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Holy crap Tidal makes the audio system come ALIVE.

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Well you all convinced me to sign up for HiFi at $1 for 3 months. Excited to try it in my car, but so far I cannot play anything in the iOS app (yes, strong fast internet). The play button just spins for every track I try to play. Anyone else have this experience?
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Should I download the entire playlist in order to get it all songs on HiFi while driving? Where is it stored? I guess I can delete it later if needed?
If you use your phone's wifi hotspot (so your car and the Tidal app see it as a Wifi connection) then you can stream as Wifi.

What I have been doing though is downloading the playlist or album via my home WiFi before I leave on a drive.

The downloading logic seems a little "new" currently though; I and a couple of others in Australia (where I guess we are further from the Tidal content servers) have problems with the downloads stalling - for hours up to over a day - because (it seems, like the iOS app does) it suspends the downloads if it thinks the connection isn't fast enough. On the phone app you can go into the download queue and "nudge" it to download anyway, but in the car you have to wait until it decides to retry the download _and_ that it thinks it is quick enough now, otherwise it will just download one more track then stall again :(

My support ticket with Tidal about this has been escalated to their tech team but I haven't had a resolution yet. Worth persevering with though (IMHO) as the sound quality from their "HiFi" tracks - downloaded or streamed from my tethered phone - is excellent.
 
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Sorry, but is there a Tidal app to choose from to stream high bit rate music? I’m on an FSD Beta build and all I have is Spotify, TuneIn and “streaming”? For sources (and FM). When I had my Bowers & Wilkins equipped Volvo, I had to use Apple CarPlay to use Tidal connected via USB for it to work. It was pretty clunky. An app would be sweet? Sorry, but I didn’t plow through this whole thread to get the details. I just saw Tidal and got excited. !
 
Sorry, but is there a Tidal app to choose from to stream high bit rate music? I’m on an FSD Beta build and all I have is Spotify, TuneIn and “streaming”?
In firmware 2021.40.6 they added Tidal as an actual music source (like Spotify, etc). If you have a Tidal account (HiFi or higher tier) you can stream or download their lossless (“HiFi”) tracks while your car is connected to WiFi, and if you have downloaded them as lossless this way, you can play those lossless tracks back while connected just via LTE in the car. Sidenote: It appears you currently need premium connectivity or tether to your phone for wifi while driving in order for Tidal to (continually) check back to its backend servers that you have permission for playback of those downloaded tracks.
 
I tried Tidal previously and yes the quality can be Ok, but since I mostly use music off my USB drive with typically 320kbps mp3 although has compression that format, but to my 50+ yr olds ears won’t tell the difference hardly. Tidal just sounds Ok. The audio system isn’t anything special in the Tesla, it isn’t reference quality so to my ears everything sounds just good and not amazing. Audiophiles are picky and I been one since my teens and also a musician.

The Tidal app is a bit of a mess and features are really lacking IMO compared to Spotify as well. Price is more for a family plan compared to others services and my daughter didn’t like the app and features either. And if you use BT to stream from your phone you just killed some of the quality as well. You would be at 1/3 of the highfi plus 1192kbps if you did that. So you paid for something that was just undone by BT codecs.
 
I tried Tidal previously and yes the quality can be Ok, but since I mostly use music off my USB drive with typically 320kbps mp3 although has compression for size my 50+ yr olds ears won’t tell the difference hardly. Tidal just sounds Ok. The audio system isn’t anything special in the Tesla, it isn’t reference quality so to my ears everything sounds just good and not amazing. Audiophiles are picky and I been one since my teens and also a musician.

The Tidal app is a bit of a mess and features are really lacking IMO compared to Spotify as well. Price is more for a family plan compared to others services and my daughter didn’t like the app and features either. And if you use BT to stream from your phone you just killed some of the quality as well. You would be at 1/3 of the highfi plus 1192kbps if you did that. So you paid for something that was just undone by BT codecs.
I think most of us aren’t true audiophiles when we are streaming music and not from a downloaded source but in terms of streaming the quality is noticeable better. I agree the tidal interface needs an overhaul…not as polished as Spotify.
 
Sorry, but is there a Tidal app to choose from to stream high bit rate music? I’m on an FSD Beta build and all I have is Spotify, TuneIn and “streaming”? For sources (and FM). When I had my Bowers & Wilkins equipped Volvo, I had to use Apple CarPlay to use Tidal connected via USB for it to work. It was pretty clunky. An app would be sweet? Sorry, but I didn’t plow through this whole thread to get the details. I just saw Tidal and got excited. !
The FSD track has yet to receive the Tidal update. I think I'm gonna try it out myself once it becomes available...sounds pretty nice!
 
