Regarding Tidals 24 bit flac
Answered
So Tidal is coming out with 24 bit flac, it is currently in beta testing available for those who are connected to Tidals beta program. And in the beginning only for iOS users and later it will also come to Android users.
My question is do you know if it will be available to stream this also through the bluos app to my bluesound or only through tidals own app ?
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Thanks, @Andrew H. It sounds like there will indeed be a new selector, like MAX, but unlike MAX, which will provide the highest resolution FLAC files, the new selector (e.g. let’s say it’s called ‘MQA’) will prioritize MQA files over others, where possible. That will be a winning solution for me, as long as I don’t have to pay any extra.
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What I understand from Andrew H.'s latest reply is that we WILL NOT be seeing support for Tidal hirez flac UNLESS and UNTIL Lenbrook/BluOS and Tidal agree and implement a way for BluOS users to be able to select between flacs and MQA. Lenbrook does not like Tidal's current prioritisation of FLAC over MQA and they do not intend to support it as is. So we will be either be stuck just with MQA or we will maybe have both at some point in the future despite the fact that the rest of the streaming community are getting this now! All this just because of Lenbrook vested interest in MQA. In the meantime more and more competing streamer OS's implement support for Tidal hirez flacs, them and their users obviously not paying too much attention to 'choice'.. Choice is nice to have but if anyone asked users if they would prefer Tidal's current scheme to just MQA, I'm pretty sure what the consensus would be, judging from the excitement Tidal's decision to offer hirez flacs had created some months ago.. Soon enough BluOS users will be the only Tidal subscribers not being able to benefit from Tidal flacs. So when is 'soon..ish' then?
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It would be great to have the ability to listen to Tidal's Hi-Res FLAC files on Bluesound products. This would keep up with other platforms and the benefits that the Tidal platform currently offers its users. It is disappointing to receive the original Hi-Res FLAC 192/24 from Tidal as MQA on the Node streamer.
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@motowebmaster: Same problem on windows too.
@Andrew H: If this delay depends on how we should be able to choose or not, I much more prefer to just get high res flac support now, and later added support for choise between mqa and high res flac. MQA is not, and will never be, the real deal for me. I have 50 days open return policy left on the node we bought, I'm strongly thinkin of return it and get something that will support High Res flac instead. Because as it is now, it feels very unsecure wheter we will get it on the node or not..
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It looks like today's Bluesound update improved the progression bar issue; looks like it still needs work but at least it's not bouncing around anymore.
Regarding Tidal; I miss some of Tidal's features, but am currently living in a beautiful new world thanks to Qobuz. Normally I'm 90% Metal/Rock, but since the move have been enjoying a lot of progressive content that normal people listen to. Even if it's CD Quality, I'm enjoying things never heard before - which makes no sense. It's happening everywhere, but also on my Bluesound Pulse 2i+Sub.
Gotta come up with an errand tonight so that I can blast some Raging Hi-Res Death Metal in the Truck!
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As the above mentioned debaters, they wrote about FLAC support on Bluesound, so if the competitive EverSolo platform comes with FLAC support for Tidal I immediately sell Bluesound Node. I am not going to pay MAX Tidal program and use an old MQA format. Is 2023 year gentlemens and not 2013 to be referred to the use of MQA "technology"
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If Eversolo does the upgrade and Bluesound doesn't, I think they will have a lot of new sales. :) :P
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Please update the Tidal API to show the current genres in BluOS - "local" was abandoned years ago but still remains in BluOS showing nothing.0 -
Without Tidal Hi Res support, it will be the end of BluOS as a platform for audiophiles. I'm curious to hear what NAD Electronics has to say about this. It seems to me that there is a consensus on the superiority of the hi-res flac format over MQA. The transition from MQA to Tidal has been problematic from the beginning. After all, high-speed Internet has been the standard for many years. MQA from a technical point of view seems interesting, but from a practical point of view it is no longer. As I mentioned, it's hard to find a person who, given a choice of only one format, would choose MQA. Well, you should make it possible to switch preferences in the application and stop embarrassing yourself. We know it's about MQA license money, but we don't care. It's not our problem. Whoever wants let them take MQA but don't push it on us.
