Is Tidal already washed up?

[Phil O'Keefe]

I just put up a new article about the troubles at Tidal. If you'd like to check it out, here's the link. If you've read it and would like to discuss it, this is the place to do so.

[nat whilk II]

320kbs is good enough for most of the listening I do outside of actually mixing in my little studio. I pay Google about $10 per month for their streaming which ostensibly provides that level of quality.

 

So even 'tho I pay above that $5 per month benchmark, I don't think I'd spring for $20 per month for FLAC or lossless unless the content was uber-compelling. If Tidal provided a fabulous classical bunch of content, that might tempt me. But not "Bitch Better Have My Money".

 

nat whilk ii

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

That's just it - very few people can hear the difference under the typical listening conditions, and the price is way more than research suggests most people are willing to pay... and the content, and quality are really no better than what other services such as Google Play and Spotify offer - in fact, I like many aspects of Spotify much better, from the user interface to the better availability of playlists created by other users in the genres that I'm most interested in. And even the "moral" position pertaining to them paying musicians better is hard to support as long as there's no specifics available to the general public about how their accounting and payouts work. Where's the transparency?

[blue2blue]

I was initially excited when I heard that Tidal was entering the US market, just as I had been when I heard that Deezer was going to be bringing lossless to the US (so far, I believe theirs is tied to some stream-box products -- that have questionable fidelity, anyhow). And I was intrigued -- but not necessarily overoptimistic when we heard Jay-Z was buying it.

 

But, yeah, their roll-out? An utter, complete, historic, will-be-studied-for-years-in-B-school trainwreck.

 

While I might be tempted to spend up for something like Tidal -- if I could be convinced I wouldn't be trading off ease/pleasure of use for an at best extremely subtle fidelity increase that perceptual testing indicates virtually no one can reliably differentiate -- I'm pretty sure most folks would not.

 

Maybe if it came with co-branded, glow in the dark headphones so you could impress people at the mall that you were spending up.

 

With regard to 24 bit sound, of course, it makes perfect sense in the production phase. But nothing I've seen or read or experienced -- including the extreme dynamic range of over 160 live symphonic concerts -- has convinced me that properly mastered material in any genre needs more dynamic range than that afforded by the familiar 16 bit distribution format. Does it take more to capture the maximum dynamic range of an orchestra fully? Yes. Is that something we want to do? I don't actually think so. This article at Xiph.org does a good job of exploring many of the issues, both technical and perceptual; see the section 16 bit vs 24 bit: http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

[Phil O'Keefe]

Sorry Blue, I got two paragraphs into the article you linked to, and found a rather glaring inaccuracy:

 

"Unfortunately, there is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. Its playback fidelity is slightly inferior to 16/44.1 or 16/48, and it takes up 6 times the space." (Emphasis added by me.)

 

Yes, it takes more storage space (and more bandwidth to stream, as I mentioned in my article) but I strongly disagree that 24 bit audio fidelity is inferior to 16 bit. We can discuss whether high sample rates make an audible difference or not, and open up the can of worms regarding oversampling, good Nyquest filtering vs bad, and the influence of ultrasonic harmonics on the audible frequency spectrum, but in a quiet environment and on a good playback system, many people have no trouble reliably and consistently distinguishing the improved fidelity that 24 bit / 44.1kHz offers over 16 bit / 44.1kHz in controlled, double-blind listening tests. A nice long reverb tail played back at 24 bit and then 16 bit will easily tell that tale. Whether or not it would be audible out and about when listening on earbuds is a entirely different story though, and a point I'm fully willing to concede.

 

One reason I'm more interested in having 24 bit streaming than most people is because I spend so much of my time in a studio control room doing critical listening, with multi-thousand dollar ADAM monitors sitting in front of me, not out walking around the noisy city streets with a pair of cheap earbuds crammed into my ear canals. I can definitely hear a difference when I play back my 24 bit / 44.1 kHz mixes vs the 16 bit / 44.1kHz versions, and for years I've lamented the fact that people don't quite get that same degree of fidelity that we do in the studio when they listen to the final 16 bit releases... but that certainly doesn't change the fact that for the vast majority of listeners in the most common listening environments / situations, 320 kpbs MP3's are more than adequate, and far more space / bandwidth efficient.

[nice keetee]

I prefer 24 bit my own recordings. I don't do much streaming, I'd imagine my router is old and sub par...

