Tidal Hifi+ sounds much much better than Spotify

[crashmtb]

No, that was the whole reason I posted what I did. MQA = Master Quality Authenticated. Without MQA decoding support, you do not get Master quality streams hence no need for HiFi+.

At the risk of offending any golden ears in the room, you will not hear any difference with bit rates higher than CD quality (1411 kbps), doesn't matter if it's from Tidal or Amazon. It's largely a marketing gimmick because people who don't understand the math/science buy bigger numbers because they believe it must sound better. Fact of the matter is, much of the available higher bit rate music was upsampled from 1411 kbps source. And frankly, even the limited content truly sourced from the original higher bit rate studio masters doesn't sound any different because they don't generate signals in the audible spectrum. I'll leave it at that as I know how passionate some people can be on this subject.

since the r1 doesn’t have the same artisanal hand-stranded copper directional Jackalope fur enrobed cabling as a decent hi-fi setup, of course no one will hear the difference.

I mostly pay more for hifi plus because it pays out more to artists.

Sponsored

 

[RivChris]

Are you set on highest streaming quality? I notice a big difference and no buzzing..

I've had that buzzing before and a quick reset made it go away.

 

[twinprice]

Can someone tell me where I go to adjust the streaming quality? I know I adjusted this on my phone but I can't find the setting on the R1.

 

[electruck]

I mostly pay more for hifi plus because it pays out more to artists.

And that is an informed decision that I can respect.

 

[DJG]

No, that was the whole reason I posted what I did. MQA = Master Quality Authenticated. Without MQA decoding support, you do not get Master quality streams hence no need for HiFi+.

In the Tidal settings in the Rivian, it allows for 4 levels of streaming quality, with Master as the highest (Normal, High, HiFi, Master; at least with the HiFI+ subscription). I can't say what the available settings would be with only a regular HiFI subscription, but perhaps others can.

I don't necessarily disagree regarding whether one can actually hear the difference though. I think Amazon's Ultra quality, which is 10x Spotify Premium (3500kbps vs. 350 ish), is hardly noticeable.

 

[DJG]

Rivian currently doesn't support MQA or Dolby Atmos. Only the HiFi subscription is needed to get the best sound possible in the Rivian. I guess it is possible they could add support for those formats in the future, if the hardware is capable, but right now the MQA streaming quality option is greyed out in the Tidal settings.

Not on mine, it's set to Master with the HiFi+ subscription.

 

[twinprice]

Can someone tell me where I go to adjust the streaming quality? I know I adjusted this on my phone but I can't find the setting on the R1.

Nevermind, I found that you have to be in Park in order to access account settings for the different music services.

 

[s4wrxttcs]

The two issues I have with Spotify are:

The sound volume seems lower than FM radio.

The favorites are limited to 50 songs which is weird. I did find that if I played a different playlist that it didn't have this limitation so I actually have to create a playlist to get around the 50 song limitation.

I haven't tried Tidal yet as my Truck is in Service.

 

[electruck]

In the Tidal settings in the Rivian, it allows for 4 levels of streaming quality, with Master as the highest (Normal, High, HiFi, Master; at least with the HiFI+ subscription). I can't say what the available settings would be with only a regular HiFI subscription, but perhaps others can.

I don't necessarily disagree regarding whether one can actually hear the difference though. I think Amazon's Ultra quality, which is 10x Spotify Premium (3500kbps vs. 350 ish), is hardly noticeable.

Tidal requires HiFi+ for MQA support, it's not included with the regular HiFi plan. Assuming it's not a software glitch, your screen would suggest the Rivian app can decode MQA. This would be the first automotive support that I'm aware of and would consume significant cellular data (that Rivian is currently paying for) so I'm still a bit skeptical it's not a glitch.

 

[cypressroots]

Hey is it normal in Tidal to select an album or artist and have the music begin playing without showing you the actual tracks? Then you have to select the que to see what is coming next? (First time user)

 

[EVerywhere]

TLDR: Tidal is great, but there is more work to do.

I've been an audiophile since I saved up enough cash for a decent turntable in my teens. I'm not into woo woo audio science and snake oil, for me it's all about getting close to the emotional impact of the artist playing for you in your listening space. Every now and again I disappear down a mobile audio rathole, such as here years back with my M6. I have been using Tidal with Roon for my home systems for the past seven years and have been playing Tidal in my R1T since Tuesday morning. To me this is a very substantial and worthwhile step up from Spotify and Bluetooth for several reasons:

• Low and high pass filters largely eliminated: one of the steps to compressing audio with lossy codecs (like MP3 and AAC) is to quickly roll off frequencies below mid-bass level and above mid-treble. This makes the resulting files sound better on mediocre equipment that cannot play very low and high frequencies, or at least not without a lot of distortion. But it takes away the subtlety of a snare drum or soprano, and the resonance of a bass guitar.
• Dynamic range and compression artifacts: heavily compressed streams (Spotify, TuneIn, XM…) approximate the analog audio signal by averaging the waveform over time (i.e. lower sampling frequency than CD which is 44.1k times per second), additionally they reduce the dynamic range (the volume difference between the highest and lowest sound). These effects are not that noticeable on a low-quality system, by the Rivian’s Meridian system makes them very apparent as a muddy blurring of the music. It’s like having thick velvet curtains between you and the artist. To the early posters point, this is why Tidal sounds quieter – less dynamic range compression.
• Soundstage: for the first time Tidal allows us to feed the Meridian system with CD quality (44.1kHz/16 bit) audio, and to me the difference is huge: the A pillar tweeters and dash mids do a pretty good job of creating an accurate soundstage, something completely absent before. I tried the various surround enhancement settings and mostly preferred off with all the equalization flat.
• The weakest link in the system seems to be bass, especially the lower part of the woofer range to the back seat sub. Accurately reproducing sub 120Hz frequencies in a car is expensive: it takes lots of clean amp power, a quality sub and sub enclosure to overcome the difficulties of trying to reproduce sound waves with wavelengths longer than the longest dimension of the vehicle interior.
• Going from CD 44.1kHz/16 bit to Master 96kHz/24bit is a noticeable improvement on my home listening system, not so much in the Rivian (combination of the quality of the system and difficult environment to reproduce high quality sound). I’m going to listen a bit more just to be sure.

Overall, I’m very happy with Tidal in the Rivian, I’m listening to much more music and less audiobooks and podcasts now. In my opinion the system is better than the Bose, Harmon and B+O systems on many competing vehicles, but a clear step down from the Burmester and Naim systems on some high-end cars. I do have some requests for Rivian:

• Rivian is using Android Automotive (different from Android Auto) to drive the IVI system, making it relatively easy to include readymade audio apps without the need to start from scratch or support substantial additions to the code base in-house. That said the Tidal UI in the Rivian is poor. A few examples of where it needs improving:
  • When I search for an artist, I’d like the ability to select a specific album by that artist, not just be thrown into a playlist of the most played songs for that artist.
  • Albums in my Tidal collection are not syncing to the Rivian, artists and playlists do eventually.
  • There needs to be a way to add albums that I’m playing in the Rivian to my collection so that I can easily play them again.
• I’d like to have the ability to play FLAC files stored on a USB drive at 96/24 or event 192/24. I spoke with a Rivian executive involved in this, and was assured that it is coming. They are working on the security model to help ensure that USB audio does not become a springboard for cyber-attacks.
• I’d like support for multi-channel audio: especially 5.1 FLAC files. The Burmester system I had could do this, and there are some exceptional 5.1 records out there such as this one.
• I’d like Dolby Atmos support, this is an object-based audio stream where sounds are encoded with location in three-dimensional space around the listener, Atmos playback devices resolve the encoded location to a driver, or combination of drivers, that best match the encoded position. This is an elegant solution that enables all of the various drivers in the Rivian to be used to best effect. Atmos is also being implemented by Mercedes, Volvo and others for precisely this reason. It is a much better option than the pretty lame surround enhancement on the current system.
• Of course, I’d like CarPlay, working wireless charging mats, and a host of other stuff that may never arrive.

 

[JGard18]

Just to get more attention or whatever. These three points:

• When I search for an artist, I’d like the ability to select a specific album by that artist, not just be thrown into a playlist of the most played songs for that artist.
• Albums in my Tidal collection are not syncing to the Rivian, artists and playlists do eventually.
• There needs to be a way to add albums that I’m playing in the Rivian to my collection so that I can easily play them again.

I could not agree more. Add these things and the Tidal experience will be near perfect.

My only other requests (one is also. Spotify problem)

• Show me my search history. Every time I go to search, it's all empty. (this has also been occurring in Spotify)
• Only some of my recently played albums are showing up in the Recents list, not all of them.
• I prefer how when you select an album on Spotify you immediately see a large album art picture and the track list, I wish Tidal did that, too.

 

[RivianSteve]

Ditto to JGardi I was very excited to give Tidal a try as I consider myself a junior audiophile. I spent an hour going back and forth with the same song between Spotify and tidal. I do notice a slight difference. Time will tell if the audio quality outweighs some of the draw backs of the Tidal interface as mentioned above. I do not like that I can't select the next Artist/Album without it automatically switching to that artist.

 

[Jay565]

TLDR: Tidal is great, but there is more work to do.

