Tidal and in car audio with 2021.40.x

[Irata]

I wonder if that free tier will arrive in the UK and will it work in the car, unlike the Spotify free tier.

 

[Epyx]

How do I do that on an iPhone? Or is that an in-car setting?

Hotspot setting of your phone if available.

 

[Jeeves]

On an iPhone, there is a Maximise Compatibility toggle in Settings > Personal Hotspot. Amongst other things, this forces the phone's hotspot to 2.4 GHz (well it did when I just tested it).

 

[kael13]

My thoughts from the other side of the pond. The current Tesla music apps are pretty poor sound quality, so poor that I never use them as they are just fatiguing. Instead I'm using Qobuz on my phone over the bluetooth, and it still can be fatiguing.

I had Tidal Masters when it first became available in the US and thought that it sounded very good, but I never could quite wrap my head around how they were saying it worked. I have 2 different MQA DACs, neither high end, and also other DACs that would still sound good when played. I believe the first 'unfold' happens in the the software and brings enough of an improvement to be audible. Then Qobuz became available in the US and I immediately subscribed to that as well. I had both subscriptions running for about 6 months so I could use either. I found though that I used Qobuz much more since everything I listened to was available on both. If it were in MQA on Tidal it would be in hi-res on Qobuz. I dropped Tidal when the student discount I got ran out and I realized I wasn't using it. My setup is all tubes with DIY speakers designed by Troels Gravesen. There is just an ease of presentation in hi-res that you miss when you go down to CD quality and is ruined by compression completely.

As for cabin noise, I played hi-res in my Honda Odyssey and you could certainly hear the difference, even on the highway. It's the same thing, an ease of presentation and clarity. I sold my Odyssey when I bought my M3 and my daughter has the setup now in her 2009 Camry and it still sounds better than any other source in that car. The M3 is much quieter than either of those so I expect hi-res to sound much better in it too. And if it is not fatiguing the way bluetooth or low bitrate is I'll keep it on longer.

I'm just waiting now for the software update to happen in the car, I'll resubscribe to Tidal, and I've already changed my phone plan to allow for a high speed hotspot so I can download music on the road.

Haha I was reading your comment and got to the part where you found everything fatiguing and thought “I bet he listens to only tubes”.
Oh yep, further down, exactly right! I just think you don’t enjoy exact digital treble and like everything rolled off

I do think 96kbps is far too low for music on anything better than a Bluetooth speaker and certainly Bluetooth removes soundstage and depth from a track. But I don’t find it fatiguing at all.

Lastly, MQA is a joke format and total embarrassment. Just a way to sell a lossy format and licensing. Gross.

It would be nice if Elon could just add proper support for phones via USB and/or Apple Music.

 

[Zacster]

Haha I was reading your comment and got to the part where you found everything fatiguing and thought “I bet he listens to only tubes”.
Oh yep, further down, exactly right! I just think you don’t enjoy exact digital treble and like everything rolled off

I do think 96kbps is far too low for music on anything better than a Bluetooth speaker and certainly Bluetooth removes soundstage and depth from a track. But I don’t find it fatiguing at all.

Lastly, MQA is a joke format and total embarrassment. Just a way to sell a lossy format and licensing. Gross.

It would be nice if Elon could just add proper support for phones via USB and/or Apple Music.

I don't only listen to tubes, just my main system. All the others play just fine in hi-res. But to call that mish-mash of sound from bluetooth "exact digital treble" is just crazy. If it "removes soundstage and depth" how is it exact? It can't be both. And I find it fatiguing, my wife does too and she couldn't care less about sound quality. She thinks the whole thing sounds tizzy.

I drove my old Odyssey for about 10 years, it was the family-mobile. The sound was always mediocre but OK to listen. Towards the end I installed an analog aux input, bought a Dragonfly DAC and adapter for the phone and plugged it in and played Qobuz. It completely transformed the sound. The bass was deeper, the highs were extended and the entire presentation sounded more natural, all within the confines of a minivan. It almost made me want to keep it, although the kids were long gone. I just want that for the Tesla.

And MQA? I dropped Tidal in favor of Qobuz although I didn't find the MQA objectionable. I just don't see the need for it as we have plenty of bandwidth to just stream hi-res.

 

[irelandm]

TL;DR: How do the suggestion & auto playlist algorithms compare between Tidal, Slacker, and Spotify on our Teslas? Cuz the free Slacker sucks really bad.

