There is a myth out there that which has to do with streaming and Hifi. Basically, it says that the best way to listen to a streaming service in high fidelity is with a dedicated Hifi streaming device like one of the below:
These are all products which I have extensively researched online and watched hundreds of reviews on youtube.
Somebody once commented about why I do not use a “real” Hifi streamer for Tidal, and I want to answer that question in detail in this article.
The Node 2i seems to be great except that it is plagued by quality issues (if you read through all the reviews), and its software is always a work in progress. If it was that good, at its Black Friday price, I would have purchased it by now. From reading the online reviews, I think the problem is because of the flaky Wifi/ Network/ Internet Connection; everything else just compounds to make the experience worse.
For a long time, the CXN (v2) seemed to be a real good option for me. The Uniti Atom is just crazy expensive and I would never spend that kind of $$$ on a music player, no matter what they tell me it does.
The problem with all of the Hifi music streamers out there today; their Achilles heel you could say, is that they do not support Tidal Offline.
I want you to really, really understand this fully. No matter what they say, the only devices which support Tidal Offline are iOS and Android phones and tablets.
Why does this matter?
To understand this, you need to get some background:
- Yup, I actually left Tidal at one point!
And then I came back, and updated this article with how I got around these issues for good:
So, the problem is that no matter how good your music streamer is, even if you spend $320 per month for a dedicated Xfinity Gigabit Pro 3 gbps symmetric internet connection, you still will not be able to perfectly stream Tidal Masters.
Considering my situation, I would say the problem would be similar or worse for the vast majority of users who are not near major internet nodes in large cities (if it even works at all for anybody — I am not too sure about that). I wonder why the Youtube reviewers do not mention this issue — maybe they have insane internet connections like 10gbps and.
During the work day, my speeds are actually lower than the expected 3 gbps up & down. I have noticed that my connection actually is ~1.5 gbps up & down on the worst days, and only on the best days without any storms or weather events do I really get that 2.5 gbps or more speeds.
The $1000+ you are spending on the Hifi music streamer is completely wasted and it is effectively a lie. It just will not stream Tidal Masters in a useable way; and it does not support Tidal Offline — if it did, I would have got it by now.
Why would you spend this much money on an experience where the highest fidelity music available on Tidal would not playback properly? Isn’t the whole point of the expensive streamer to listen to the highest quality music at the highest fidelity possible?
No matter who the blame lies with, what this really means is that the only way to listen to Tidal Masters without interruptions, distortions, pops and speaker destroying distortion is to listen to Tidal Masters Offline.
So, please save a lot of $$$ and just get a really good Android or iOS phone, tablet or “iPod” (if it exists in the Android world). As long as it supports Tidal Offline and is a relatively good music player (like the LG audiophile phone), you should be good.
I have noticed the horrible distortions are iOS specific; Android does not do that, it just stops playing or plays nothing where iOS would distort.
This is why I decided never to get these Hifi music streamers till they do offline. I don’t want to use a phone because phones are busy devices and using my 256GB iPhone XS Max, it does not provide a great listening experience and it varies by how busy the phone is doing other things at the same time.
However, if you are a “mover”, and a pocketable device is more of your thing, then a good phone with a large capacity for storing music is good enough. My specific use case is for a person listening to music at home while working, playing back through a Hifi (with a reasonable DAC in between, ideally which can fully decode MQA).
I think the best music streamer is a tablet. You can open Tidal in full screen mode, and use it as a “music monitor” and watch the beautiful cover art, and “see more” while you listen to music and go through different playlists without squinting.
I liked the experience with the beautiful AMOLED screen of my very old Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 32 GB (with a 128 GB SD Card storing Tidal offline which works well). It is beautiful that I stream in Hifi, but when there are “no more new songs to sample”, I just play the Offline master files in full high fidelity without any distortions because it is not streaming.
- The battery is not performing well anymore, so this needed to go or get repaired anyway!
I am currently trading this in for a Galaxy Tab 5e — I usually don’t get 10.5 inch tablets because the huge screens are hard on my eyes. But, for Tidal only, in dark mode with an OLED screen, slanted, I don’t think this will be an issue.
- I am getting the cheapest one and will use it with a 128GB SD Card.
- I wanted to get an iPad, but it makes no sense to pay so much for extra storage on the iPads. With the Samsung, I can go all the way to 512GB with SD cards. It is a shame that iPads don’t support them.
- Also, no iPad screen can match the beauty of the AMOLED screen of some of these Samsung Tablets (not all have AMOLED screens — check that carefully before you buy).
I plan to keep it slanted horizontally in front of my workspace, and use the touch screen to listen to Tidal all day during the work week! I will update with further details once the setup is done.
To be continued…
Notes
This article is primarily written for people who use streaming services and rely on these services for most/ all of their listening.
This article is not really relevant for:
- People who have a lot of their own music stored locally in which case most of the expensive Hifi devices mentioned here can playback from over the LAN or from a HDD.
- Some expensive devices may combine a CD/ DSD/ DVD/ BluRay player with a streamer. Again, relevant to people who have a physical music collection.
That there are a lot of people — especially the younger generation may not even have purchased a music download ever, do not even know what high-res audio means and don’t even care and use Spotify or one of the MP3 streaming services. For the 10% of people within that who like high resolution audio, I wanted to provide them an easier way to listen to the best quality of music possible.
"expensive" - Google News
February 07, 2021 at 01:44AM
https://ift.tt/3ruT6Uv
The best way to listen to Tidal is not with expensive Hifi equipment - Medium
"expensive" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2GwwnlN
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "The best way to listen to Tidal is not with expensive Hifi equipment - Medium"
Post a Comment