[gubu]

Great article Phil.

 

Agree 100% about 24bit streaming being currently impractical due to bandwidth limitations. Having said that, most streaming services sound just fine. Spotify actually sounds remarkably good for what it is - yes, it has some bandwidth and dynamic range limitations, but on balance, it's definitely not any worse than listening on the type of cassettes that everybody used to listen to in the pre-cd era.

 

Now, if we could only convince the consumer audio manufacturers to spend less time developing flashing light displays, and super-conical speaker drivers, and more time developing clean, open sounding signal paths, and properly balanced, full range speaker systems, the kids might have a chance of hearing something like the kind of audio quality that everyone took for granted 30 years ago.

[MikeRivers]

Sorry Blue, I got two paragraphs into the article you linked to, and found a rather glaring inaccuracy:

 

"Unfortunately, there is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. Its playback fidelity is slightly inferior to 16/44.1 or 16/48, and it takes up 6 times the space." (Emphasis added by me.)

 

Yes, it takes more storage space (and more bandwidth to stream, as I mentioned in my article) but I strongly disagree that 24 bit audio fidelity is inferior to 16 bit.

 

I didn't read the article, but I don't feel that strongly about it. I do believe that with a few exceptions, 192 kHz sample rate doesn't work well enough to sound better than standard sample rates.

 

When making original recordings, there are good reasons to use 24-bit word length. Same for when editing and processing them. But when it comes to a delivery format, particularly for the type of music (and its brutal production) that is consumed by most buyers, there's not enough dynamic range to justify the longer word length. While it's possible to devise a demonstration that would show the average listener a case where a 24-bit recording sounds better than a 16-bit recording, take any 24-bit deliverable master of a pop tune (if you can find one), convert it to 16-bit, and I'll bet you won't find a statistically valid number of listeners who can tell which one sounds better.

 

Articles that can be easily accessed by "the common folk" aren't mant to be picked apart by those of us who understand the science and technonogy. If you take the word length out of the statement, I'd agree that with some playback systems, 192 kHz sample rate is no better than 44.1 kHz and may even be worse.

 

Unfortunately, many people who write pop articles consider "16/44" to be one thing, when it's really two things. They won't publish a retraction if you correct them.

 

 

 

[blue2blue]

Sorry Blue, I got two paragraphs into the article you linked to, and found a rather glaring inaccuracy:

 

"Unfortunately, there is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. Its playback fidelity is slightly inferior to 16/44.1 or 16/48, and it takes up 6 times the space." (Emphasis added by me.)

 

Yes, it takes more storage space (and more bandwidth to stream, as I mentioned in my article) but I strongly disagree that 24 bit audio fidelity is inferior to 16 bit. We can discuss whether high sample rates make an audible difference or not, and open up the can of worms regarding oversampling, good Nyquest filtering vs bad, and the influence of ultrasonic harmonics on the audible frequency spectrum, but in a quiet environment and on a good playback system, many people have no trouble reliably and consistently distinguishing the improved fidelity that 24 bit / 44.1kHz offers over 16 bit / 44.1kHz in controlled, double-blind listening tests. A nice long reverb tail played back at 24 bit and then 16 bit will easily tell that tale. Whether or not it would be audible out and about when listening on earbuds is a entirely different story though, and a point I'm fully willing to concede.

 

One reason I'm more interested in having 24 bit streaming than most people is because I spend so much of my time in a studio control room doing critical listening, with multi-thousand dollar ADAM monitors sitting in front of me, not out walking around the noisy city streets with a pair of cheap earbuds crammed into my ear canals. I can definitely hear a difference when I play back my 24 bit / 44.1 kHz mixes vs the 16 bit / 44.1kHz versions, and for years I've lamented the fact that people don't quite get that same degree of fidelity that we do in the studio when they listen to the final 16 bit releases... but that certainly doesn't change the fact that for the vast majority of listeners in the most common listening environments / situations, 320 kpbs MP3's are more than adequate, and far more space / bandwidth efficient.

