Tidal app download in car - what quality?

[voip-ninja]

Does anyone know what quality is used for Tidal audio tracks that are downloaded directly to the car?

I have Hi Fi Plus so I can listen at MQA but the tracks are quite large, CD quality is fine for me for downloaded songs, but I can't find any way to choose what is used in the car.

 

[voip-ninja]

Wanted to follow up on my own thread as I hadn't gotten a response.

Songs are downloaded in "Hi-Fi" quality. I believe this is 320kbps and similar to the quality that you get from Spotify. It is inferior to either CD or MQA quality as far as I know.

Additionally playlists are limited to 199 tracks. I have a road trip playlist with 346 tracks and only the first 199 tracks were downloaded. Now whenever the playlist is played it is truncated to 199 tracks, which is rather annoying.

 

[kpanda17]

 

[kpanda17]

Apple Music Audio Quality in Your Tesla Compared to Spotify and Tidal

Apple Music's audio quality does not compete with Spotify and TIDAL's in Tesla's in-car applications... yet.

www.notateslaapp.com

 

[voip-ninja]

View attachment 940561

You might get that bitrate when streaming on Wi-Fi but you will not get that bitrate streaming over cellular or from downloaded tracks.

 

[kpanda17]

from downloaded, fairly certain and I can hear the difference

 

[voip-ninja]

from downloaded, fairly certain and I can hear the difference

Downloaded tracks show in the app as being “Hi-Fi” and this is not an 1167kbps bit-rate. It is possibly CD quality but I’m not sure.

The bit-rate you cited in the earlier screenshot is from a test where someone STREAMED Tidal over Wi-Fi and looked at the stream rate. This is not the same bit-rate you will get from a downloaded track or a track that you stream to the car while you are using the car’s cellular connection.

 

[DelPhonic1]

Downloaded Tidal hifi tracks are 16bit, 44.1. Same as a CD, but not as good as you can get if you have a USB drive with higher quality files. But those hi-fi tracks sound absolutely wonderful, and totally blow away any other streaming service by far. Tesla sound system is so good, that when a song doesn't have hi-fi available, I can tell, and I get frustrated because I want to hear the song in better fidelity.

 

[voip-ninja]

Downloaded Tidal hifi tracks are 16bit, 44.1. Same as a CD, but not as good as you can get if you have a USB drive with higher quality files. But those hi-fi tracks sound absolutely wonderful, and totally blow away any other streaming service by far. Tesla sound system is so good, that when a song doesn't have hi-fi available, I can tell, and I get frustrated because I want to hear the song in better fidelity.

The sound quality difference between Spotify and Tidal is pretty noticeable. 16bit 44.1khz for the downloaded files makes sense to me, it would take a ton of space to store MQA or FLAC files of 24bit audio.'

I'm not sure what they stream to the car when it's on the 4G/LTE network but I am extremely skeptical that it's at the bit-rates that have been measured over Wi-Fi.

 

[DelPhonic1]

The sound quality difference between Spotify and Tidal is pretty noticeable. 16bit 44.1khz for the downloaded files makes sense to me, it would take a ton of space to store MQA or FLAC files of 24bit audio.'

I'm not sure what they stream to the car when it's on the 4G/LTE network but I am extremely skeptical that it's at the bit-rates that have been measured over Wi-Fi.

I’m assuming it’s 384k/sec which is not too bad.

 

[voip-ninja]

I’m assuming it’s 384k/sec which is not too bad.

Spotify must be capped lower than at like 128kbps because Tidal sounds noticeably cleaner, more dynamic range, etc.

 

[DelPhonic1]

Spotify must be capped lower than at like 128kbps because Tidal sounds noticeably cleaner, more dynamic range, etc.

128kbs sounds about right. Apple Music as well.

 

[Kevy Baby]

One thing I have noticed is that SOME tracks have a blue "Hi Fi" tag. No consistency on when I see it (I don't download tracks, so it is on streaming unless the tracks already downloaded at some point).

Overall, I have been happy with Tidal as a streaming source as far as quality. I wish it would remember where I left off on a playlist if I go to another source (almost always to USB FLAC files). But it has given me a chance to check out albums I might have normally not caught or wanted to spend the money on (this past week has been catching up on Thomas Dolby).

 

[voip-ninja]

Yeah, I've even had the MQA tag come up when I was streaming something in the car over WiFi. The biggest issue with Tidal in my opinion is the mind boggling lack of an option to randomize a playlist. Completely bonkers that it can't play things on shuffle.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Yeah, but it still isn't (overall) as bad as the USB music UX. That is just horriffic (although the song gap is much less)

 

[kermit1492]

Tidal streams over LTE/4G in "High" quality which is equivalent to 320kbps AAC. When streaming over wifi via hotspot the quality becomes lossless aka HiFi.

 

[DelPhonic1]

Tidal streams over LTE/4G in "High" quality which is equivalent to 320kbps AAC. When streaming over wifi via hotspot the quality becomes lossless aka HiFi.

When streaming downloads over wifi it’s 16b, 44.1— that is, if the green hifi button appears.

 

[kermit1492]

When streaming downloads over wifi it’s 16b, 44.1— that is, if the green hifi button appears.

…which is cd quality aka lossless

 

[DelPhonic1]

…which is cd quality aka lossless

It’s a confusing misnomer for me— my bad. To me, master quality is true lossless.

 

[kermit1492]

It’s a confusing misnomer for me— my bad. To me, master quality is true lossless.

Actually, master quality IS lossy despite higher resolution