On tidal you only get the hifi icon during a LTE session if you previously listened to that same song over WiFi. The car saves the hifi downloads for replay later. Take a look at a playlist to see.
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Model Y Subwoofer Bass Mod
- Thread starter teaston
- Start date
Last time I listened to DAB (various stations including BBC) in a Tesla (MX with premium sound) the sound quality was massively lower than with Spotify. Nowhere near the same dynamic frequency range or sound staging. It was so night and day worse that I've never bothered with DAB since. I'm keen to compare Spotify with Tidal.
All I noticed with DAB was very poor dynamic range compared to Spotify. Night and day worse. It just had less of everything from what I recall. Haven't tried it in the MY though.Nobody has mentioned that radio traditionally uses "dynamic compression" ... a different thing completely to the data compression schemes that are used to make file sizes and streaming rates use less bandwidth. It's one of the the reasons TV adverts sound punchier even when you don't turn up the volume. Dynamic compression of music on the radio was/is partly to aid undistorted transmission and when there's not much dynamic range between loudest and quiet sounds such that the noise floor comes into the equation (analogue). It is/was also to allow for the fact that radio is often played on devices with small speakers that benefit from a bass boost. The chances are that @teaston 's radio music comes with this dynamic compression, possibly even on DAB, but certainly on FM.
And it could well be a choice made by the radio broadcasters rather than an actual limitation of DAB itself. The higher level of background noise in cars (especially ICE) means that with a wide dynamic range you tend to lose the the quieter passages in amongst the noise… so dynamic compression keeps it all at an averaged audio level. This works better for listening to radio at fairly low levels in a noisy vehicle. However, when going for a more hifi experience in a quieter car and at a decent volume it’s not going to be what you want. The other sources obviously work better in that regard.
Pretty much flat with a little extra sub (+3).
Sometimes I increase the lowest bass +1 to +3 if it works for the song without getting boomy.
It's not that I'm against EA, but none of the adjustments seem to improve anything, so flat does less harm.
Sometimes I increase the lowest bass +1 to +3 if it works for the song without getting boomy.
It's not that I'm against EA, but none of the adjustments seem to improve anything, so flat does less harm.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
I'm no audiophile, so I doubt I would be able to tell the difference that you lot are talking about.
But my recollection was that when DAB first came out Audiophiles thought it was amazing. Then once DAB price dropped, and plenty of people "got one" (in cars / at home etc.), a large numbers of new channels were added, and compression (or whatever) adjusted to make room for them, with the result that the audio quality suffered. Whether anyone listened to those Mom & Pop channels - who knows?
DAB is based on ancient compression standards (MPEG-1 Layer 2 aka mp2 — predates mp3!). At high bitrates the quality is poor, at low bitrates the quality is outright terrible.
DAB+ was introduced a few years ago to allow the use of AAC+ with reasonably good quality. , DAB+ broadcasts are not available with DAB-only receivers, so are not many services using DAB+ because it limits the size of the audience and reduces the number of broadcasts available to DAB-only receivers .
DAB+ was introduced a few years ago to allow the use of AAC+ with reasonably good quality. , DAB+ broadcasts are not available with DAB-only receivers, so are not many services using DAB+ because it limits the size of the audience and reduces the number of broadcasts available to DAB-only receivers .
To my ears TIDAL HIFI (WiFi required, as mentioned previously) is night and day better than Spotify, or even TIDAL over LTE, to the point where I tether off my phone at the start of every journey now to benefit from it, even though I have Premium Connectivity.
This is on a Model 3 with the Premium interior and 13 speakers.
This is on a Model 3 with the Premium interior and 13 speakers.
Oh, you definitely would! When I had my first test drive in a Model X I put on DAB radio and my first thought was that the sound quality was poor. Flat as a pancake with no depth or separation. Switched to Spotify and the difference in sound staging, depth and dynamics was huge. It literally went from almost the worst to the very best sound quality I've heard in car. This was not a subtle change.
Note: I haven't tried DAB in our M3 or MY. Maybe it's better, maybe not. I suppose it depends on both the DAB source and the Tesla receiver/processing.
DAB is ancient history for me. If I really wanted to listen to radio in a Tesla I would use the Tune-in steamer. Last time I compared them, it sounded much better than DAB, although not as good as Spotify.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
I'm tempted to jump in the car and drive on over for some education
I haven't listened to DAB for several years, when I tried to use it instead of FM (for Radio-4 or similar) it dropped out so often as to be annoying. I thought the point of DAB was that the whole country could be covered with a single transmitter (or something like that), and if the signal split going round a building, and the receiver got both feeds but slightly out of sync, the receiver could sort that out and be seamless ... but that wasn't my experience. Same problem with Internet streaming sources too when I go through a poor reception area. Flat as a pancake round here, so FM rarely a problem ... but rural, so streaming, OTOH, has plenty of drop-out points.
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