TIDAL Lossless Streaming Service


Has anyone else tried lossless streaming from Tidal? I've been a Spotify user for a while now. The catalog available is pretty stunning, and 320kbps is listenable, but I'm not satisfied with lossy material for serious listening.

Tidal launched a couple of weeks ago, streaming a lossless catalog in FLAC to a web-based player. They have a large catalog and the same kinds of curated playlists that Spotify offers.

I am clinging to my Squeezebox Touch until it dies, so I was not interested in a PC-based approach to stream the service. A user community, however, has created a SBT plugin called Ickstream that allows the Touch to play nicely with Tidal. It took me about an hour to get subscribed to Tidal (first seven days free) and get Ickstream implemented on my Touch.

Sound-wise, running into a PS Audio PWD II, Tidal is clearly more three-dimensional, tonally rich and satisfying than Spotify. Compared to FLAC rips from my hard-drive, however, it is lacking just a little bit of detail retrieval and seems a bit noisier in the spaces between the notes. The difference is small but definite.

So, I'm ditching Spotify in favor of Tidal. $20/mo is worth it to me to have damn-near best-available fidelity on damn-near every album I ever want to hear. And I can download unlimited mp3's to my phone for travel. Would love to hear your experiences.
cymbop
Evank...is Tidal an App on the Bluesound Node, or do you
have to do what us poor Squeezebox users have it and jury
rig it to make it work?

The Bluesound was the other unit I was looking at.

I should add that ickstream just released a new version
early this afternoon with a few "fixes" for initial problems
that were reported.

So far, I've played two complete albums with NO dropouts...a
first for me. So I am hoping that they got most of the bugs
worked out. Fingers crossed...
.
Tidal will be a boon to audiophiles. However, will the unwashed non-hifi masses pony up twenty bucks to listen to the radio? For ten bucks a month, Rhapsody and Pandora quality is more than good enough sound quality for most. I just don't see a guy with a Best Buy receiver-based system paying $20 per month. I can't see the earbud iPhone-iPod guy paying $20 per month.

The $20 question is, are there enough audiophiles for Tidal to survive?
.
Mitch...you're probably right. Hopefully Tidal will be just the shot in the arm that audiophiles need and will support.

Time, (and money) will tell.

I'm sure enjoying it now that everything is working like it should.