WiMP comes to the UK/US as Tidal

[MexicanDragon]

I just saw that T-Mobile's "Music Freedom" deal (where they allow you to stream music from a ton of services without incurring data charges) just added a bunch... one of them is Tidal. I have an older unlimited plan, so doesn't affect me, but I do 5-10GB/mo with Tidal, so this would be pretty fantastic.
 

Music services include:

• Apple Music
• Pandora
• iHeartRadio
• Rhapsody
• Beatport
• Spotify
• Slacker
• Radical.FM
• 8tracks
• Milk Music
• Black Planet
• Songza
• Rdio
• Radio Paradise
• AccuRadio
• SoundCloud
• Saavn
• Digitally Imported
• JAZZRADIO.com
• ROCKRADIO.com
• RadioTunes
• radioPup
• radio.com
• Mad Genius Radio
• Xbox Music
• Live365
• Fresca Radio
• Google Music
• Fit Radio
• SiriusXM
• Tidal Music
• MixRadio
• BandCamp

**BRENT**

[Grahame]

Yay in General.

 

Good to see that Radio Paradise is on there, although with their latest apps(android and iOS) you can pre-cache multiple hours of (up to 320K AAC) music over WiFi to avoid burning through data when on the go. 

[blessingx]

If anyone is looking for a slight discount on Amarra for Tidal (or other Amarras). 

http://bit.ly/SSCAS2015

[jvlgato]

This was laggy on my 5 year old Mac mini. YMMV. Definitely do the trial prior to purchase.

[shellylh]

No server connection on Tidal.  

Guess I'll have to use Apple Music (I forgot that I had a subscription to this). 

 

Edited September 22, 2015 by shellylh

[postjack]

I've pretty much shifted back over to google play music. i do think tidal sounds better but technical issues with the android app are driving me away. particularly I can rarely resume a track after pausing. It will either start the track over or the whole app crashes. Crashing is certainly less then it used to be overall, so points to them for improvement, but for listening at work, where I do 95% of my streaming, google play is just more usable. And do I really need the higher fidelity when I'm listening to Kendrick Lamar and messing around with a spreadsheet?

 

[Hopstretch]

Feel the same. Use Apple Music now 100% of the time on mobile and only fire up TIDAL on the desktop if there's something I want to get audiophoolic over.

[Grahame]

Meanwhile, ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/jay-z-forgot-he-owned-music-streaming-service-tidal-a6697346.html

 

[Grahame]

Anyone else with a cancelled Tidal subscription get this?

Saw a payment to Tidal via PayPal of $19.99 @ 02:05:05 PST, this morning ...

Thought, I don't remember doing that, and I wasn't even awake then ...

Googled to see if this was a known issue, then at 9:25AM PST, on the account email (gmail to be exact) I get an email from TIDAL support with the subject line

Important information concerning incorrect billing

And contents

Dear User

We are sorry to inform you that due to an error, you have been billed 19.99$ for a TIDAL subscription.

We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience, and have already refunded the amount to your account. However, it can take from 2-5 business days to show up on your credit card statement.

In addition to the full refund, we have also given you free access to TIDAL Premium for the next three months as a compensation. Your TIDAL account is now active, and you can log in with your existing username [email protected] and password.

Again, we apologize for this, and appreciate your patience and understanding.

Thank you

TIDAL

Cock-up or stealth marketing?

Any other damages worth going after, HC-Legal, given unauthorized, rather than incorrect, billing?

[shellylh]

Interesting.  I am a current customer so I didn't get this. 

If this was stealth marketing, why wouldn't they just give you 3 free months to try and get you hooked without looking like they screwed up? 

[Grahame]

And only Tidal Premium, when the billing was for Tidal HiFi.

Cheapskates / double cock-up.

[Torpedo]

I cancelled the subscription about 3 months ago. I received the offer of getting 3 months for the price of one by Black Friday, which I didn't accept. No new charges or notice from them (other than some music news) so far.

