![]() 320 kbit/s will be perfectly fine for your needs (and that of most other music fans). Let's be realistic: If you're mostly listening to contemporary music through $20 headphones or have your songs play in the background, save yourself the money. But once you've heard it, you'll be able to spot the loss in "lossy format" straight away. The strange thing is, as long as you're unaware of the difference, you'll hardly notice it. Still, in both cases the music sounds like an invisible veil has been lifted. As I am presently working from home, I only have a Teufel 5.1 surround and a Harman Kardon stereo system for tests at my disposal. John Williams' "Harry Potter" theme never sounded so crystal clear and detailed and the same goes for "Music for Airports" by Brian Eno or "The Very Best Of the Alan Parsons Project". And what can I say, the results are stunning. So can you hear the difference between lossy compression, as found with other services, and lossless formats? Absolutely! Tidal supports different quality settings: Normal, High (equates to 320 kbit/s) and HiFi/Master, and I couldn't wait to compare the latter two. Both formats are lossless and well-established in the hi-fi scene. iOS and macOS users receive files encoded as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec). On Windows, Android and Linux, the service relies on the popular Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC). Let's get to the heart of Tidal now: hi-fi audio quality. If you're used to carrying around 100 albums on your cellphone, you may quickly hit the storage limit of your device. Sure, you can download your songs beforehand over WiFi but even then you'll notice the size difference. In contrast, the same song encoded as AAC at 320 kbit/s (the highest setting with most services) takes up roughly a quarter of that size, an eighth at "YouTube" quality. That's because hi-fi-quality tracks take up considerable space! Four minutes of play time amount to roughly 40 MB! So you'd better have a decent cellphone carrier and plan or run for the next WiFi hotspot whenever you're downloading. Maybe it's their attempt at compensating for the slow death of music-based TV.ĭownloading songs on the go with Tidal is a bit of an adventure. And Tidal adds an additional 240,000 music videos that may appeal to a younger audience. As far as numbers go, I didn't really notice the 10 million additional songs compared to Spotify. From Icelandic artists, like Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Mongolic rock bands, like Yat-Kha, to modern classics, like Arvo Pärt, they're all there–including the big names, of course. Even my beloved indie bands and other exotic or long forgotten songs are covered. Over 60 million titles make sure you'll never miss a beat–compare that to Spotify's already extensive library of "just" 50 million. The song and audio book collection itself is vast. Creating playlists is fast, users are even presented with a personal mix, based on previously played songs and augmented with similar fitting titles. And with autoplay enabled, the app will competently provide the background music for your day. Once you've played a song, you're usually presented with meaningful recommendations to continue your musical journey. It clearly shows that a sizable and knowledgeable team of curators is working behind the scenes. Their interface is now teeming with playlists, suggestions, charts, genres and new titles. While Tidal initially met with heavy criticism, the bottom line being that they "only" offer music, the company has been making significant improvements ever since. It's actually fun to click through the various menus and discover the available options. ![]() If touch-based controls are not your forté, you can always go back to point-and-click on your PC–and enjoy an even more organized user interface. ![]() Readability is okay, even in direct sunlight. It's fairly dark but makes good use of contrasts and intuitively guides you to your desired features. If you've ever used the app of the Swedish market leader before, you'll instantly find your way around Tidal's player. Small wonder, since Tidal's taken one, or rather two, pages out of Spotify's book. The Windows app looks rather nice but, naturally, browser-based music playback is also supported. This is a streaming service, so an internet connection is an essential requirement–along with either a PC (Windows or MAC), a cellphone (Android 4 / iOS 8 or higher) or any internet-capable media player. Enter Tidal, a lesser known rival that seeks to score with hi fi quality. What he meant is that most services only support lossy audio formats, like AAC, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis, which, although they sound great, don't offer the full lossless audio experience. He criticized the sound quality in several of his interviews. Naturally, he also has an opinion on streaming offers–most of them are not his thing. Neil Young not only looks a little grumpy in his old years but is also known for being a straight shooter. ![]()
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