Tidal to simplify plans it offers

Good news if not restricted to the US

Edit: changes being rolled out globally

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Good news for loyal Hi-Res Tidal subscribers. :grinning:

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Doesn’t mention people who pay annually, but hopefully they’ll also be included, otherwise Tidal will still have to keep the normal HiFi plan in existence until annual subscriptions lapse at their next renewal date?
I also wonder if this will “Break” or cause issues for 1st gen Naim streamers, e.g. if by default Tidal is going to try and play hi-res audio, what will they do? Wasn’t there an issue a month or so ago where 1st gen streamers couldn’t reliably play Tidal for a period and it was because they were being served >16bit audio? Or maybe I misremember that :slight_smile:

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I assume it would be technically possible for Tidal to identify a (1st gen. Naim) streamer and automatically send it a 16/44.1 stream instread of any higher res version that was available, just as they did when you selected an MQA version from a non-MQA device.
Some reassurance from Naim might be useful here.

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Got my email from Tidal this afternoon. Change from 10th April. Good news! :slightly_smiling_face:

Does this translate to 10.99 gbp? Which would be undercutting qobuz at ÂŁ12.99/month.

The Naim app searches the Tidal database for the user selected music. When it finds it, the app instructs the streamer to stream the music file from Tidal.

Presumably Naim could add a facility to the app, where user can instruct the app to only search for 16/44.1 music files.

But don’t hold your breath. :laughing:

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It would take a lot more than ÂŁ2/month to get me swapping from Qobuz to Tidal.

Getting excited about saving 7 New Pence a day. Is that a thing. :innocent:

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According to this what hifi article it does

I just read in a Naim Facebook group that the Uniti streamers with the current firmware won’t go higher that 16/44.1 with Tidal. We need a firmware update post-haste to access the higher quality files.

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I wish Naim would release the firmware update so we can take advantage of Tidal’s hi-res… Been in contact with their support since Jan 1st and at that time they had all they needed from Tidal to make it work and said tht firmware update would be out soon, jus been over 2 months, not sure what they consider “soon” :rofl:

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This true with the Naim app or Tidal Connect, but if you use roon, you can currently get up to 192/24. Still surprised Naim hasn’t updated their firmware yet.

I don’t think this would be necessary Chris. I have played many hi-res files locally thru my NDS and they have played flawlessly. Also, I have never had any issues with dropped files or the streaming ever cutting out, possibly because my unit was one of the last ones made in 2017 and they made some corrections by then?
The NDS is engineered to play 24/192 I believe, or at least 24/96. I haven’t had any signal droppage due to buffering issues, and really, why would I. Naim would have tested the NDS with 24/192 files for a good while thru the design process, before releasing it with promises that it would play hi-res.

Btw, does anyone know if Tidal now offers 24/96 files as Qobuz does?

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All the 1st gen streamers can handle up to 24/192 except for some of the very earliest models, but that is when using a UPnP server to stream files from local storage on your home network.
The very small buffer is big enough for this, but it cannot handle the additional latency of a stream from a remote server as the delays are longer, and the buffer tends to run out.
It took Naim a lot of tweaking of the streamer firmware, and some changes at the Tidal server end, to get this working with lossless 16/44.1 files, but unfortunately that’s as much as the buffer can handle. For 24 bit files you need to run a proxy server or a different streaming transport.

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Is this small buffer also an issue on the Uniti streamers?

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Atom, star, nova - buffer is large enough.

Everything that came before; too small. Uniti 1, uniti 2, superuniti, unitiqute etc.

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Thanks for the clarification.

I received my email today confirming I’ll get access to full hi-res FLAC at my current plan price of £10.99 per (Tidal, 30 day) month. I’m in the UK.

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So having just subscribed to tidal after the announcement I updated my ndx1 to 4.8 to allow tidal to work.
My ndx is a 2016 model and plays hi res from my qnap with no issues.
So Will tidal hi res not work ??:thinking:
Thanks

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I don’t know what would happen if you tried to sign into a hi-res subscription on your NDX, but even if it lets you, chances are you will have constant dropouts. Better to stick to the standard HiFi sub.

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