[Sherwood]

I dropped Tidal months ago, but if I pay with a Turkish bank account it costs 1/3 as much, and it's the only platform to integrate with Roon, which is really an enjoyable service so far.

[Grahame]

Any other global service pricing arbitrage opportunities we should be aware of? The GBP/USD equivalence is a known issue.

Any geoblocking issues?

(See Also, Netflix / VPN ...

http://www.wired.com/2016/01/netflixs-vpn-ban-isnt-good-for-anyone-especially-netflix/

[MexicanDragon]

http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/18/10786198/tidal-charging-ex-customers
 

Seems like it happened to a couple other people as well.

**BRENT**

[Torpedo]

I agree with the journalist, I'd prefer one month at Hifi lossless streaming than the the 3 months at Premium lossy bitrate.

[Grahame]

Likewise.

[Dusty Chalk]

2 hours ago, shellylh said:

If this was stealth marketing, why wouldn't they just give you 3 free months to try and get you hooked without looking like they screwed up? 

Because that's just 'marketing'.

[Grahame]

Paypal has just sent confirmation of a refund from TiDAL, so there's that.

As per the comments on the Verge article, I'll check to see the that auto-renew hasn't been "inadvertently" enabled ... 

 

[jvlgato]

I've been trying out the latest Amarra for Tidal trial version for the last two weeks, and it seems stable and sounds great so far. Very promising.

But the link to the free trial of the most recent v 2.1 led me to v 2.0.1225. Not sure what to make of that.

[TMoney]

Why isn't De La Soul's catalog available to stream? Think licensing problems with the samples they used.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/arts/music/de-la-soul-digital-albums.html

[CarlSeibert]

Has anybody else heard a sonic difference between Tidal's own app and others? While I was laid up with little to do except listen to my portable rig, Tidal though USB Audio Player Pro was way better, in all the usual moar-better-audio ways, than Tidal though its own app. Enough so that I checked my settings to make sure to make sure I hadn't accidentally switched to the low quality stream. That wasn't the case. Nor did it appear to be that USBAP's driver was mysteriously better than Android's. Very strange.

[HemiSam]

11 hours ago, TMoney said:

Why isn't De La Soul's catalog available to stream? Think licensing problems with the samples they used.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/arts/music/de-la-soul-digital-albums.html

That's sad as can be.  I damn near wore out my copy of 3 Feet HIgh and Rising...

HS

[jvlgato]

Has anybody else heard a sonic difference between Tidal's own app and others? While I was laid up with little to do except listen to my portable rig, Tidal though USB Audio Player Pro was way better, in all the usual moar-better-audio ways, than Tidal though its own app. Enough so that I checked my settings to make sure to make sure I hadn't accidentally switched to the low quality stream. That wasn't the case. Nor did it appear to be that USBAP's driver was mysteriously better than Android's. Very strange.

Yes! I've found both Amarra for Tidal and Roon to sound much better! But the Amarra interface was a bit slower and more awkward to use, while Roon was fantastic all the way around.

[CarlSeibert]

So you heard this on a computer based Tidal client. Interesting.

That pretty well absolves the Android USB driver. I compared Tidal via USBAP (which has its own driver), Tidal via its own client, and the same songs, although different files, though Squeezeplayer from my own server (uses the native Android driver) and couldn't hear any difference between USBAP and Squeezeplayer. But I did between the Tidal client and the other two. What the heck could they be doing to the signal in their client, I wonder? Level normalizing, badly done, maybe? Hmmm

Meanwhile, I looked at Roon. It looks brilliant. It looks like they've overlayed a an engaging interface on DLNA, Sqeezebox, and whatever other protocols they feel like, so people can use their existing audiophile gear. It's like Vortexbox all grown up. With a sustainable business model. I looked on their Linux page and it looked competent and straightforwardly documented. I think I'll whip up a virtual machine and give it a go.