I've been an audiophile since I saved up enough cash for a decent turntable in my teens. I'm not into woo woo audio science and snake oil, for me it's all about getting close to the emotional impact of the artist playing for you in your listening space. Every now and again I disappear down a mobile audio rathole, such as here years back with my M6. I have been using Tidal with Roon for my home systems for the past seven years and have been playing Tidal in my R1T since Tuesday morning. To me this is a very substantial and worthwhile step up from Spotify and Bluetooth for several reasons:

• Low and high pass filters largely eliminated: one of the steps to compressing audio with lossy codecs (like MP3 and AAC) is to quickly roll off frequencies below mid-bass level and above mid-treble. This makes the resulting files sound better on mediocre equipment that cannot play very low and high frequencies, or at least not without a lot of distortion. But it takes away the subtlety of a snare drum or soprano, and the resonance of a bass guitar.
• Dynamic range and compression artifacts: heavily compressed streams (Spotify, TuneIn, XM…) approximate the analog audio signal by averaging the waveform over time (i.e. lower sampling frequency than CD which is 44.1k times per second), additionally they reduce the dynamic range (the volume difference between the highest and lowest sound). These effects are not that noticeable on a low-quality system, by the Rivian’s Meridian system makes them very apparent as a muddy blurring of the music. It’s like having thick velvet curtains between you and the artist. To the early posters point, this is why Tidal sounds quieter – less dynamic range compression.
• Soundstage: for the first time Tidal allows us to feed the Meridian system with CD quality (44.1kHz/16 bit) audio, and to me the difference is huge: the A pillar tweeters and dash mids do a pretty good job of creating an accurate soundstage, something completely absent before. I tried the various surround enhancement settings and mostly preferred off with all the equalization flat.
• The weakest link in the system seems to be bass, especially the lower part of the woofer range to the back seat sub. Accurately reproducing sub 120Hz frequencies in a car is expensive: it takes lots of clean amp power, a quality sub and sub enclosure to overcome the difficulties of trying to reproduce sound waves with wavelengths longer than the longest dimension of the vehicle interior.
• Going from CD 44.1kHz/16 bit to Master 96kHz/24bit is a noticeable improvement on my home listening system, not so much in the Rivian (combination of the quality of the system and difficult environment to reproduce high quality sound). I’m going to listen a bit more just to be sure.

Overall, I’m very happy with Tidal in the Rivian, I’m listening to much more music and less audiobooks and podcasts now. In my opinion the system is better than the Bose, Harmon and B+O systems on many competing vehicles, but a clear step down from the Burmester and Naim systems on some high-end cars. I do have some requests for Rivian:

• Rivian is using Android Automotive (different from Android Auto) to drive the IVI system, making it relatively easy to include readymade audio apps without the need to start from scratch or support substantial additions to the code base in-house. That said the Tidal UI in the Rivian is poor. A few examples of where it needs improving:
  • When I search for an artist, I’d like the ability to select a specific album by that artist, not just be thrown into a playlist of the most played songs for that artist.
  • Albums in my Tidal collection are not syncing to the Rivian, artists and playlists do eventually.
  • There needs to be a way to add albums that I’m playing in the Rivian to my collection so that I can easily play them again.
• I’d like to have the ability to play FLAC files stored on a USB drive at 96/24 or event 192/24. I spoke with a Rivian executive involved in this, and was assured that it is coming. They are working on the security model to help ensure that USB audio does not become a springboard for cyber-attacks.
• I’d like support for multi-channel audio: especially 5.1 FLAC files. The Burmester system I had could do this, and there are some exceptional 5.1 records out there such as this one.
• I’d like Dolby Atmos support, this is an object-based audio stream where sounds are encoded with location in three-dimensional space around the listener, Atmos playback devices resolve the encoded location to a driver, or combination of drivers, that best match the encoded position. This is an elegant solution that enables all of the various drivers in the Rivian to be used to best effect. Atmos is also being implemented by Mercedes, Volvo and others for precisely this reason. It is a much better option than the pretty lame surround enhancement on the current system.
• Of course, I’d like CarPlay, working wireless charging mats, and a host of other stuff that may never arrive.

Thanks for that, very informative! The only comment is that carplay compresses heavily, I don’t think it uses airplay technology and so as an audiophile, I think carplay in this one instance is worse.

 

[kurtlikevonnegut]

I found Tidal in the Rivian to be very disappointing. In terms of audio quality, there isn't a huge difference at least for the music I'm listening to mostly. On top of the lack of difference in overall listening experience, the Tidal interface is very rudimentary. In my brief experience using it, I have encountered the following:

• No default preferences for random playback. Every time I start a playlist I have to manually turn it on. This is annoying since my preferred listening is randomized playlists.
• Random track skipping. Multiple times I've had a song that I was listening to randomly skip forward to the next track halfway through. This has never happened with Spotify
• Random stopping. Sometimes the song just stops instead of skipping to the next. I assume this is a buffering issue but then it never restarts on its own.

I don't know if these are Tidal problems or specific to the Rivian app, and who is responsible for fixing it, but it's very disappointing. If you already have Tidal, then it is probably worthwhile waiting these issues out. If you use Spotify or some other source and were considering Tidal with the new integration (like me), I'd recommend not doing so or at least waiting until experience improves.

I did read a bit about Atmos for Cars at CES this year, so that would be a potential gamechanger if Rivian can implement Atmos support with Meridian as part of a future OTA update. Until then, not worth it IMO.

Sponsored