 

There's solid scientific info there. If you're not familiar with Xiph.org, they're the people responsible for creating Vorbis and for maintaining FLAC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiph.Org_Foundation

 

I think I would have probably given a little more qualification to the statement in question (bolded section above). Maybe adding something like, in the real world... To be sure, in a perfect world, with all systems running with perfect linearity and all sample measurements accurate, a quad sample rate should be indistinguishable from a standard rate in most circumstances. (For humans. For bats and cats, the quad rate would presumably be more appropriate. )

 

There are two issues:

 

While the article doesn't go into one aspect, historically, the problems with 192 kHz sample rate have been discussed by a number of people -- including top converter design legend Dan Lavry. One primary problem is that sample measurement is an iterative process -- the incoming value is compared to a range of known voltage values in the amount of time allotted. If the amount of time is insufficient, accuracy of measure goes down. What's the value of taking double or quadruple the necessary number of samples if the accuracy is negatively impacted? Lavry and others insist that since a bandwidth of not much more than 20 kHz is desired, the amount of time devoted to measurement should be optimized for accuracy of dynamic measure. These concerns have eased as processing power has gone up (even as concerns about anti-alias filtration eased with the advent and perfection of multi-bit oversampling) but the principle remains that trying to capture much higher frequencies than necessary for human perception invites more problems.

 

The Optimal Sample Rate for Quality Audio

By Dan Lavry, Lavry Engineering Inc. May 3, 2012

 

 

With regard to other issues with quad rate sampling, in the section 192kHz considered harmful​ of the Xiph whitepaper, the article discusses the still quite relevant potential problems with intermodulation-caused distortion in the audible range resulting from nonlinear performance of speakers and and amplifiers when dealing with normally inaudible HF signal and goes into detailed explorations of some myths about sample rate and accuracy of capture of audible signal. Including frequencies above the range of human hearing does nothing for perception, yet opens up the potential for audibly harmful intermodulation distortion in the audible range. They have some test files so one can test his own PB system for such nonlinear performance-caused IMD. Additionally, as noted above, concerns with antialias filter band effectiveness that had prompted an early push to higher sample rates have been largely set aside by the advent of multi-bit oversampling.

 

 

And, finally, for those who don't understand some of the contentions in the Xiph whitepaper or who disagree with them, here is an in-depth video explainer of digital audio sampling that explores those facets both in (rough) theory but also demonstrates the practical realities with real world test equipment -- much of it analog, for those who insist you can't 'measure' the purported problems with digital using digital test gear. It covers some pretty tweaky bits -- but it's laid out logically and demonstrates its points clearly and is easy to follow.

 

http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

 

 

Glad we agree on the perceptibility of 16 bit vs 24 bit at normal listening levels. Of course it's relatively easy to perceive the difference by focusing on the tail end of 16 bit vs 24 bit fade-outs. No one is saying there is not a difference. What they are saying is that one is not going to hear that difference in normal listening conditions.

 

As you probably know, the AES-published Meyer-Moran engineering report, Audibility of a CD-Standard A/DA/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback [JAES Volume 55 Issue 9 pp. 775-779; September 2007] offers extremely strong perceptual testing evidence of same.

 

I will certainly stipulate that an orchestra is capable of producing a wider dynamic range than the ~90 dB offered by 16 bit -- but it does not appear that the human ear actually has the capability of perceiving its full range simultaneously, rather adjusting from soft to loud, a 'sliding window' of perceptual ability.

 

But -- on an aesthetic and practical level -- having seen well over 170 live, unamplified orchestral performances myself -- I'm not in the slightest convinced that we need -- or want -- that kind of exaggerated dynamic range in our playback systems. [EDIT: perhaps I should say I'm not sure how often we really want to indulge extra wide dynamic ranges, even if we have them.] For one thing, it can be extremely painful to go from very quiet to very loud -- within the last several years I saw a cello concerto that featured an extended 'duet' between solo cello and full-strike concert bass drum. It was excruciating -- the ear adjusts down to the cello and then is sporadically assaulted with full volume bass drum. That's dynamic range with a real vengeance. Would we need greater than CD dynamic bandwidth to accurately capture the signal? Yes. We would and that's one reason we use 24 bit in production. But do we want to try to have that sort of brutal dynamic range in our properly prepared, mastered final product playback? I honestly don't think so.

 

[Anderton]

I think the real issue is pretty much what Phil nailed - people won't want to pay more for Tidal.

[blue2blue]

It's about four times what most folks spend on music a month.

 

And, as far as I can tell, most folks seem to use streaming via their phones. A lot of people don't even have their desktops hooked up to decent playback, using throwaway desktop speakers.

