The Dark Side; Digital audio equipment recommendations and setup.

I’m Just Ken said:
Maybe I’ll try Tidal sometime down the line.
I did discover that there are tone controls within the BluOS app that allowed me to adjust the treble and bass so now it sounds more open. I only listened to a couple tracks last night and they sounded muddy.
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Anyone else thrilled to see Tidal moving away from MQA?

Joe Mac said:
Yeah the problem with Apple Music is that is lossless but damn AirPlay is an utter mess of a thing so you struggle get that out. It’s why down the line I’m tempted to just dump the whole idea of a streamer and might just hook my iPad to a DAC directly and get the full lossless. I didn’t like tidal app and felt there were more gaps in its catalogue that other services, Qobuz is brilliant but also doesn’t have a connect and isn’t great with CarPlay and Siri. Sigh.

As to your streamer. With a good enough external DAC there definitely could be but but you’ve bought well, the new node x has an improved DAC over the original and it might cost a few pennies to improve on it.
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Hemotep said:
Agree that there are far more gaps in the Tidal catalogue, which is annoying.
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I’m always curious about the specific gaps people run into. This question often helps give me new music to explore.
 
displayname said:
Anyone else thrilled to see Tidal moving away from MQA?



I’m always curious about the specific gaps people run into. This question often helps give me new music to explore.
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Yep I'm thrilled they bailed on MQA, but dang man they gotta fix that damn app. Thing absolutely SUCKS with an external DAC. If you aren't connected to the network it takes up to 2 minutes for the app to even open. If you pause a song longer than a few minutes the app freezes and crashes, if you listen through an entire album and the album finishes, the app freezes and crashes. Half the time you download an album for offline listening, it doesn't register as being downloaded to your library so you have to go find it again and hit the download button a second time THEN it appears. It's been like this for two years.
 
Mather said:
Yep I'm thrilled they bailed on MQA, but dang man they gotta fix that damn app. Thing absolutely SUCKS with an external DAC. If you aren't connected to the network it takes up to 2 minutes for the app to even open. If you pause a song longer than a few minutes the app freezes and crashes, if you listen through an entire album and the album finishes, the app freezes and crashes. Half the time you download an album for offline listening, it doesn't register as being downloaded to your library so you have to go find it again and hit the download button a second time THEN it appears. It's been like this for two years.
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Yeah I took a trial to see what tidal connect was like earlier in the year.

I didn’t hate the app to navigate around but the big gaps in the catalogue and the fact that tidal connect never gave me 24/192 once and was as glitchy as fuck made me give up.
 
Joe Mac said:
Yeah I took a trial to see what tidal connect was like earlier in the year.

I didn’t hate the app to navigate around but the big gaps in the catalogue and the fact that tidal connect never gave me 24/192 once and was as glitchy as fuck made me give up.
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I tried apple for a few months because of the classical app. I didn’t like the app enough to try to keep up with apple. Because I am thoroughly entrenched in Beezos tech and supposedly Amazon Music is native in Bluos, I’ve been giving it a try while I waited on the mdc2. Using the app to play over the puck is easy enough. Using the app to play music has been a bitch. So if it is as buggy in bluos, I may think about quboz. My wife really likes Spotify, so I guess I’m going to live in a two platform world. Which is fine because Spotify is just fine and convenient for background listening.

(The dac in the echo pick I am using sucks so no real comment on the quality of their hd yet.)

Actually, I’m three platform because I have NYA as well which is the only platform that seems better over my laptop at work, so I’m excited to see what happens in bluos which also lists it as supported.
 
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Lee Newman said:
I tried apple for a few months because of the classical app. I didn’t like the app enough to try to keep up with apple. Because I am thoroughly entrenched in Beezos tech and supposedly Amazon Music is native in Bluos, I’ve been giving it a try while I waited on the mdc2. Using the app to play over the puck is easy enough. Using the app to play music has been a bitch. So if it is as buggy in bluos, I may think about quboz. My wife really likes Spotify, so I guess I’m going to live in a two platform world. Which is fine because Spotify is just fine and conviene for background listening.

(The dac in the echo pick I am using sucks so no real comment on the quality of their hd yet.)

Actually, I’m three platform because I have NYA as well which is the only platform that seems better over my laptop at work, so I’m excited to see what happens in bluos which also lists it as supported.
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Well Qobuz doesn’t have a connect option so in its own app it’s AirPlay so it’s limited the same as Apple Music. What it does allow for is to let you log onto it inside the blueOS app and to search and play songs at full resolution that way. It does remove all the extra features of the app and how good it is depends massively on how user friendly the blueOS app is.

Qobuz are supposedly working on their own connect implementation but it isn’t their highest priority and the timescale keeps getting pushed. Then once it does come out there is always the lag before the various streamers update to enable it.
 
I really dislike the BloOS app. Pretty much use Roon or I listen to Apple Music direct from the app on my phone or laptop.

At this point I will probably drop Roon next year unless they can get Apple Music integrated.
 
I’m Just Ken said:
So I just paid $4 for 2 months of Tidal and I’m 2 songs in and Apple is sounding a bit more clear/open. My test tracks have been

Dance The Night(obvs)-Dua Lipa
Give It To Me Baby-Rick James

Also, is the squiggly line version of an album of greater or lesser quality vs the cd version?
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I don’t have any information for you but do have questions… are you using airplay and tidal connect? Pushing them through the node?
 
Lee Newman said:
I don’t have any information for you but do have questions… are you using airplay and tidal connect? Pushing them through the node?
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Yep. Thought I’d do some light comparison.
I figured out the squiggly line means master version of the album, so I’m going to take that as being better. So it could be the tracks I had already listened were of cd quality.
 
Joe Mac said:
Yeah it downsamples everything to 16/44.1 in a AAC container. The bastards.
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I have a hard time believing that Tidal wouldn't best that even at regular def.

I’m Just Ken said:
Yep. Thought I’d do some light comparison.
I figured out the squiggly line means master version of the album, so I’m going to take that as being better. So it could be the tracks I had already listened were of cd quality.
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Are you using the bluos app or just streaming from your phone to the bluetooth?
 
Lee Newman said:
I have a hard time believing that Tidal wouldn't best that even at regular def.


Are you using the bluos app or just streaming from your phone to the bluetooth?
Click to expand...

I mean regular def tidal would be 16/44.1 all the same? Just a different method of getting the file to the streamer.

I also hated the tidal app and it has the smallest hi res and overall library of the streaming services.

With Apple Music either one of those android streamers like the eversolo or an iPad/iPhone hooked into a DAC by usb seems the best way then you can get the full 24/192 out of the system.
 
Joe Mac said:
I mean regular def tidal would be 16/44.1 all the same? Just a different method of getting the file to the streamer.

I also hated the tidal app and it has the smallest hi res and overall library of the streaming services.

With Apple Music either one of those android streamers like the eversolo or an iPad/iPhone hooked into a DAC by usb seems the best way then you can get the full 24/192 out of the system.
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I don't know, even before the MQA, they were supposed to have the highest def... I ain't going tidal. I dislike the interface, their algorithm is the pits/non-existent, and it's kind of pricey. Although if I dislike the Amazon interface, I guess I will be shooting over it's price.

I really don't want to buy something else to make it work with my phone and cost me more money to stream... lol. I'll try everything else before I go that route.
 
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