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While having an option to select format would be great, I’m more interested in getting the 24/96 versions of songs now capped as 16/44.
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@Michal Zelazny It's hardly a "consensus." A lot of people enjoy what MQA brings to the table. I'd love to have the option of being able to access both MQA and hi-res FLAC, hopefully sooner rather than later.
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Right on, @Guy Saddy. There is a huge segment of listeners who enjoy MQA audio and want the option of both FLAC and MQA. I know that there are quite a few of us reading these posts and notice some misinformation, notably, that FLAC is newer and superior. FLAC is a compression format designed for audio and released 22 years ago. MQA was designed to address inherent artifacting and blurring in converting analog (e.g. human voice, instruments) to digital and is certified by artists and/or audio engineers as a faithful recreation of the studio performance. It was heavily influenced by the science of psychoacoustics (i.e., how humans process and perceive sound in the brain) and launched 9 years ago. It has been widely adopted by music labels, and people who simply enjoy music. I know I sound like a marketing ad here but I do rigorous research and testing for a living. Let there be choice for all of us, friends. Tidal, we hope you’re listening.
@Andrew H, looking forward to your ETA on a release date.
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To be fair I don't like being restricted by a company because it either tries to push a certain standard by their 'ethics' or because of some 'behind the scene deals'.
As a customer I expect the widest bandwidth of the technological containers possible. I bought this product because of it's ability to playback exceptional sound quality. And now it is limited because of the said reasons. I can understand the 'choice' argument. But when us customers cannot choose the other option available, bluesound supports a Anti-Consumer stance.4 -
I really don’t understand the vitriol towards Bluesound. It was Tidal who chose to launch this feature first on their own apps and only by the end of the year on third party platforms. So the delay is just because Tidal decided to not to address partner integrations before launching the feature. Also remember that Tidal is a pretty small streaming service that probably accounts for a small percentage of BluOS usage. Yet, the fact that Bluesound representatives have made an effort to communicate here to the few dozen people that actually care about the distinction between FLAC and MQA, that they are working on it and will deliver it soon, deserve more credit than a lot of these negative MQA conspiracy theory posts are giving it. Bluesound just released a major version of their OS, and Tidal only recently extended support for third parties, and anyway you cannot blame them if this wouldn’t be the #1 feature that they need to work on and stop everything else their working on instead. Give them break and be patient. You’ve probably been listening to Tidal for many years without HighRes FLAC, another month is not going to kill you…
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I would like to thank Bluesound for the super new OS, it looks great and is super easy to use! I especially like the new bitrate display feature. Thanks for listening. The search function however could be more intuitive when switching between providers. That’s really nit-picking! Like many others here I purchased my Bluesound streamer to purposely enjoy MQA. It’s been great and is so much more than a compression/decompression format as explained in posts above. I have been enjoying MQA sound consistently since it is still fully supported - at least on the tracks I’ve been listening to. I understand those who are annoyed at FLAC’s implementation being delayed and agree that this could have been planned much better given that MQA’s difficulties were known about a fair old time ago. A need for this FLAC update really could have been anticipated much sooner. BUT many will have bought purposely into MQA and will be happy with it like me and can wait a little bit longer for FLAC.
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Tidal Connect has release new version version 3.569 22. Oct . High res flac is running on Volumio Rivo using Tidal Connect but not on Bluesound.
Hope Bluesound will change in the new future4 -
Why they would do it? There is huge group of MQA fans which are satisfied with “special” mqa sound so they will not hurry up. But what we can do? Just wait for Flac possibility 😕
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If Tidal's platform officially states the following: "If a track exists in both formats, and a user has selected Max, the HiRes FLAC will be prioritized over the MQA version". Why would we, Bluesound Node owners, then be denied the listening of HiRes FLAC format?
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I crashed my Bluesound system yesterday, my fault. Did a factory reset today and am back up and running with my new Roon Server.