And if you use BT to stream from your phone you just killed some of the quality as well. You would be at 1/3 of the highfi plus 1192kbps if you did that. So you paid for something that was just undone by BT codecs.
Agree it would be really dumb to stream Tidal over bluetooth and expect anything better than 256k quality.
Where did the estimate of 1192kbps for HiFi+ come from? I would think it would be much higher than that.
 
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I have to ask….who the heck uses Tidal? Maybe I’m out if the Loop/Woke crowd? Have a family Spotify Premium account whole family uses….that’s after we all agreed and dumped Apple Music. There’d be a mutiny if I even mentioned Tidal.

Ski
I do. Have for a couple years now, after dumping my Sonos home systems for BlueSound units, hooked up to various stereos of varying levels of quality throughout the house, depending on the use.
With the current news cycle about Spotify, this certainly gave me the push to make the switch. I can't say how much I appreciate the Tesla/Tidal integration. It made the switch so easy!
I agree. Plus, I like the app better myself. My kids and wife had family Spotify, so by default i do too. And i like Spotify for certain stuff. Like the greater social network regarding shared playlists, and etc., and the metrics stuff is kinda fun. But if I had to dump one, it would be Spotify.
I tried Tidal previously and yes the quality can be Ok, but since I mostly use music off my USB drive with typically 320kbps mp3 although has compression that format, but to my 50+ yr olds ears won’t tell the difference hardly. Tidal just sounds Ok. The audio system isn’t anything special in the Tesla, it isn’t reference quality so to my ears everything sounds just good and not amazing. Audiophiles are picky and I been one since my teens and also a musician.

The Tidal app is a bit of a mess and features are really lacking IMO compared to Spotify as well. Price is more for a family plan compared to others services and my daughter didn’t like the app and features either. And if you use BT to stream from your phone you just killed some of the quality as well. You would be at 1/3 of the highfi plus 1192kbps if you did that. So you paid for something that was just undone by BT codecs.
For me, I find the opposite WRT the look and feel of the app, and how I use it, and the features I more care about. Also, I don’t use Bluetooth to do Tidal. That’s silliness.

I do miss Neil Young though. (He is in a spat with Tidal and pulled all his stuff). So I have to listen to him in other ways. I own most of his stuff though so I can just bring a USB or whatever when I get my car. Would be cool if you could connect a nice portable drive, and have a Roon application in the car too.

Also, I think CD Quality/Lossless is plenty in a car, given wind and road noise, etc. Maybe when I get my car, I can play hi-rez stuff downloaded and see what I think. But I think in a car situation that would be a stretch to really hear.
 
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Am I the only one new Tidal subscriber who’s noticing nearly every curated “popular” playlist is 95% rap or Adele? I find I have to do a lot of specific searching to find the other content. Spotify’s mixes seem to be easier in that regard while in motion.
Haha! Yeah, I picked Beck, Radiohead and Slowdive for my three "starter' artists and I noticed the same thing. We're apparently listening to the wrong music.

It would be nice if we could play downmixed Dolby Atmos versions of albums since we have a nice 5.1 system but Tesla hasn't seemed interested in that so far. The car is a fantastic place for surround music though. Anyone coming from an Acura ELS or similar system knows it!

New subscribers can get three months at $1/mo through Best Buy at the moment, including family plans:
 
I've been a Tidal subscriber for several years, using the app on my home high end stereo rig. It's basically replaced buying CDs or Hi-res tracks. Very excited that it's now available as an additional streaming source in Tesla's native interface. Have mostly used it via the MacOS app, connected to a DAC.

One question I've run into in the Tesla app is in My Collection -> Artists, it's using the default sorting priority of Date Added, which leads to a complete jumble. In the web browser or app I can choose "A-Z" so it's easier to find favorited artists. I haven't been able to find that option in the Tesla app. I tried setting that default in browser/app, then logging out and back in with the car app but it didn't change.

The Tidal interface works fine for the web or app where I have a keyboard and larger screen (and don't need to keep eyes on the road) but so far... not as happy with it vs Spotify. I've had Spotify a couple of times for 3 months and I find its interface cleaner and easier. (I've also done the 90 day trial of Apple Music and had a lot of problems with the interface such that I canceled.)
 
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