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TIDAL &/vs Amazon HD

TIDAL vs Amazon HD - I’d like some more experienced input (mostly on TIDAL), and offer some of my experience.

Quick relevant system summary: HEOS Link Station2, (Rega Apollo - Original), MIT AVt3 Coax, Marantz AV7702MKII, Audioquest "Water" (Balanced), SMC Audio "GOLD" DNA 0.5, MIT AVt2 (x2-(Bi-wire)), Vandersteen Quatro (original cloth).

Quick Summary: For a few short weeks, I have been listening to Amazon HD (14.99/mo), and I am in AWE, WOW’d, disbelief. It makes what I had been listening to not even worthy of mention (Apollo CD as a transport over MIT AVt3 Coax). However, the technical geek in me rather dislikes the separate HEOS LS2 and being piped in via the coax configuration (I am on the brink of upgrading to a Marantz unit that has HEOS built/baked in just for that reason).

Just yesterday (10/27/2020), I discovered "Roon" ($11.99/mo) believing it could/would manage my Amazon streaming, and pipe it directly through the Ethernet connection on the AV7702MKII and completely bypass the coax connected HEOS LS2 altogether . Upon installation and configuration of Roon, I was disappointed find out it only managed Qobuz and TIDAL ($19.99), and not Amazon HD.

I decided to test drive the Roon/TIDAL (call it $32/mo) combo to see how it performed compared to the Amazon HD ($14.99/mo) I have been listening to for a few weeks.

The difference was rather staggering. On my configuration, Amazon HD over a HEOS LS2 and MIT AVt3 Coax very (let me emphasize that "very") comfortably out performed TIDAL in either or both of a Roon Stream configuration or account/subscription brokered through the same HEOS LS2 combo.

I want to be impressed with TIDAL, but in/thru/with my configuration, when compared to Amazon HD, I am not, not close.

What can I (reasonably) do to prove to myself that TIDAL is better than I have gotten to this point?
kmckenn

Showing 1 response by wyoboy

wyoboy
233 posts
 
+1davehg on importance of setting up Roon correctly
+1rajivhifi on Roon + Tidal + Mytek for Tidal MQA.

IMO if you try Tidal you must also have Roon--the interface is much better than Tidal's and they integrate with each other very well;  that said, i have occasionally had issues with searching for music, especially classical--it's actually there but for some reason the interface doesn't always find it--seems to be the way you word your search--ie "close" is often not enough to capture it.  I  tried Amazon HD when it first came out but at that time its best resolution was no more than CD--16/44.1--good but not great like Tidal MQA and many hiccups with the interface.  I opted out at the end of the free trial so didn't wait out all the bug fixes.  Is it true that now it can stream at 24/192 ?  If so i may try it again.  My buddies are urging me to Quobuz as well, saying quality is better than Tidal MQA--not sure at that resolution that i could tell the difference...
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