Tidal loudness normalization


I am listening back and forth this morning between streaming via Tidal and cd playback.  One thing I keyed on was the Tidal stream lacked dynamic contrast compared to cd.

 I did a little search to find out if Tidal is messing with things.  I find the answer is “yes they are”.  There is a feature called “loudness normalization “ in your Tidal app that is automatically engaged unless you turn it off.  Check your settings.  

To do so in your Tidal app, click the heart shaped “my collection “ @ bottom right, then click the gear wheel top right.  You will then see the screen and button to disable/enable loudness normalization.

Let’s see who likes one vs the other.
rhljazz
I'm not sure this is such a bad thing that Tidal started doing this last year.  This gives Tidal listeners a better listening experience via streaming by applying their "album normalization" thereby helping to quash the Loudness Wars that historically have occurred during mastering. I feel this benefit outweighs individual complaints incurred when toggling between system component sources; the streaming experience is better and I don't think we should expect Tidal to be focused on anything beyond that.  This is just my opinion, and like you say, there is a very easy disabling toggle in the app.
If properly implemented normalization will not diminish dynamics.  Normalization raises the loudest point in a recording to a predetermined level.  The peak loud to soft differential remains the same.  Google "Tidal loudness normalization".  There is extensive discussion of why it's implemented as it is.