Well I am willing to bet tidal will have lost half its revenue lol.
I was thinking the same!
Guys, just three questions:
- When I play Tidal from Naim App the sound is lossless (of courseā¦). Itās correct???
- When I play from Tidal App the sound is lossy because AirPlay not support lossless format. Itās correct???
- When I play from Tidal App to headphones with bluetooth is lossless or lossy? Iādont knowā¦
AirPlay supports 16/44.1 lossless, as does Naim, so only Bluetooth will be lossy.
Airplay sound lossless?
Airplay has always supported CD quality lossless - the issue is whether or not is using Airplay sends CD quality lossless or something inferior.
If you ripped a CD to iTunes years ago you could Airplay it losslessly to an Airport Express and Apple TV 1.
Newer AppleTVs post ATV 1 muck around with the sampling rate, and none now have optical out. The Airport Express is discontinued.
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From the Apple.com discussions website:
āAirPlay (1 and 2) is capable of ALAC (lossless) streaming up to 44.1 kHz (48 kHz for video contents). Hi-res lossless (over 48 kHz) isnāt supported via AirPlay as a protocol, regardless of Apple Music. That said, Apple Music in its lossless form streamed via AirPlay isnāt only limited to 44.1 kHz (as expected like said before): unfortunately itās turned into a lossy (AAC) stream. It has been confirmed from various sources. Donāt ask me why.ā
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Ok, so is apple-music that has problems with the Airplay in lossless format.
This is incredible.
Currently.
Is that one of mine? Probably not.
Is it a user to user post or a quote from a likely recent article. My comments pre-date Apple Music entirely.
Iām getting old - it was originally called AirTunes.
I just downgraded from Hi-Fi Plus ($29.99) to Hi-Fi ($14.99). Iāll spend the savings on a SACD !
Yup i too have just downgraded from HiFi Plus to HiFi.
The issue is that at this point Apple seems to have put some great work into the content, but not yet the delivery outside of their own ecosystem. You can stream Apple Music to all current Naim streaming products via AirPlay2, but Apple (not the Naim) currently restricts the full potential of the sound quality. You can enjoy higher quality but only via cables from Apple devices and then on into your Naim; itās not a neat solution.
Letās see if Apple start to offer more integration options to manufacturers (not holding breath at moment!)
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A price reduction normally generates new sales.
Canāt Naim being Tidal hardware partners ask them this question directly. You should be getting the answers at 1st hand.
I guess Tidal intend to provide highest res files via MQA they want to push and earn more money that way.
Thanks for all the info so far. I have decided to leave Spotify due to procrastination re its hifi tier, its issues with podcasting and finally its CEOās investment in war mongery. So have taken up a Ā£2 for 3 months intro to Tidal, to quickly learn that my Uniti Atom is unable to work with Master files. The best I am receiving is CD quality, but it still sounds great. My decision will be whether to remain with Tidal reducing to the HiFi tier or whether to trial Qobuz. Rebuilding album choices and playlists takes valuable time. Qobuz offers potentially the highest quality audio with my audio system. Will my Uniti Atom and Kef ls50s hear the difference? What examples of external DAC would be needed to unfold MQAs? I have trialled Roon previously and, although it is an amazing system, its costs add up. Itās all an evolving situation. Making things future proof as far as possible seems somehow naive. Any other issues I should bear in mind? Thanks again.
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Having subsribed to both TIDAL and QOBUZ my reflection is that there is little difference in sound quality. Yes, if you compare one to one, I prefer QOBUZ, even for plain CD quality. So donāt let the high resolution MQA marketing language get to you. Please be aware that there are some tools available to easily transfer your library and playlists from TIDAL to QOBUZ (and the other way around), which I recently did and that worked perfect for me.
It only matters whether you will be able to hear the difference of course. 
2L has a set of different resolution audio files available that all come from the same master: 2L High Resolution Music .:. free TEST BENCH
As a first step, you could e.g. train your ears to hear the difference between a file in the original CD format and that same file in 24BIT/192kHz. If at this step you donāt hear a difference, you can skip the next step 
, because CD quality sounds just fine.
The second step would be to have someone else randomly play one of those two files, with you marking down what you think it is. Repeat this until bored or convinced. Compare what you thought you heard with what was actually played. See if you score significantly better than guessing. If you donāt, you donāt need higher resolution audio.
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