Tidal Adds Dolby Atmos Music

[MarkyM]

So, Tidal is purposely supplying low bit rate and compression on ALL things streamed on Tidal, not just atmos so for everyone defending Tidal that it's a Dolby Atmos limitation, that's BS because Tidal is just choosing to cheap out and stream absolutely everything with the lowest bitrate and compression they can get away with as long as you keep buying.

This is simply not the case. With a Hi-Fi or higher subscription, all of the regular stereo music on Tidal is lossless FLAC 44.1/16 Bit (full CD quality) or higher. It sounds excellent and indistinguishable from CD on my systems. The 24-Bit “Master” tracks/albums when available are even better.

 

[salsdali]

This is simply not the case. With a Hi-Fi or higher subscription, all of the regular stereo music on Tidal is lossless FLAC 44.1/16 Bit (full CD quality) or higher. It sounds excellent and indistinguishable from CD on my systems. The 24-Bit “Master” tracks/albums when available are even better.

I have the the "Hi-Fi" subscription. Atmos is compressed low bit rate. Videos are Compressed low bit rate.

I'm sure CD sounds great, but that begs the question, who the fuk listens to (or cares about) CD quality in 2020?

It's 2020. CD's are so 1990's

 

[MarkyM]

To clarify, as I understand it, Dolby is the one pushing all of this. They are trying to "mass market" Dolby Atmos music. They are the one paying for all of these remixes. Tidal is just carrying what Dolby are shoveling out.

Agreed that is not looking so good for Tidal right now because of the low-bitrate issue and low volume level. Tidal claims they are working with Dolby on it.

Please understand that these issues exist ONLY for the new Atmos streaming tracks, not regular Tidal stereo tracks.

 

[MarkyM]

I have the the "Hi-Fi" subscription. Atmos is compressed low bit rate. Videos are Compressed low bit rate.

I'm sure CD sounds great, but that begs the question, who the fuk listens to (or cares about) CD quality in 2020?

It's 2020. CD's are so 1990's

Because 99.9% of all music is still in stereo. And Tidal is one of only 3 streaming services (Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon Music) offering CD quality (lossless) music or higher. The others (Spotify, iTunes etc.) only offer lower bitrate streaming music.

 

[himey]

I have the the "Hi-Fi" subscription. Atmos is compressed low bit rate. Videos are Compressed low bit rate.

I'm sure CD sounds great, but that begs the question, who the fuk listens to (or cares about) CD quality in 2020?

It's 2020. CD's are so 1990's

A good quality mix and mastering sounds great on CD, even in 2020. Tidal has higher than CD quality anyways, on some releases. Many new high resolution releases are mastered poorly anyways, so to just listen to hi res is very limiting content wise.

 

[jamoke]

so said the mp3 generation

for the love of God, please lets stop these streaming "entrepreneurs" from stealing from us what music could, should sound like

It's called a "slippery slope"

Amen brother!

 

[himey]

who has listened to, or cared about, a CD in the last 20 years?

Has nothing to do with the fact that a well mastered and mixed CD doesn't sound like "fuck" as you put it. I listen to 16/44.1 rips daily but I admit I haven't physically put a disc in a spinning machine in ages unless I am ripping it. Still, Tidal has better than CD quality on many of their selections, so you going off on this tangent of yours is a head scratcher.

 

[bracelis]

Back to the real/major Atmos issue, at least one member (AYanguas) already reported the low volume a while ago:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...s-dolby-atmos-music.27443/page-34#post-494737
I have also reported the same issue.
I suggest we get more people to do the same, instead of just repeating the complaints in this forum.

 

[Audiowannabee]

who has listened to, or cared about, a CD in the last 20 years?

I listen to CDs all the time,...OMG I just listened to Rock n Roll hall of Fame in OMG "direct" today...sounded great but definitely not a streamer

 

[AYanguas]

It's curious how we like to argue about the different quality of audio formats and compression levels. Trying to impose our beliefs as if it were some kind of religion.

I think the reality is that the so called CD quality (44.1 KHz, 16bit) is more than enough to represent with quality the sound that the human hearing can process. In 1990 and also in 2020. In thirty years the human hearing has not evolve enough, perhaps even is worse for some group of people that like to hear music at insane volume levels.

