tidal is Qobuz is entering the market. I understand Deezer has 1411 kbps streaming, I haven't tried it nor does it seem to get much publicity.

My son has been bugging me to switch to Spotify Premium. Might be time to.

Keep in mind the best Spotify feed is only 320 kbps. That may not make a difference if you are using the $10.00 Tidal service but the high fidelity $20 service is 1411 kbps, 44.1k/16 bit. FLAC.

Originally Posted by socfan12

My son has been bugging me to switch to Spotify Premium. Might be time to.

Originally Posted by Mr Peabody

Customer service is hit and miss for me. I began with a free trial from Sprint on my phone but neither sprint or Tidal could tell me how to use or transfer that trial to another device, like a home unit, or, even if it's allowed or possible, despite repeated attempts with both companies.

One other question took several days to receive an answer, I was surprised the question was answered, direct, no canned answer. It's puzzling to me how many companies don't realize the importance of customer service. Sometimes I think they get so big there's no control.

Tidal only has 120 employees. Its not big enough because the company can't support itself.

Originally Posted by Mr Peabody

Keep in mind the best Spotify feed is only 320 kbps. That may not make a difference if you are using the $10.00 Tidal service but the high fidelity $20 service is 1411 kbps, 44.1k/16 bit. FLAC.

Thanks, am aware. Beats (my prior streaming service) was also 320kpbs and that sufficed for what I use streaming services for.

Originally Posted by KeithR

Tidal only has 120 employees. Its not big enough because the company can't support itself.

Keith. They are doing just fine by me. No issues using it via Roon whatsoever.

The whole issue with Tidal is the miss management of the company by its owners. It looks to me to be some hobby for self promotion by its owners. IF the put as much effort into the business as they do to making a record maybe Tidal will make it, but I doubt it

Anyone use Pandora anymore? I still think they are the best in being able to determine the type of music I like. I don't use it much any mor but it's my favorite when need a replacement for a radio station, when I don't feel like picking the music and sound isn't a concern.

My friend has Roon and it seems to do a good job of keeping the music flowing.

I use Pandora a lot for casual listening, like out around the pool, grilling, etc. IMO they do the best job at curating random play based on a particular artist.

I use Pandora all the time for background music. It is set and forget for me. I just list C-Jazz and I like just about every song that is played. No fuss no muss.

Originally Posted by nicoff

Thanks.
My experience has been different. I personally have never had any customer support complaints to date (knock on wood).

In fact, come to think of it, I have never had to call Tidal customer support at all. Tidal just works and I automatically pay every month. Same with Spotify (I still keep the free Spotify).

Same with me.

I suggest we keep supporting Tidal. The high-end audio community completely adopted Tidal and Tidal streaming is integrated in Roon and many streaming devices. They were the first large scale CD quality streaming service and with MQA they offer a big addition for higher quality streaming. I guess our business is worth something. And in the end it doesn't matter if it is owned by a rapper or somebody else.

Originally Posted by Glareskin

I suggest we keep supporting Tidal. The high-end audio community completely adopted Tidal and Tidal streaming is integrated in Roon and many streaming devices. They were the first large scale CD quality streaming service and with MQA they offer a big addition for higher quality streaming. I guess our business is worth something. And in the end it doesn't matter if it is owned by a rapper or somebody else.

Well said.

Originally Posted by Mr Peabody

Anyone use Pandora anymore? I still think they are the best in being able to determine the type of music I like. I don't use it much any mor but it's my favorite when need a replacement for a radio station, when I don't feel like picking the music and sound isn't a concern.

My friend has Roon and it seems to do a good job of keeping the music flowing.

I've never had an issue determining what music I like all by myself. Never ask for or have received suggestions from any site.

Originally Posted by still-one

I've never had an issue determining what music I like all by myself. Never ask for or have received suggestions from any site.

I love Tidal's "suggested new albums" that finally was implemented like Spotify and others have had for a long time. Check it out, Jim.

Originally Posted by still-one

I've never had an issue determining what music I like all by myself. Never ask for or have received suggestions from any site.

I prefer Pandora for exploration and I feel like it exposes me to much more than Tidal. Sometimes I don't want to choose and just let a station play when I'm outside with the kids and usually hear a few new songs old and new. On Tidal, I really only play my playlists.

Dave

Not to get too far astray, but my favorite source of new music is FM (remember that) djs. I have three or four that I listen to every week and they constantly amaze me. Think of that - a human being!! I’ll admit to it being a declining medium with fewer choices nowadays and lower fidelity than all of these other nuclear armed units, but it sure is nice to kind of develop a relationship with a dj and then have them amaze you, practically every time.

AFTOTP (apologies for the off topic post).


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I sold my tuner probably 25 years ago and never missed it. DJ's do not pick the music any more, a station's variety is extremely limited and repetitive, SQ is horrible. You'd think with a shrinking audience radio would be willing to attempt to correct some of that. With storage so cheap, why not play CD quality? With decades of music, why play only a hand full of songs?

Radio is so stupid, along comes HD radio, so what do most do, create a clone of the first one opposed to playing anything different. I mean it's not simulcast but same genre and tired attempt at entertainment.