More context:
So, a lot of this conversation has been about the technical specs and the audio capabilities of the hardware/software in our Teslas, and that's all find and good - excellent information all 'round. But what I want to know about is the other features of these music streaming services as compared with the basic stuff. Since it seems like the European & North American experiences are different, consider the following:

I am a Canadian, and as such I have a significantly limited number of options compared to my American and European friends. My Tesla is a 2018 Model 3 LR (non perf), with all the various premium options (since those were the only options available at the time anyway). The only music streaming options I have available are as follows: Slacker (free, or subscription), Spotify (subscription only), and now Tidal (subscription only).

My experience with (free) Slacker has been sad: The audio quality is obviously junk, but more importantly the catalogue & algorithms are absolutely abysmal. Granted, I don't have to listen to any ads. But I have no album-play options, and often if I search for a specific song and hit play, it will play something else from the algorithmically generated "radio" based on that song instead. Usually it's a different artist altogether. Very frustrating, and kinda embarassing when I have a guest in the passenger seat, considering what I paid for the car (there were no rebates or incentives in my region at the time, so I paid the full sticker price). Slacker also tends to recycle the same 20-30 songs on any of these particular "stations" ad nauseum, and its genre identification is awful, not simply because I listen to obscure music (which I sometimes do, but not exclusively). If I were to put on, Paramore, for instance, I'd expect to get other alt-pop-rock with some female vocalists; what I wouldn't expect is screamo metal. But I get screamo metal anyway, no matter how many tracks I thumbs-down, and sometimes it wouldn't play (in this example) a Paramore song for seemingly a dozen tracks.

I do have a YouTube Premium Family account (forced to switch after Google Play Music shut down, much to my dismay). What I like about it is the generally excellent artist suggestions, and the quite respectable automatic playlists. Audio quality is good, but whether its audiophile quality or not is almost irrelevant at this point. I'd rather hear a song I like in low-fi instead of a song I hate in high-fi, know'm'sayin'? If only YT Music was added to our Teslas, along with iTunes, Amazon Music, etc. All of these options are likely going to be, or already are, available on the Android OS going into the Polestar EVs, among others.

SO ... in short ... how does the artist exploration and auto-playlist experience compare with the abysmal Slacker if I were to try Tidal or Spotify streaming? Has anyone tried them all out in our cars yet? I'll probably just give the trial a whirl at some point, but I'd like to hear what others had to say.

 

[MrBadger]

We don't have Slacker in our Tesla's over here.

 

[Zacster]

We don't have Slacker in our Tesla's over here.

You're not missing anything.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I partitioned my dashcam/sentry usb device and have a music partition. I can determine the quality of the tracks and no losses introduced through streaming, it also means premium connectivity holds no attraction. The codec wasn’t great for a while but is passable but to be honest, the car is a little too noisy anyway

However I’ve lost the plot a little on why we’re discussing a format not available here in the uk sub forum.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

Tidal is starting to roll out in the UK.. Slacker was just brought up as an aside I think and only in a couple of posts.

 

[Dutchie]

I now have Tidal through software update. I like to give it a try but what subscription do I need? The HiFi one or the more expensive fancy one.
On the release notes it says you can download playlists through WiFi. so there is no streaming while on the road using Tidal? If it is only downloading playlists what are the benefits compared to just copying the playlist on the thumb drive? Thanks!

 

[Durzel]

Streaming works fine, like Spotify. If you download stuff then I presume it will play back at a higher bitrate. Not sure where it would download to in the car though?

TIDAL streams lower than "Hifi" (aka lossless) quality over LTE, but will stream at Hifi over wireless. You don't need anything higher than the Hifi level if you're playing it in the car.

 

[RagingWhisky]

Numpty question incoming (i'll get the body armour and sandbags ready!)

Is there any capability to amend the 'default' music streaming service for voice commands? I know there are the toggle functions for the music service icons, but hadn't (overtly) spotted any capability to amend the service that provides the music when i go "Play <song title>" on the voice command side.

I've never had a Spotify account (shock!) so always just used the Tesla 'free' in car service, but i've got an actual Tidal account and was curious whether there was any hope in setting which service responds (sods law there won't be)!

 

[Tony Hoyle]

Maybe 'play <song> on Tidal'? It's almost certain Tesla have forgotten to put in an option for default music service.

