i used a program to see the differences between tidal and qobuz audio output… tidal is compressed. 100%.
Was this when Tidal used MQA? Not a surprise in this case
No that’s now using flac files. Flacs are OK, they’re high res and the same than qobuz most of the time, but they compress the sound somewhere during playback.
I used spectroid app and it very clearly show the more compressed sound. This was using the proprietary apps, not inside roon BTW.
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The Tidal app has volume leveling enabled by default, did you account for that?
Are you able to repeat this comparison but using Roon (this topic’s subject matter)?
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Yes of course. That was disabled. But that’s the experience everyone has with tidal app. Sound is loosey aka compressed.
Yes I can do that, will see if later today I can do the experiment with roon
There is no „of course“, we can only know what is explicitly said.
First time I read this
You need to visit qobuz reddit then
Spectroid uses the phone microphone. If playback is also on the Android device it will have been processed by Android before playback. IMO, not a reliable test.
You can use an external mic and stream through your pc and use your phone just to visualize the signal
You can do as many test you want with each app tidal and qobuz and you will get the exact same result every time,sbowing tidal has a compressed sound compared to qobuz.
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And there is of course… Anyone with half a brain would’ve disabled loudness normalization before doing the test lol
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Where I will see people discuss their hallucinations over differences between bit perfect files?
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Well, as you probably know many people in the audiophile hobby don’t apply any common sense to their „findings“
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Not convinced. I’ve run both services side-by-side, and never experienced this. Need facts and evidence to support your assertion, which is news to me, too.
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Do the test yourself even with your phones mic. Do 5 test for each app, same music passage I recommend deja vu track by csny 2021 remaster 24/192 res.it will show every single time the compression on tidal. That particular song makes it very noticeable even for the naked ear.
Qobuz
Tidal
Mic was same position, everything the same except the apps playing the music.
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Hi @TheGuy, was this comparison via Roon app or still using Qobuz and Tidal apps?
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Apps, haven’t done it inside roon
Ok thanks for the clarification… in which case I’m moving this discussion to its own topic in Audio Gear Talk > Music Services as it’s not related to Roon.
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I said I was going to check if there was any difference inside room later but it’s OK don’t worry