Originally Posted by Hounddog

Not to get too far astray, but my favorite source of new music is FM (remember that) djs. I have three or four that I listen to every week and they constantly amaze me. Think of that - a human being!! I’ll admit to it being a declining medium with fewer choices nowadays and lower fidelity than all of these other nuclear armed units, but it sure is nice to kind of develop a relationship with a dj and then have them amaze you, practically every time.

AFTOTP (apologies for the off topic post).


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Respectfully, there are still stations where DJs pick the music, spin vinyl and care about sound quality. Not nearly as many as there used to be and not in every town but plenty close enough to me to make it worth my while. I find it qualitatively a better experience from a content perspective and the SQ is much better than I’ve found via radio over the internet. Not nearly as many good stations worth listening to these days though.

As they say, to each their own - not trying to stir anything up.


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I grew up with radio and used to enjoy visiting other areas to hear what their stations are like. I have no ax to grind with anyone still listening, I am frustrated with that industry. Now that large corporations own stations all over the country things are even worse, all markets are similar.

With all I've said in my posts, there are a few stations in the area, like community radio or college where you can hear something different.

I actually lived in Atlanta for a couple years. I forgot most of the stations. I listened to radio and scanned the band while riding the 86 back & forth from home to work. I remember 99x, there was a Classic Rock stations close to 95. Things have probably changed a lot since I was there.

Originally Posted by Hounddog

Respectfully, there are still stations where DJs pick the music, spin vinyl and care about sound quality. Not nearly as many as there used to be and not in every town but plenty close enough to me to make it worth my while. I find it qualitatively a better experience from a content perspective and the SQ is much better than I’ve found via radio over the internet. Not nearly as many good stations worth listening to these days though.

As they say, to each their own - not trying to stir anything up.


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Originally Posted by nicoff

Actually, Roon can do FM radio too (no Tidal needed). Roon has a tag for Internet Radio. All you need is the link to it.

That is right and I do use it. But honestly as much as I love Roon this is the clumsy part. You first need to copy a code and than you need to find the logo of the internet station, size it and paste it in.
Really this party is so un-Roon! The should integrate Tune-in or develop a similar thing.

The underground/college type broadcast stations are the real gems IF you live close enough to be able to receive them.
The big corporate FM commercial stations? Not-so-much.

Agreed. I have two community stations and three college stations close to me with great signals. I don’t even listen to the commercial stations anymore, for the reasons cited above. Sure do wish the entire dial offered good stuff, but alas no. Johnny Fever’s fears appear to have been well founded after all (if you were a fan of WKRP in Cincinnati).


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I love WKRP, I wanted to buy the box set but was turned off when they stripped all the music out and replaced it with generic. If no other editing, some of the sceens wouldn't make sense anymore, the dialog was related.

Originally Posted by Hounddog

Agreed. I have two community stations and three college stations close to me with great signals. I don’t even listen to the commercial stations anymore, for the reasons cited above. Sure do wish the entire dial offered good stuff, but alas no. Johnny Fever’s fears appear to have been well founded after all (if you were a fan of WKRP in Cincinnati).


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I have the box set - love it.


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Originally Posted by nicoff

...MQA will continue regardless of Tidal’s future.

I certainly hope you are right!

Does anyone here know what other streaming service provides MQA content?

I believe that Qobuz is on record stating that they plan to stream Hi Rez content but I'm not sure if they plan on incorporating MQA.

Originally Posted by Odyssey

I certainly hope you are right!

Does anyone here know what other streaming service provides MQA content?

I believe that Qobuz is on record stating that they plan to stream Hi Rez content but I'm not sure if they plan on incorporating MQA.

Deezer

Never tried it

I don't know how much "main stream" music you listen to these days, if like me, probably not much. Lyrics has been a race to the bottom and now it's like a song has to have a F-bomb to be legit. Even some of the more Folk type Rock has F-bombs, I just don't get it. As you noted, a lot of it is just gutter talk.

Originally Posted by tdimler

Read the lyrics here. https://genius.com/The-carters-nice-lyrics

These are the people at the helm and we wonder why there are problems? Hard to believe the depths to which our culture has sunk when something so vulgar passes for mainstream music/art, and more, that Gizmodo can't even write an article without being vulgar. I hope they go down in flames.

Too bad though, as Tidal has been a huge boon to me for exploring new music. I have shared the opinion of others, assuming someone else will step in when Tidal goes down the toilet, but after reading that Spotify has 70 million paid subscribers and hasn't been able to generate a profit in 10 years, I'm not so sure.

Another thing that I don't see talked about much is what happens to MQA when Tidal tanks? Imagine some audio manufacturers have to be pretty puckered up about this after schlepping MQA......

Originally Posted by Mr Peabody

I don't know how much "main stream" music you listen to these days, if like me, probably not much. Lyrics has been a race to the bottom and now it's like a song has to have a F-bomb to be legit. Even some of the more Folk type Rock has F-bombs, I just don't get it. As you noted, a lot of it is just gutter talk.

So true, you nailed it.

A couple of articles to ponder:

https://thevinylfactory.com/features...-modern-music/

https://usat.ly/2z7LqBt


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