 

And many of those that do have streaming capability to their home entertainment system have it via stream boxes. I haven't seen any 'audiophile reviews' of such devices -- but I'm definitely leaning to the notion that they have the same tinky converters and audio circuits as most cheap consumer devices.

 

The gap between Apple Music's 256 kbps streams and the 320 kbps streams on Spotify, Google, Rhapsody, et al, would probably be tough to differentiate over such devices -- let alone the seemingly much narrower perceptual gap between the industry norm 320 kbps and Tidal's full lossless files.

 

 

This all will change as streaming ingratiates itself into lifestyles.

 

I remember being skeptical myself eleven years ago when stream subscriptions first started being offered. Why would I want to rent my music? Turns out about a couple hundred reasons. I've only become more committed to the notion over the last decade. But the big jump was getting turned on to MOG and their 320 kbps streams. For me, that put it on the map -- and seemed to indicate it was only a matter of time before FLAC might become the norm.

 

That said, it obviously is going to need a) for streaming to be more established in consumer habits and consumers to accommodate those changes in lifestyle in their hardware (ie, hooking up their main stereo/entertainment center to a stream source and b) a more strategically launched marketing effort. A lot more strategically launched.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[blue2blue]

Sorry Blue [...].

Kind of sorry I got distracted by the other issue, because what I really wanted to ask about was Tidal's ease of use, search engine, playlist, and especially queue management. Have you used other services much? How does it compare in your experience?

 

I'll take your answer off the air.

 

 

[philboking]

OK, so I just spent 25 minutes composing a carefully thought out commentary on this. When I hit submit, I found HC had auto-logged-out me and asked for my username/password. After entering it, my text had all vanished. Might this, do you suppose, be a cause of the problem of having so few replies on this board? I suspect it is a factor...

[blue2blue]

I feel your pain, philboking. Few things make me as utterly, through-the-roof, steam-out-the-ears crazy as having carefully crafted some thoughtful mini-essay and then having it eaten by some balky user interface or web service.

 

I've actually been in the habit of quickly ctrl-C copying the body of genius scribbles and pasting them into a text editor for safe-keeping at times -- and it has, indeed, saved me some frustration over the years, but it's a bit of a PITA; I usually save it for problem sites.

 

I'm lucky in that I don't seem to get logged out here in the middle of sessions much but I do seem to get logged out sporadically while I'm safely away.

 

I know they've been working hard to get these lingering problems sorted now that HC has parted ways with GC but I know that's not much compensation when you see a half hours' careful work disappear in a flash.

[Anderton]

I've had that happen a few times and there is a solution but I can't remember what it was...maybe hitting the back button on the browser or something...or maybe it was hitting ctrl-C before posting.

 

For anyone reading this, Chris and Jeremy from Nucleus are going through the "punch list" of fixes. Traffic has increased 4% per month since the acquisition so the downward death spiral has stopped, but as you all know, there are fixes that need to be done - it would be nice if Europeans could post

 

Someone asked why we don't do an "HC is Back!" marketing campaign. I don't feel the time is right yet. A marketing campaign called "HC has Regained Consciousness!" isn't quite as compelling But we'll get there.

[blue2blue]

[Anderton]

Yeah, that just about sums it up...

[Phil O'Keefe]

Kind of sorry I got distracted by the other issue, because what I really wanted to ask about was Tidal's ease of use, search engine, playlist, and especially queue management. Have you used other services much? How does it compare in your experience?

 

I'll take your answer off the air.

 

 

I have been a longtime Spotify subscriber, and I have subscribed to Tidal for a few months now. I've wanted to see Tidal do well, but it's been really hard to continue to justify the amount of money I'm paying for it... OTOH, I still feel Spotify is worth the money, and I'll definitely continue to subscribe to that. Tidal? I'm not sure I'll want to continue to pay for that in the long run. The UI isn't as good IMHO, and there isn't nearly as much user-generated content in terms of play lists and so forth... at least not for the genres that I am most interested in. I just don't see where it's offering me anything significantly better vs Spotify that justifies the price.

 

[blue2blue]

Yeah' date=' that just about sums it up...[/quote']

 

I wanted something that communicated what I like to call grim optimisim.