Reminded me just how touchy Bluesound is right now. Had a great time yesterday with Roon and Qobuz, but via my SONOS TV system - which really isn’t designed for music but it’s room-filling speakers with a sub and was a lot of fun.
It’s good to have my Bluesound Pulse 2i & Sub back up and running, but it’s a finicky experience. Built my permanent Roon Server and it is showing me things about the Bluesound system that I didn’t know.
The jury is still out on if I’ll buy another Bluesound widget. Going to look at other Roon-Ready DACs and AMP options first. With Roon fully working in it’s permanent state the BlueOS App is going to be regulated to an admin tool instead of a music experience.
I’m still open to MQA, but have started listening to albums that were native MQA within Tidal, and finding that they sound better (of course) as FLAC - even on Bluesound.
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New BluOS version has been released, but still no Tidal HiRes FLAC support. :(
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Lumin, WiiM, Volumio and maybe other streamer providers I'm not aware of, already support Tidal hirez flacs. We are waiting for Bluesound to find a way to offer the choice of MQA vs Flac rather than offer what Tidal already does offer and then look for the way to offer a choice. They are all for choice as long as it is choice which helps their balance. I now have to listen to hirez material in CD quality just because it is NOT offered in MQA by Tidal and MQA is all that BS offer. All this because of their vested interests in MQA licensing since they bought it. BS are treating their customers (and Tidal) with arrogance without offering competitive value. Virtually every consumer facing company that has done that in the past has regretted it. One can only do that when there's lack of competitive pressure, which is not the case here... So @Andrew H do you care to elaborate, out of respect to your customers, what 'soon 'ish' approximately means after many days have passed since you uttered it? 1 month, 6 months, 1 year? We are paying customers of Tidal but we can't take advantage of what they currently offer through your hardware which we have also paid to acquire.
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Tidal sent me the automated "We want you back" email yesterday after my subscription ended. I'm not negative about it.
While I'm a blast with Qobuz and Roon, I'd suggest to simply try any alternative to Tidal with Hi-Res Audio and play it on whatever you have; Vehicle, Headphones, Streamer, or Bluesound if it supports it. My Pulse 2i+Sub was updated last night and it's sounding good; but still switch over to my technically-reduced SONOS system at times because it's just so much fun. You don't need Roon, just try anything, it may re-align your thinking.
My Hi-Fi vendor resourcefully suggested a new Powernode and Speakers, so that we can re-use my Pulse Sub. We tested it in his shop using a Node Edge on a couple speaker options, it's a great idea. However, I haven't overcome the negative experience we are all sharing in this tread.
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I'm also very interested in when "soonish" may be? @Andrew H could you please specify what "soonish" means? This month? The end of the year? Next year? When?? I'll give it two more weeks, if it's not implemented by then I will return my node and buy a wiim pro instead that already have support for Tidals 24 bit flac.
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Si bluesound ne prend pas en charge le flac haute résolution de tidal dans un bref délai je vends mon bluesound node 2i et je quitte tidal définitivement pour d'autre streamer après plus de 3 ans d’abonnement et je ne ferai pas de publicité pour la marque canadienne alias bluesound
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Si pas de prise en charge du flac haute résolution de tidal par bluesound rapidement je vends mon lecteur node 2i et j’irai voir ailleurs
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I´m waiting for EVERSOLO when they make FLAC support for tidal Node goes...
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Now Auralic is with full HiRes flac of Tidal.
I cant believe there is just a technical aspect behind slooow reaction of Bluesound on this. Usually they are faster.
There is a politics behind to keep MQA interest and profit...2 -
what if you worked on the solution instead of empty chatter??? I paid for a very expensive system and I cannot use it in the best quality in the 21st century. If this doesn't change in a short period of time, I will sell all my Bluesound devices. I hope others will do the same. :)
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@Richárd
As you can see there is not so much "disgruntled tone", so I don't think this amount what they receive here will push them seriously... ;)
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As I said before I will sell my two Node streamers as they do not provide Tidal hires FLAC support! I do not care about MQA. They were supposed to let MQA die and not buy and now play the game who lasts longer... Customers or Bluesound?
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