Hi-res formats are much of a marketing strategy, just that.

The real big difference in sound quality comes from the good or bad recording/mixing/mastering process. Different masters go to Hi-res formats to pretend that format to sound better. But the reality is that it is the edited Master who sound better. Try downsampling a HI-res format track to a CD quality and do blind listening tests. You will find them just the same, unless the equipment puts different EQ filters in the decoding/DAC/Amplifier chain.

Yes, lets forget about formats argue and concentrate on opening tickets to TIDAL claiming that the Atmos Tracks volume level is significantly lower than in the rest of stereo tracks.

I also want to say that if you don't like TIDAL quality / prices for whatever reason, just don't subscribe, but don't try to bother the rest.

 

[timbre4]

Related tangent seen on a FB audio page: "I doubt the converters in these antiquated universal disc players are anywhere near as good as those in my new AVR." This from a guy who is listening to a Q8 conversion on disc! I responded that anything would likely be sufficient for content like that and also that modern chipsets (your new AVR) may not even decode these 4.0 files (unless phantom channels added). Put the spec sheet down and concentrate on the music!

 

[bracelis]

I've also opened a request to Tidal support for the other real/major Atmos complaint -- to allow 5.1 surround playback on a non Atmos receiver, when you select an Atmos track, just like other streaming apps (example Netflix), when you play an Atmos movie.

As mentioned in previous posts, we already know that the existing Tidal app on the Apple 4K TV and Firestick 4K is already capable of doing this.
Although it only does this due to a bug, i.e. if it it was previously connected to an Atmos receiver, and then you connect the device to a non-Atmos receiver -- it remembers the previous setting.
But they could easily update the app to officially support non-Atmos surround receivers:
(a) Send the original Dolby Digital Plus (Atmos) stream to a non-Atmos receiver that supports Dolby Digital Plus, and the receiver will decode it as a 5.1 signal without Atmos.
or
(b) Stream the same file, but the device will send a 5.1 Dolby Digital (not Plus) or 5.1/7.1 PCM signal to the non-Atmos receiver, which is what the Apple 4k TV does based on my testing.

I hope this is not part of a deal with Dolby, to persuade (force) people to buy into/ adopt Dolby Atmos, to try to win the new 3D format war against Sony 360 (which is based on MPEG-H 3D).

 

[Goona]

so whats happened to any new stuff on Tidal?.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I'm not Atmos capable. I may never be. But reading through this thread, it just seems its turning into such a cluster f$ck. Much more daunting than quad was to the stereo users of the 70s. More daunting than the 5.1 format confusion of the of the 2000's. Those developments couldn't catch on with the average Joe, and now this. Apparently some lessons are never learned.

 

[harync]

so whats happened to any new stuff on Tidal?.

They must be too busy raising the volume 20 dB on all the atmos tracks

 

[northernsoul]

I'm not Atmos capable. I may never be. But reading through this thread, it just seems its turning into such a cluster f$ck. Much more daunting than quad was to the stereo users of the 70s. More daunting than the 5.1 format confusion of the of the 2000's. Those developments couldn't catch on with the average Joe, and now this. Apparently some lessons are never learned.

There are plenty of quality Atmos Blu Rays. Well worth the upgrade. It is superior to 5.1 IMO.

 

[himey]

There are plenty of quality Atmos Blu Rays. Well worth the upgrade. It is superior to 5.1 IMO.

If you are strictly talking music discs your definition of "plenty" is different than mine.

 

[humprof]

If you are strictly talking music discs your definition of "plenty" is different than mine.

I think it depends partly upon genre. Relatively large number of fabulous sounding contemporary classical discs on 2L, Sono Luminus, and others. But pop/rock/jazz...still in the single digits.

 

[edisonbaggins]

There are plenty of quality Atmos Blu Rays. Well worth the upgrade. It is superior to 5.1 IMO.

And Auro-3D is even better.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

If you are strictly talking music discs your definition of "plenty" is different than mine.

Agreed. Then of course they also need to be music I'd want. That would bring the total to two releases I can think of. Abbey Road and Automatic for the People. And I've read as many negative reviews of Atmos Abbey Road as I've read positive reviews.