[blue2blue]

 

I have been a longtime Spotify subscriber, and I have subscribed to Tidal for a few months now. I've wanted to see Tidal do well, but it's been really hard to continue to justify the amount of money I'm paying for it... OTOH, I still feel Spotify is worth the money, and I'll definitely continue to subscribe to that. Tidal? I'm not sure I'll want to continue to pay for that in the long run. The UI isn't as good IMHO, and there isn't nearly as much user-generated content in terms of play lists and so forth... at least not for the genres that I am most interested in. I just don't see where it's offering me anything significantly better vs Spotify that justifies the price.

 

Got it! That is pretty suggestive to me. There are some things I like about Spotify (I did a 3 month trial subscription last year just so I'd be well-versed) -- but I feel like the UI is kind of awkward (and the queue a bit wacky).

 

But then, I've been on 7 services -- and they all had their quirks and hangups, to be sure.

 

Still, I've found the latest version of Google's service to be the best fit for me -- by a ways. One thing, it's got a lot of ways of doing things, and, while that might prove confusing, it also grants flexibility. I've also been able to customize it somewhat because it's browser-based, creating a Stylebot 're-skin' that changes up some colors and widens the new pop up queue window [which was so narrow that it frequently truncated (long) track listings of classical recordings -- chopping off movement numbers and the like]. (The reskin, Gray Flannel Cool, is freely available; requires the free Stylebot Chrome browser plugin.)

 

 

 

[Nijyo]

I've had that happen a few times and there is a solution but I can't remember what it was...maybe hitting the back button on the browser or something...or maybe it was hitting ctrl-C before posting.

 

For anyone reading this, Chris and Jeremy from Nucleus are going through the "punch list" of fixes. Traffic has increased 4% per month since the acquisition so the downward death spiral has stopped, but as you all know, there are fixes that need to be done - it would be nice if Europeans could post

 

Someone asked why we don't do an "HC is Back!" marketing campaign. I don't feel the time is right yet. A marketing campaign called "HC has Regained Consciousness!" isn't quite as compelling But we'll get there.

 

Though a marketing campaign of "HC has Acquired Sentience!" would dovetail nicely with the Terminator movie release

[Anderton]

And in the Articles section, we could start a campaign called "HC Has Acquired Sentences!" Hmm...maybe not. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, know what I mean?

 

Or maybe it's more like "HC Has Served Its Sentence" and is now a member of society again

 

 

[Anderton]

Seems like Tidal is also concerned about pricing...

 

Global music and entertainment platform TIDAL announced the availability of "Family Plan" pricing for TIDAL members

 

The new price offering enables consumers to receive a discount of 50% on any additional accounts registered under the same primary paying user for both the Premium ($9.99 USD per month) and HiFi streaming option ($19.99 USD per month). The primary paying user can add up to four additional accounts under their subscription plan, making it easier than ever before for families to enjoy TIDAL at home and across mobile devices.

 

Each additional account will be managed under the primary or parent account user. Each account holder in TIDAL family plans maintains their own login and can customize music playlists, settings and content like any other subscriber. The family pricing is available to anyone that adds between one and four additional accounts to their subscription and payment for those accounts is made by the primary user. Each account user can enjoy unlimited online streaming and register up to three devices for offline mode use.

 

TIDAL is adding this new price offering to provide existing subscribers with discounts to extend value to their family members. Families often rely on group plans for services and TIDAL wants their extensive music catalogue, content and membership benefits to be available to as many people as possible.

 

This plan will be available in all markets and more information about how to register can be found on http://www.tidal.com/family.

[elsongs]

Okay, who here has a Tidal account?

 

Anyone?

 

Hello?

[blue2blue]

Phil has one -- or had one as of a week or two ago.

 

__________________

 

 

 

The pricing thing is interesting. They're clearly concerned about their long throw position from 'competitive' pricing. (It really has to be understood in the context of their b/w costs, which are considerably higher than the others -- 320 kbps vs 750 to 900 kbps for Tidal Premium's Flac streams)

 

 

Could get pretty expensive being a Tidal family -- but Tidal, it seems to me, only is going to really shine on a good playback rig (if anyone can tell at all -- perceptual testing on the 'industry standard' 320 kbps [Apple's going to stick with 256 kbps, as on iTunes, apparently afraid of further undercutting their dino store] on hi fi playback strongly suggests few if any can reliably spot the diff even on top flight playback) -- but I strongly suspect few will be able to tell the diff via a phone and a pair of 'buds.