Cancelled Tidal today too. I’ve been trying to like it because of the integration with Roon. Maybe part of the issue is that I ONLY want to access it from within Roon. If I’m looking for something specific it’s usually pretty good, although sometimes it fails miserably. Search for the track, “Blinded by the Light” if you want a laugh. It pulled 50 search entries but neither the hugely popular Manfred Mann’s Earth Band nor the original Springsteen version. Seriously, try it. The biggest issue I have (and one I’ve kept hoping will be fixed is the very heavy focus on Rap/Hip-hop and pop. What they need is a setup that allows you to check genres you are interested in seeing or not seeing and then use that filter across their different screens. The “What’s New” tab has no albums or playlists I’m interested in. The Tidal Rising tab has nothing. Playlists lists moods, which is fine, but no genres. You have to genres, then pick on, then go one by one to look at playlists and albums. How much nicer would it be to have the What’s New and Tidal Rising tabs be populated with all the genres’s I’m interested in? There is just too much music nowadays for this type of interface. I’m hoping that this eventually gets improved or that Roon gets a second choice, but at this time I feel like I’m wasting the $20 a month.
Hi Derek, maybe Deezer would be worth looking at. Tidal has working well for me, but I had good luck with Deezer as well. Works on Sonos, Play-fi, desktops, etc.
I do not use Tidal, for a number of reasons, some already given above:
- limited catalog, and I found myself settling for less when I had the subscription
- questionable quality on a significant number of albums (watermarking? Poor quality cd files?)
- dislike for the user interface outside of roon
I subscribe to Google play music for discovery & listening on my phone outside my home. My girlfriend uses Spotify. I often cast YouTube videos, or other sources…
It has been said before, but I would find it so convenient to have a “plugin” that would enable casting music to a Roon endpoint outside of the roon applications.
Right now I have to switch inputs and settle for a less qualitative input on my amp to be able to stream other sources.
Aside for this limitation I am perfectly happy using roon only for my personal library.
Instead of trying to get roon to integrate various services, why not get those service to build a “cast to roon” function? I am sure this is technically perfectly doable…
Any Deezer + Tidal yet? I want to use a single interface and I’m sticking with Roon at the moment since it does a great job of accessing everything on my local server. I already have Amazon and Google Music via other subscriptions but I never even look at them since they aren’t integrated into a unified interface.
I use Tidal Hifi for 2 reasons:
1 - Roon integration is perfect. Cannot ask for more. In fact, this is the main reason for having both Roon and Tidal
2 - High resolution tracks, including MQA
YMMV. That is just me.
Can you find the MQA tracks from within Roon? I’ve never been able to figure out how to do it. Within the web browser, I could do it though.
No you can’t . Go to Tidal Desktop, what’s new, then masters tab. Add them there as Favorites (it should take about 20 minutes to browse through the list).
I then went back to Roon, created a “Tidal MQA” tag, tagged all “new” albums as such, and then Done!
I’d like to try that. I’m on the website (assuming it’s the Tidal desktop) but not seeing Masters anywhere under What’s New. I see Featured, Tracks, Albums, Playlists, etc. Is Masters a sub category?
The desktop is an app/programme. You have to download and install it.
You have to use the Tidal desktop app. Then go to what’s new, Albums and look across for masters. Then view all. Only it’s not all. There are more.
Add them as your favourites then in Roon, re sync with Tidal. Done.
Thanks. I got that to work. I’m going to assume that the reason you can’t do this from the web app is because there wouldn’t be anyway to play back the albums? Still adding another program just to do this reiterates my point about how weak their interface is. They could create a genre called MQA and then we’d be able to browse it from Roon. I will agree that there are some good albums on there though.
Here’s a weird thing. I added a bunch of MQA albums. I see them in Roon under the Tidal Favorites tab. I can play them from here, but while doing so, the triple-dot menu in Roon won’t let me add a tag (the option is missing). I don’t understand this, but not really Tidal’s fault. I can go into albums and sort by date added and then tag them. One other thing I found is that Roon was hiding some of these albums as duplicates (despite having a higher bitrate correctly noted). I had to let Roon show all duplicates then tag them then re-hide the duplicates. Odd behavior but working.
not yet…
Just as when performing a Google search, it pays to be specific with your Search terms
E.g. within Roon, I clicked on the Search icon in the top right hand corner…and entered “Manfred Blinded” as the Search term [as I consider both Manfred and Blinded to be relatively unique search terms, whereas e.g. “light” would not be as ‘unique’]
Entering the above Search term, results in the Screenshot below within a second…and see that it went directly to the Tidal tracks option, as I don’t have that version in my own Library…see the Search term on the top line of screen
Secondly, I entered the term “Springsteen Blinded”…[again I used Springsteen rather than Bruce, as Springsteen is likely to be more specific than Bruce]
See the 2nd screenshot below…and observe that Roon first went to the 6 versions of that Track in my own library…with the Tidal tracks option also available
I read somewhere on ComputerAudioPhile that Tidal has over 500,000 Albums and 9 million tracks available…and it’s worth noting that even within the Tidal app itself, that the above Search terms returned the required track within a second…and the same would apply to an album
Just go to the album and click other versions. Then you can make the MQA as primary if you wish.
I set a Bookmark called ‘Tidal MQA’ and add them to this which means I don’t have to make an Album primary to find it. Also I edit the ‘Version’ field and Add MQA there. Then on the album drop down list it is distinguishable.
Thoughts, Chris
I have to agree with you although it still seems to be the best option available. Nothing against rap and hip-hop, I listen to it occasionally but it’s not my preferred music genre. Seems like at least 50% of the featured artists, records and playlists are of that genre. It is owned by Jay Z so I guess it’s to be expected.
I’m enjoying Tidal - but I worry that hitting that ‘Add to Library’ button dilutes my collection. I like having digital access to stuff I’ve only otherwise got on vinyl. And it’s good to be able to play losslessly something I only have on MP3 (although it feels like a betrayal!)
I am enjoying the MQA - and that is probably what will keep me on-board, at least for now. I am worried about the gaps in the catalogue, and I am missing my Spotify playlists - where I had carefully reconstructed a number of old compilation LPs. I have been thwarted in my attempts to recreate them in Tidal so far.
Perhaps £20 per month would be better spent on secondhand CDs from Amazon sellers and eBay…
Betrayal of MP3 made me chuckle. I often play a version of a CD I have in my library on Tidal as it means the artist gets paid again (I know it’s not much). I am so pleased I never got sucked into buying and ripping MP3 music as I’d be buying it again now. I do have MP3 audiobooks which are fine as you only need to hear it cleanly but I also get lossless mixes here now and upgrade when I can.
Also with smaller artist whom I support, it improves their visibility in the system, by that I mean their play count globally goes up.
£20 a month on eBay won’t give you instant access to everything you get now via Tidal and this is something I value although you may as well buy it if you can afford it. I still buy music from independent artists and music I really want to own but TIDAL has stopped me buying any ‘So So’ music I would hear on the radio anyway. Chart fodder I call it. There is just no point buying or owning it. It is saturated in the market anyways.
It was interesting listening to Phill Collins on this. His music was massively overplayed to the point where his reputation became a joke. He says, I only recorded this stuff once and moved on, It’s the DJ’s who overplayed it to the point that people are sick of it.
The quality of music is important to me and CD is my minimum as in my system, you notice. I don’t just want to hear the performance I want to experience it.
Rambling thoughts, Chris
Not sure I get your point… Using Tidal lets you “experience” music rather than just “listen” to it? Sounds like nothing more than a good marketing pitch 
I never said that, so apologies if my meaning wasn’t clear. I meant using high quality recording be they from Tidal or CD or anywhere else gives the impression that the artists are in the room on my system. You need Cd lossless quality at least to achieve this in my experience.
Taking an active roll in hosting live music and listening back to the properly mixed recordings we made from the gig gives me a good benchmark on this.
Chris