No. artists rates are set by number of streams unrelated to quality
@ricgf @Jack_Zimmermann you guys complaining about the rap on Tidal, have you looked at the latest Tidal apps recently?
Or you’re going off looks at the app from last year and earlier?
The same music is there on Qobuz of course… but you might find the ‘home’ page of the Tidal apps have changed a lot and are much more personalised now…
You’ll need to update to their latest app though.
I’m not talking about Tidal through Roon here, I’m talking about the official Tidal apps.
I use Roon of course but away from home I use the Tidal app a lot.
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I think the HiFi Plus tier was created for two commercial reasons to reduce subscriber loss/churn:
• Provide a new HiFi tier option for those who don’t want/like MQA and are going to Qobuz.
The timing would suggest (but does not prove) this: Qobuz was made available in Australia on April 15; Tidal HiFi Plus was announced in Australia on April 27. I’ve seen quite a few social media and forum postings about Tidal subscribers happy to be able to quit Tidal for a non-MQA lossless offering (and probably for other reasons also) and Tidal obviously would have noticed these cancellations. This popular video released on April 16 did not help MQA’s cause: I published music on Tidal to test MQA - MQA Review - YouTube
• Offer a cheaper HiFi tier to be more price competitive with Qobuz and Spotify HiFi (when it becomes available) and for those not needing the Dolby Atmos and 360 RA tracks.
-Qobuz Studio Premier costs AU$24.99/month (equivalent to ~$300/year) or AU$229.99 billed annually (equivalent to ~$19.17/month)
-Tidal HiFi Plus will cost AU$23.99/month and the new HiFi tier will cost AU$17.99/month
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TBH, I doubt that they would have blinked. The Internet noise is disproportionate.
This hits the nail on the head, but for Spotify only, not Qobuz. Qobuz is not a significant player or threat to TIDAL. (Sorry Qobuz fans.)
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I also think that the pricing structure change is about competing with Spotify HiFi (which we are working on supporting it in our streamers right now).
I don’t know how much market share Tidal Qobuz have, but probably less than 1 or 2 percent.
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You are actually right; the latest version of their app is much better. [moderated]
Now the three main rows for me are “For you”, “Recently played” and “Mixes for you”, all of which are broadly in line with my main preferences. Not that this matters much at home anyway, since I am always using Roon here - but for mobile usage, this is already a great UI improvement.
Interesting. I don’t see this tier in the US.
Exactly! There are some albums where the MQA version sounds the best (eg some Arethat Franklin albums). This is almost sirely the result of better remastering.
To me, this recent move by Tidal is about Spotify and Apple. Will it be enough, how loyal are Tidal subscribers? It’s hard to say, but considering the rumors Apple may bundle higher quality streams in it’s existing USD 9.99 pcm charge, something Spotify would likely mirror, things will undoubtedly get tougher.
As for the source, they have a pretty good track record with MacRumors!
Woah. The last time we reported on a rumor from HitsDailyDouble @HITSDD was way back in 2001. They predicted a device called the iPod.https://t.co/gIk4DiSl1V https://t.co/ldDIyMYuv1
— Arnold Kim (@arnoldkim) May 1, 2021
MQA. I find it unlikely Apple would adopt it. Apple rarely adopts a proprietary standard it hasn’t had a significant hand in developing.
That’s because they prefer to develop their own proprietary standards and not share them outside of their user base (said as an 20 year Mac user and iPad user)
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I’m not sure, a few minutes with Wikipedia may dispel that, unless I’ve missed a few. Audio wise, AAC is free to use, and ALAC is open. I don’t see Apple as a baddie. Otoh, MQA, lol….
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Mike not a baddie, just another company that likes its own walled garden where there is no easy to find exit.
Not that different to MQA in some business practices (appstore policies). I do not see them coming out of the Epic trial looking good (clearly not already, but the other side hardly lovable either) and the same for the EU case that has been brought against them in the last couple of weeks.
Thanks for this. I have been wondering for some time how the BBC had decided whether AAC 320 kbps was good enough for their Radio 3 broadcasts, and had been unable to track down anything on their web site. Kudos to you for finding it!!!
How will we be able to tell if if the HiFi (CD) tracks are down-sampled from “MQA processed” or true lossless 16/44 CD originals?
No, it isn’t.
It wasn’t for 7 years
I do:
- app store and lack of sideloading could have been app store and sideloading. the sloppy review process isn’t protecting anyone from anything.
- restrictions to third party payments from apps could be lifted. Spotify costs 30% more on the app store
- requirements for apple id logins could be lifted
- podcast apps and others were famously allowed, and then banned/removed for being “duplicate” functionality in after apple released their own. with no sideload feature, that’s just evil.
- fairplay DRM could have been Helix or short lived URLs like everyone does nowadays
- 30-pin dock connector could have been USB
- lightning ports should have been USB micro to start, and then USB-C later
- magsafe could have been more open, like all the USB-C magsafe solutions available nowadays
i could go on and on…
Anyway, maybe some of those are a bit unfair, but the point stands that these guys are just as “bad” as MQA when it comes to these types of business practices and lock-in. The comparison is apt because apple (and mqa) are trying to be general purpose and standard.
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It’s all a bit of a mess 1000’s of PCM 16/44.1 files were replaced with 16bit MQA versions, running a hifi tier will probably play these files with the MQA ID flag switched off they would have to them all back to get true PCM
And soon Apple music
Apple created this digital eco system from scratch before anyone else and if you want to be there u need to stick to their rules, if that’s not ok for your business there are other options out there…but yes u cannot be on ipads or iphones.
If u rent a shop within an airport u stick to the rules of that airport, otherwise u’r free to explore other options.
Not saying that Apple is perfect but if u want to take advantage of their “fan base” that’s it…same goes for Facebook, Playstation network or Spotify which pays artist poorly but as an artist you can decide to only sell your stuff on Bandcamp.
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That’s been the way up to now, but I would be very surprised if we are still in this position in 2-3 years. Apple is feeling the pressure of regulators breathing down it’s neck. There will be court cases all over the world and they will have to bend to the will of the lawmakers (just as they do everytime China calls and says do this or that). Everything is negotiable when the other option is that the market is closed off to you.
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