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What's the cheapest way to listen to Tidal and get the full quality experience?
Presumably anything Bluetooth is no good?
A cheap DAC and some decent wired headphones?
Or a streamer plus wired headphones?
Can’t help but if you are shopping for better sounding streaming services have a trial of Qobuz too.
I was honestly hopping for a thread about tides 😆
Me too! Like, does the Solent area have 4 high waters each day, or two prolonged high tides?
I would recommend Tide by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
I have a Chord Mojo + headphones. Couple of ways I use it. On my laptop with the Tidal app at my desk, or I have a Raspberry Pi running Volumio next to my comfy armchair.
Both are excellent, theoretically, the laptop is higher quality.
https://volumio.org/volumio-overview/
You need an MQA enabled DAC for Tidal Masters. Full list here https://www.mqa.co.uk/playback-devices
For low cost desktop / portable options worth looking at Audioquest Dragonfly or iFi Audio ranges - both have options under £150.
Both will amp headphones or output into an Amp via the headphone socket. The Dragonfly Red has digital volume control that can essentially double as a pre-amp if required.
Some pretty decent deals going round on AKG / Sen / Beyerdynamic headphones too. Some of old school Sony wired overhead models still in production are really good too. Sure everyone else will add their fav models.
First things first - set up an 'offshore' Tidal account. My full family package costs about £3.50 a month for the top quality. I believe 'I was on holiday in Turkey' when I set it up so get billed in Turkish Lira. My listening though is done exclusively in the UK via a fully kosher and transparent UK ISP IP address.
MQA is marmite - some people think it's the best thing ever. Some people (like me) just see it as compressed music by another name with similar concerns over the way DRM can be implemented in a way that is not good for the consumer.
For what it's worth I spend most of my time listening to Qobuz - IMO it is sonically superior and has much more of the type of music I like to listen to. If my offshore Tidal account were ever to be closed I would just ditch it an use Qobuz exclusively.
Some pretty decent deals going round on AKG / Sen / Beyerdynamic headphones too. Some of old school Sony wired overhead models still in production are really good too. Sure everyone else will add their fav models.
I have a soft-spot for open-back AKGs. Lovely, and not expensive. Annoy the family though.
I ordered an Audiolab M-DAC nano earlier today as a result of this tread
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/portable-dac-recommendations/
(this forum costs me so much money 🙂 )
Obviously can't give you a hands on review as it's not even in transit yet but it seems to get great reviews by sites that actually know what they're talking about.
Connects to source via bluetooth so turns your headphones into a bluettooth enabled headset. Have a nice set of Oddo headphones (also ordered as a result of this forum 🙂 ) which don't get as much use as they might otherwise for this reason. Can't wait to see (hear?) the results.
Very interesting point in the above tread which I didn't know, not that I know much in this area. Noise cancelling headphones (such as the Sony WH-1000XM2...4) have a DAC built in that's optimised for NC mode and will probably give worse sound with NC off in wired mode even with a good external DAC. So if you're using a good set of NC bluetooth headphones don't bother with an external DAC as any gains will be marginal.
Me too! Like, does the Solent area have 4 high waters each day, or two prolonged high tides?
This blew my mind when I first sailed into the Solent, made me question my understanding of the world.
Does anywhere else have this phenomenon?
Thanks that;s useful so in conclusion is anything high quality like Tidal a waste of time with Bluetooth?
Thanks that;s useful so in conclusion is anything high quality like Tidal a waste of time with Bluetooth?
No, seems like it's ok
I was surprised that qobuz didn't have some titles that tidal has so I'm sticking with that. They were Carbon Based Lifeforms and some Scientist dub albums. I listen via a pi running picoreplayer and an allo boss dac into the main system and it sounds amazing! Listening to vinyl at the moment though which is also sounding great.
If I'm playing a track and it's labelled master, but my listening device isn't receiving it as such, will it still say master, or revert to hifi?
A guy I went to university with wrote a lovely book about tides and other watery stuff: