Tidal and in car audio with 2021.40.x

[bo3bdar]

I just don't think these streaming service comparisons are particularly illuminating. How do you know, with certainty, that Spotify and Tidal are using the same master for your comparison? Too much anecdote, not enough data.

Because I'm not willing to throw my hands in the air and just give up? And also, the errors that I'm hearing are far, far worse than any differences in masters. This isn't a $20,000 home stereo here, I'm trying to find something that is simply out of the crap stage, and not trying to find perfection. Lastly, the stuff I listen to is totally obscure and typically there has only ever been one CD released, not even remasters or greatest hits.

As a really good example, listen to the same song on Spotify and Slacker streaming. Which master was used is the least of your worries.


My goal is actually pretty simple- most convenience with best quality. I'm willing to pay for the streaming service if it's good enough, and the convenience of streaming services is far superior to the clunky USB player in the car. The USB player doesn't show in searches or voice commands, which is a real loss. However, if the services ultimately can't meet my minimum bar for quality, then I'll just put up with the USB player.

I've been using Spotify Premium over Tesla Premium Connectivity for the last three months on a free trial. Good long test case, with my stereo tuned a bit using REW and the 5 band EQ. Everyone is different, but this is right on the edge of being acceptable to me. The convenience is unbeatable. $20/month for both needed services is not particularly attractive. Pros and cons. The Tidal at $10/month is terrific sound quality with partially broken convenience. The USB is free outside of organizing and managing my files, but the Tesla player is just terrible while driving.


As a side note, got my hearing checked last year, and I can still hear 18KHz, so my hearing is pretty good. 0% hearing loss, no notches or lost ranges. A long while back, I did a long comparison testing of mp3 files, to try to figure out what I could hear version the compression. 128kb was never acceptable for me, but I wanted to find out what the cap was where I could no longer hear a difference. For me, I needed 320kbs for standard mp3, or 192kbs VBR mp3s, where I could not hear any loss. I haven't done that test in years, but this is my metric for 'good enough.'

 

[browellm]

No, I won't listen to it on Slacker because we don't have that service in the UK. Cheers.

 

[skshimer]

I think if you want to take full adavantage of the Tesla Tidal app you need WiFi connected to your phone. Tidal streams lossless and uses 0.4-0.5 Gb per hour. I think bo3bdar is correct and Tidal is streaming at 96 kbps when using Premium Connectivity. I have asked Tidal about the streaming on WiFi vs Premium Connectivity and they have forwarded my question to the Tech team. Hopefully they will answer this question definitively.

I also wish Tesla would implement a good system for USB music management or at least let me plug my phone into the USB port instead of having to listen to poor music quality through Bluetooth. Feels like Tesla is trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to listening to music. Such a waste of their and my time.

 

[Zacster]

I also wish Tesla would implement a good system for USB music management or at least let me plug my phone into the USB port instead of having to listen to poor music quality through Bluetooth. Feels like Tesla is trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to listening to music. Such a waste of their and my time.

This is what I just don't get. They either went out of their way to prevent decent music from getting into the system, or started from scratch without a clue on how to do it, or someone who shall remain nameless thought that MP3 was state of the art and didn't even know what streaming was.

 

[psuKinger]

I hear what you're saying, but I guess I don't agree. I find the highs to be shrill and not well balanced at all. And it sounds like these speakers have a big hole in the frequency response. I've built all of my home speakers myself, and I guess I'm spoiled by ScanSpeak silk dome tweeters and their woofers. Even my small Fostex derived speakers do this better. No bells and whistles, just solid sound with great imaging. I have both tubes and solid state amps too, so it isn't one or the other. I have the venerable Rega Planar 3 turntable with Grace tonearm, and an all digital setup that streams anywhere in the house using Raspberry Pi. So I do run the gamut with audio.

But I'm also old, ugh. My taste in music is also classic rock and I think these boomy bass heavy systems don't get it right either. The one aspect of audio I don't get is in cars. The specs that are used, what is important to them, WATTS!!!! They rate speakers in watts on the assumption that everyone is going to blast everything to max volume while driving down the street.

But back to the M3 SR+, I find that it sounds good for the first song or two but then my interest in hearing it fades due to listening fatigue. While playing a "Top 100-50" of all time classic rock playlist today, not every song would sound good and a bad recording sounds even worse. Here's a sample. These aren't my choices but are from the local classic rock station's annual survey.

View attachment 739647

+1 I totally agree with this. I had naively hoped for more, and maybe the reality is this is "fine for car audio," as in, "this is what good car audio is," (and that's fine, in that case), but it does not sound to my ears like "HiFi". The mid-bass is boomy bloomy and fat and overstated, the ultra-low stuff (really hard to do, laws-of-physics type stuff, whether that's for modern computer-generated pop or old-school ultra-low-end organ music) is relatively absent.... but most importantly the treble is just uninspiring. It doesn't have any airiness to it, it doesn't image very well or create any sense of space at all compared to my in-home gear... I am ok with accepting that this is just maybe the limitation of in-car audio? I don't hear much of a benefit between personally, between my USB Flac files and my (low-bit-rate) integrated Spotify account... and I absolutely do hear a difference between those same files and that same Spotify sub (at a higher bitrate) when I'm at home on my best gear.

I still don't have 2021.40 yet so maybe Tidal integration will do a better job than how the OS reads flac straight off a USB, and I will be impressed/pleased...

 

[psuKinger]

Tidal as implemented on the car appears to only support HiFi quality at best, ie CD quality (44.1k/16). So comparing it against another lossless format, or a CD source should give parity. It sounds like that has what been achieved. Job done. It would have been a different story had you made the argument of Tidal Master quality (on equipment designed to play at a higher quality of what Master can offer vs Apple lossless, but even then, not all masters are better than 'CD' quality. What Tesla Master quality allows is higher than CD quality material to be streamed, but as it appears not to be supported in the car, then Tidal HiFi = CD = Apple Lossless (at source) = xxx CD Lossless, no better and should be no worse although no experience of how well Apple Lossless would transfer in car. Hence my earlier comment that Tidal HiFi is the tier that would suit most, unless playing at home or, adding this one in, wanting to contribute a bit more to the originators of the music.

Ironically, 'CD' quality has been available in car for decades, the step forward should not be commenting on quality (even if much of the industry did take a backward step on quality vs convenience), but on bringing CD quality and convenience and instant access to a huge library of material, rather than having a 6 CD changer or scrabbling on the floor to grab the next CD to play.

Now, whether high resolution (ie better than CD quality) would be discernible in the car environment is rather a moot subject, although in car FLACs at 96/24 (twice the resolution of CD) will play.

However, this all detracts from the true question of, does Tidal offer better quality than Spotify when played in the car? I don't know as I don't use Spotify, but all I know is that the in car Tidal offers a better interface than accessing my USB/FLAC media at same quality with a much larger library that is easy to access. Job done as far as I am concerned, but then I have been a Tidal subscriber for many years so I have no financial comparison to consider. But for those who already have committed to another service, or might want have start paying for material, or swap provider, then a different conclusion may be made.

For some, having access to high resolution material, ie better than CD quality, or in the case of Tidal Masters, at the quality of the original Master, Tidal offers that in a streaming format over the internet/WAN with modest bandwidth requirements. That level of quality is available in download/file/LAN often from material from unknown province (ie a lot of high resolution material is simply 'CD' quality that has been up sampled - nothing wrong with that if done properly, but up sampling can be performed very well by many pieces of kit so it is not necessary to sell it at premium as hi resolution) but what Tidal Masters does is bring parity at that level. And that allows access to a huge catalogue of material for those that want the best out of their equipment, but for those that don't, there are other solutions, but very few equals.

As long as the car will still play the "studio master" recording (which sometimes is a different mastering than the CD redbook release, has more dynamic range, a lower avg gain, etc), at CD-quality (16/44.1) bitrate, I'd be very happy with that.... if instead, the lack of beyond-CD-quality capabilities means we don't get access to the "better mastering" version of an album (at "HiFi" or even "High" Tidal quality), that would be a disappointment for me... I have no insight on that, I"m only asking the question. My car still hasn't updated to a firmware that supports Tidal integration.

 

[spon88]

My findings so far with Tidal in the car are mixed. It's definitely better than Spotify when on wifi but that's not much good sat in the drive. That said, I do see some tracks noted as hi-fi even when I'm out and about on premium connectivity, even where I haven't downloaded them - still trying to work that out.

I've also had quite a few problems showing "loading error" and the only way I could get Tidal working properly again was to reboot the car.

Sound quality wise, out and about i.e. off wifi, I'm not hearing much of a difference between Spotify and Tidal so far. So I guess the bandwith issue is limiting. For the Tidal downloads, I don't see where you can access the storage to see the status, delete etc? Overall it's definitely progress but still some way to go. I'll hang on to my Tidal account for now in the hope that it brings something better to the car. In the house it's not delivering anything I can hear over Amazon HD or ripped FLAC files, even with the fancy MQA DAC. At least with my old ears

 

[Tony Hoyle]

If you go into the album there's a download/queue button and if you've already downloaded it that changes into a delete button.

 

[spon88]

If you go into the album there's a download/queue button and if you've already downloaded it that changes into a delete button.

Thanks for that

 

[Horatio Alger]

Just to point out. If you sign out of your Tidal account, any previously downloaded music is deleted. I fixed a "stuck" download by doing this.

 

[gangzoom]

Spent a good 45 minutes in the car listening to Tidal streamed whilst waiting for my daughter to finish a class. It's 100% better quality streamed than Spotify on Tesla connectivity.

The Tidal 'app' on the car is more buggy than the Spotify version, but the Spotify app was far worse implemented for years before Tesla sorted it.

 

[bo3bdar]

This is what I just don't get. They either went out of their way to prevent decent music from getting into the system, or started from scratch without a clue on how to do it, or someone who shall remain nameless thought that MP3 was state of the art and didn't even know what streaming was.

Exactly this. The Tesla premium stereo is amazing. Serious thought and effort went in to it. Best OEM car stereo on the market today, from any brand. (You can do better aftermarket of course.) And then... they cripple it with shitty low bandwidth streams like Slacker, and the piss poor UI of the USB player. It's incomprehensible.

Spent a good 45 minutes in the car listening to Tidal streamed whilst waiting for my daughter to finish a class. It's 100% better quality streamed than Spotify on Tesla connectivity.

The Tidal 'app' on the car is more buggy than the Spotify version, but the Spotify app was far worse implemented for years before Tesla sorted it.

Interesting. Doesn't match my experience or what @spon88 sees. When I'm on strictly connectivity, it's noticeably worse than Spotify.

If you guys could put your car in your signature, that would help a lot. I don't have the premium audio of a LR for example, so the experience might be completely different. However, I'd expect people with the premium stereo of a LR would be better able to discern differences, because the LR stereo is quite a bit nicer than the SR, and makes low bitrates much more obvious.

 

[browellm]

Again all fun anecdotes chaps, but unless someone does controlled testing under reproducible conditions that's all they'll ever be.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

If you guys could put your car in your signature, that would help a lot. I don't have the premium audio of a LR for example, so the experience might be completely different. However, I'd expect people with the premium stereo of a LR would be better able to discern differences, because the LR stereo is quite a bit nicer than the SR, and makes low bitrates much more obvious.

I expect differences in perception would make as much if not more difference the premium/non premium difference.. we all hear slightly differently which is why there's never any consensus on what the best headphone, etc. is. and so there's no right answer on what sounds better - it depends on who's listening.. which is perfectly fine.

 

[gangzoom]

Interesting. Doesn't match my experience or what @spon88 sees. When I'm on strictly connectivity, it's noticeably worse than Spotify.

I have standard audio, but upgraded the speakers to some decent stuff. I've tried the 'premium' audio in S/Xs and to be honest they sound pretty poor to my ears, as essentially they are the same speakers as base but with more and added sub I really struggled to understand why people rated the Tesla system so highly? Adding loads of low quality speakers doesn't really improve sound quality in any setting, certainly not in any conventional HiFi setup. Most of us am sure rather listen to a decent stereo setup versus a 'home cinema' system at home.

These are the speakers in the car currently, I half thought of adding a sperate power amp+sub but decided it wasn't needed as I don't listen to that much stuff with base. I notice the latest KX3 version Focal has given into the marketing push for 'more is better' with an additional twetter

Kit audio automobile K2 Power EC 165 KX2 - Focal

The Focal kit ES165KX2 in K2 Power line is the result of extensive research in acoustics to push back the limits of performance, power and precision.

www.focal.com

For me any ways streaming on Tidal is noticeably better than Spotify. When stationary any volume louder than 5 is bordering on anti-social, versus on Spotify where I would often have the volume turned up to 7 and still find it lacking.

 

[Durzel]

Out of curiosity - for those of you with iPhones, did you have to enable "Maximise Compatibility" in the hotspot settings for your Tesla to connect to it? I couldn't get mine to connect to my hotspot for love nor money using the default settings for the hotspot.

 

[Bootneckshuffl]

Just downloaded Tidal and he a quick blast of it in my M3P.

Would like to say I could see a difference between that and Spotify yeh and I defo echo previous posts comments on volume for sure, had to turn it down in Tidal. The instrument separation on a Micheal Buble Xmas song (the wife’s choice) was amazing, not sure that I’ve noticed clarity like that on Spotify.

Does anyone know what bitrate Tidal streams at in the car? Is it actually better than Spotify?

 

[bo3bdar]

Again all fun anecdotes chaps, but unless someone does controlled testing under reproducible conditions that's all they'll ever be.

From Tesla v2021.3.2.21

 

[browellm]

I can post unrelated graphs too

 

[bo3bdar]

I can post unrelated graphs too

Dude, I don't understand you. Why are you pissing in the pool? We are here to learn new things and understand differences, maybe figure out how things work. Your only answers are "Give up. It's hopeless. You can't do a good job anyway. It's not real science."

I made that graph in my car using REW and a Umik microphone to profile the stereo before I modify it. People talk about how the SR stereo is crap- that graph proves they are wrong. I've profiled and EQed stereos for years. It's not magic, and not everyone's opinion is valid.

This is the same sort of thing that Travis did with his car profiling: Tesla Model 3 Stereo - Part 9: Summary and Lessons Learned

But of course I'm sure you'll say he didn't do a proper job either.