 

[Horatio Alger]

I use a USB stick filled with flac files. Its very hit and miss whether auto music playback works after ending a drive and returning to the car. Usually, it works about 1 in 5 times. Tried different USB drives / ports, disc formats etc. Nothing helps, and I have to select the USB drive from the soinds menu, which means it loses the position playback was at. It looks to me like a loading timing issue, where the USB drive doesn't finish start up before the sounds app tries to access it. Once it fails, it needs a car restart before there's any chance of it working.

Can anyone with Tidal and .40 using downloaded content in usb confirm that playback continues from where it left off after the car powers down?

 

[psuKinger]

'Scuse my ignorance, but will you really notice the difference with all the ambient noise in the car whilst driving?

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I'll give it anyway.

Proper couch: I consider myself an "audiophile." I have a Tidal (master's) subscription. I have a Qobuz sublime subscription. And I have a large collection of (mostly lossless FLAC) local files, and I have a piece of software ("Roon") that brings them all together and let's them live and interface under one awesome umbrella. I am confident that I don't have the biggest/nicest/most expensive A/V system on this forum... but on my best speaker system, and on my best headphone rig, I firmly believe in the value of lossless CD quality audio (and just well-recorded, well-mastered, *dynamic* and *clean* music, generically, whether it's only made available via beyond-CD-quality bit depths and/or wrapped around MQA formatting or not). I do believe I benefit from CD quality lossless over "popular" lossy services that stream at 256 kbps or 320 kbps when on my best equipment.

I also have a Spotify account (at first exclusively because it was the only thing that worked in our cars... but now my daughter has fallen in love with it and the access it gives to the music she loves, so I fear I'm stuck with it....).

I have an SSD in my tesla, which I loaded with every combination of FLAC file I own (16/44.1; 16/48; 24/44.1; 24/48; 24/88.2; and 24/96).

In my car and while driving down the road, I don't hear much difference between my high-bitrate-flac files (in any of those formats) and Spotify's 96 kbps streaming. I'm not sure if the reason for that is how Tesla reads locally stored FLAC files (bit-perfect? or resampled?), or road/wind noise, or just limitations with the speaker hardware (although my best guess is the first two are far more likely than the 3rd).

Sorry, I'm a simple soul and don't understand all these bit rate audio stuff being chucked around. I'm a punter with Premium Connectivity in the Tesla and Apple Music on the phone. How do I get optimum sound quality from what I have?

There would have to be extraordinarily better sound quality to justify an additional subscription for me. I do value sound quality. My home audio system is quite high-end in terms of speakers and amplifiers, but I don't use any good DAC on my sound sources.

Per the above, if you've got a real nice high-end system at home, I do think you'll benefit from Tidal. When you're at home. On your HiFi rig. I don't think you'll "extraordinarily better sound quality" from it while using it in the car.... but I haven't received the 2021.40 update yet, so I can't speak to it.

 

[Durzel]

Great post.

For what it’s worth Tidal Hifi sounded better to my ears than Spotify does, in the car, streaming over wifi. The car tells you what bitrate it’s streaming in with Tidal (you see a Hifi symbol)

It sounded pretty much equivalent to my SSD music, which is 99% FLAC.

If you have a decent sound system in your home then I think you’d see a benefit in going to the top tier Tidal, where you get Master quality stuff. Until recently Hifi & Master required the top tier, whereas now Hifi is available on the £9.99 p/m level.

This is all on 2021.40, incidentally, which is what Tidal was added on I think.

 

[Zacster]

I think the problem isn't whether you can hear a difference it is whether the difference is what makes you want to keep listening vs. turning it off. Quboz over Bluetooth still sounds like Bluetooth. The sound engineers spend all this effort to get everything just right during a recording, master it to CD quality or better, and then we let our phones mangle it to play it back? That makes no sense whatsoever. Or even worse, the car's streaming over whatever services they offered until now.

What I always end up coming back to is this, The Mother of the MP3. It is a long read but enlightening on how we got to this mess.

I am sitting
in the morning
at the diner
on the corner...

 

[Nick77]

I've listened to FLAC files in the car sitting quietly outside the house. I still couldn't hear the difference between that and Spotify's 360kbps Premium stuff.

I can however hear the difference between Tidal Masters and Spotify Premium via my aptX earbuds.

Maybe as above, Tesla's software doesn't reproduce lossless as well as people hoped.

 

[pgkevet]

..just downloaded 40.6.. 2018 MS
..too cold to go out and see what it says