Does Roon play Tidal in the same quality as the Tidal player itself?

Does a Tidal track played through Roon have the same sonic quality as when streamed thru the Tidal player itself (using Tidal Hifi streaming, it’s best, lossless streaming method)?
For some reason, playing thru Roon sounds less clear, a little inferior, and that is the main reason I use Tidal.
Should I be doing something in the Audio Settings?
Can the Tidal streaming method be controlled via Roon?
Is Roon doing some sort of processing that I don’t like?
Is there someway to see (in Roon) what level of streaming in being used when a Tidal track is played?
Thanks.

Yes it does, except The TIDAL player app does not support bit-perfect modes to your audio outputs. Are you using bit-perfect modes (exclusive mode) in Roon? That could explain the difference.

If you click the little light next to the now playing track title in the footer of the app, you will see exactly what is being played and how.

if you are seeing TIDAL tracks that are not lossless in Roon, then there are 2 possibilities:

  1. the TIDAL account is not a tidal hifi account, but only the $10/mo lossy account
  2. TIDAL is returning us a lossy stream even though we asked for lossless – sometimes the labels give them lossy data, and they are working on fixing those

Hi Danny,

Does that mean that I should NOT use Exclusive Mode when streaming Tidal, to achieve best sound quality?

If you want zero modification to the sound, run Exclusive mode. If you are want your system volume mixer to work or have any SQ enhancing add-ons installed, then you can not run Exclusive mode.

Exclusive mode just a direct pipe between Roon and the DAC, no modifications.

2 Likes

I raised an eyebrow at “danny’s” remark that Tidal sometimes doesn’t get lossless files from the label but rather lossy.

That would explain my assuption that Tidal Lossless files are not true 16bit CD quality FLAC rips but rather more likely converted from MP3 to FLAC and therefore lossy. That would explain why Tidal Hifi doesn’t sound much “better” diferent rather than 320kb quality stream (HIgh qaulity). I even noticed often Deezer having better SQ on 320kb than TIdal.

The ultimate test was comparing TIdal hifi stream to original CD playback on same CD/DAC device. No contest. CD trumps Tidal every time.

Should that be tha case it is clear why Tidal is not having much success with marketing the streaming service. SQ is rather bad comapred to own CD ripp + Audirvana Plus on MAC & DAC.

If there is no lossless version (it seems some albums just don’t have it, e.g. Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms) Roon will show it as Tidal AAC.
I think it’s premature to conclude Tidal is faking lossless deliberately, maybe some kind of equalizing like some say Spotify is doing as well? Or maybe Deezer is the one with equalizing and Tidal is just right? Who knows…

I am able to make my remarks because I have access to the original files from TIDAL, and can see what they get from the labels.

The labels do indeed give them lossy content at times, and they always have a list of upgrades required. I see when the labels deliver the lossless files, and then they go through TIDAL’s processing. There is no funny business here.

I’ve seen no indication this is true at all. In fact, I can easily hear the difference on many albums I know very well, and hear no difference between the TIDAL and my personal rips of those albums.

Our auditory testing is subjective at best (yours and mine), and you have my nothing but my word to trust that we see no funny business in the backend. Unfortunately, it’s about as good as you can do without violating the terms and conditions of TIDAL (stealing their content and then comparing using real analysis) – and no other service is going to give you better information or conditions. I’m your “inside man” :slight_smile:

Danny - agreed and therefore the integration between and TIDAL and Roon makes my TIDAL subscription even more compelling. Hence I can justify the TIDAL subscription easily. However I think when some of us use hardware and compare sound between a CD player (Musical Fidelity/ Arcam) and DAC (Musical Fidelity/ Devialet) - sound differences can be attributed to the set up in home - I have noticed this playing a CD and streaming via TIDAL - I have put the sonic differences to my hardware configuration which is rendering sound rather than source.

1 Like

For what it’s worth, a friend and I compared Tidal via its own app, Tidal via Roon, IckStream, and USB Pro, and our own files, and couldn’t hear any differences except for Tidal via its own app, which didn’t sound as good as the other paths on either of our systems. Whether that’s because the Tidal app isn’t bit perfect (in our setups) or for some other reason, we have no clue.

And yes, I’ve seen lossy Tidal streams, too. But the RedBook ones are just that, as best as I can tell.

1 Like

This is correct. We would never ever convert lossy formats to FLAC. If you knew how much we went through to source the catalogue again as lossless you would know that we wouldn’t willingly contaminate. What happens in backend is that

  1. If you have a HiFi subscription, TIDAL is asked for maximum quality = FLAC 44.1/16 (today)
  2. If the label didn’t provide lossless, it does a backend fall-back to next level = AAC 320

We have a couple of occasions where labels have converted from MP3 to FLAC ahead of our ingestion and we have then mostly heard ourselves or been warned by users. 99% of the time it has been because of some dinner table-label without technical know-how that have read our ingestion guidelines and thought they had to deliver FLAC and have…uhm…shitty master vaults.

2 Likes

Not to spoil the party, but TIDAL on desktop also does Exclusive Mode. If you select output and hover over selected, you can se a little settings wheel icon.

1 Like

It’s really funny - playing the album “Mer de Noms” on Tidal was what brought me to this article. Guess I’ll have to find my CD and rip it to flac…

I have been using Roon for quite some time, with all my FLAC albums and TIDAL HIFI.
Recently, to my surprise, I found out that the same album sounded a lot worse on Tidal in comparison with my local FLAC album. I can see that Tidal is outputting 44-16 and roon shows bit-perfect in both the Tidal streams and my local 44-16 flacs.
As an example, I can pick R.E.M - Everybody hurts (from the album “In Time: The Best of R.E.M.”. In the first 10 seconds it is noticeable that the high-pitch beat (cymbal?) has not half of strenght and depth in Tidal than in my local 44-16 FLAC.
Is it possible that Tidal is upsampling 320kbps mp3 as 44-16?

It is just as possible that your CD is a different mastering than Tidal. Tidal uses the masters as presented by the labels which is most likely the lastest. However, that doesn’t mean it is the best. In fact, each CD release can be a different master. That is why some people hunt down specific CD releases.

Then again it could come down to hardware differences as well. Are you using the same DAC for both Tidal and CD?

3 Likes

More likely you might be hearing the side-effect of watermarking. I hear it on some Tidal tracks very clearly.

That could happen, since sometimes there’s no Red Book–quality FLAC available, just AAC, but it would show in your Roon signal path as not bit perfect. I streamed an album like this just a little while ago, and it showed as an orange dot rather than the purplish bit-perfect “star.”

I go with the “different master” theory.

there are no hardware differences. the same roon core and bridge. playing on the same DAC.
and I am always seeing the purple dot on roon

@Pedro_Soares,
I’ve merged your post and its replies into this exiting topic.

I also have similar finding in my system that streaming from Tidal does not sound as good as files from my own rip/music library. I had heard from a Rocky Mountain Music Fest seminar that one need to optimize their entire music network chains to eliminate network noise for Tidal to sounds it’s best. I haven’t jumped in that rabbit hole myself but it might be one of the causes.

That will be challenging, because most of your network chain for Tidal lies outside your house, maybe on other continents :slight_smile: