I have 3000 full albums that i have on iTunes/Roon. i have downloaded or ripped them from cd. there are a lot of mp3s. I have every Led Zeppelin album for instance. The problem is when i go to Roon/Tidal i get the Mp3 versions and the Tidal HIFI versions are nowhere. If I don’t use Roon I can everything directly through Tidal. Do I have to delete all my old downloads?
No don’t delete anything. Click on one of your LZ MP3 albums and you will see a “Other Version” click that and it will show you the Tidal version, which you can then add to you library and chose it as your primary version which will than override your local MP3 version… hope that makes sense.
Thanks for the quick reply!!
You are a kind person. I feel much better now. Thank you very much!
I will try that right now. I’m pretty non tech.
I have a further question. After I’ve replaced the MP3 for Tidal version why not delete that one?
I have most of the CDs still. Would there be any sane reason to keep both?
I would get rid of the MP3s and rerip your cds as uncompressed flac if you have the disk space, but hey thats just me.
Just in case in the future the albums disappear. No guarantees with streaming that something will be there forever… or if you wish to cancel Tidal (I’ve done this on and off over the last couple years) for whatever reason, albums will just revert back to your local albums.
I would definitely do that too.
If I have the cds stored in case of emergency why not just use the streamed versions?
Thanks guys. Your help is invaluable.
Not all music is on tidal. Ripping to uncompressed flac gives me a backup that I can store off site. CDs degrade over time. Murphys law says when you need to restore from CD you won’t be able to etc etc
I’ll download the best of the best and Tidal the rest:)
One more question if anybody is out there. Is there a way to make the Tidal stream the default setting other than manually? I have a Devialet 400 integrated and my Macbook Pro is hooked in through USB. If i use my i phone app to switch albums it plays my original MP3 version that I downloaded unless i get up and change to the ‘other version’.
I also have the same question as Mike. I just started using a 6-month free trial, and my inability to easily play lossless from Tidal has me not using it. Boo and hiss…
It would be bice if you could choose eirher version from the app.
From Roon, there are various ways to browse Tidal: the Tidal browser in the main menu, find an artist and scroll down and you see the Tidal albums underneath your own, or in search.
But what I do with Tidal albums I like is Add to Library, that way it shows up with all my other music, so I don’t need to care about whether it is Tidal or not.
That’s a very easy operation, one click and no cost, so I am very generous with doing it.
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I had an MP3 album, clicked on Other Versions, got the Tidal album, click Add to Library. Roon chooses the best version as default, which is Tidal if the other is MP3.
But you can still choose the other one under Other Versions.
Wrt your old MP3 rips: I never delete anything, ever, for any reason, whatever I think. Disk storage is zero dollars per gigabyte.
Because you never know.
Please send me 30TB. I will cover postage 
I get it. I’ll just do that. I thought there might be a better way. I
Mark is correct. My laptop is nearly full so storage is a problem.