I switched from Spotify to Tidal about 6 months ago. As happy as I am with the music quality, I still cannot stand how poor of an app Tidal is not only of the desktop but also on mobile.
If anyone has any remedies or tips please share them on how to make the experience of using Tidal less shit.
For instance, many people may not know that Plex has Tidal integration completely free. So you can technically use the Plex app instead of the Tidal app on mobile. Any downside? One of many is that you can’t search your own playlists… very frustrating for me.
Also, you can block artists on Tidal, which is very helpful as Tidal is mainly marketed towards hip hop but I absolutely hate seeing artists such as “post malone” pop up first while I’m searching for “Pearl Jam.” My “favorited artists” that I save clearly relate to Rock over any other genre. Spotify has perfected this.
You can also zoom out on the Tidal desktop app by holding ctrl ±
It’s the little things i guess. I am very picky when it comes to this kind of stuff.
For those who say “burn CD’s” or “purchase lossless”:
I do have dozens of my CDs ripped into foobar but I am listening to new music consistently and the convenience of streaming is unparalleled. Also takes up no room on my phone storage
Thanks for any suggestions I am just a man trying to hear my songs.
As far as I know, Tidal doesn’t provide an offline mode for desktop users. So I used Plex to manage Tidal on my desktop previously. But Plex unables me to search my playlists as you mentioned. Then I turn to a third-party tool to download my Tidal playlists on the desktop for offline playback. Many different brands I tried, and AudFree Tidal Music Converter is the best one, if you need to solve the same problem, maybe you can give a shot.
It’s a bit of an investment, but I run Roon at home; it has a great interface and pretty much seamless Tidal integration.
I use the Tidal web interface at work and whatever I mark as a favorite will show up in Roon at home.
Not sure the asking price is worth just making Tidal less clunky, but it’s wonderful for library management and for playing back music on multiple zones. I nervously plunked down $500 for a lifetime license, and within an hour I had decided that was some of the best money I’ve invested in this hobby.
FYI - Roon has a tiered architecture. You need one device on your home network to act as the Roon Core (server). The Core is responsible for managing streams to all of your Endpoints as well as maintaining a rich metadata database for all of your media. Your Core can be a Roon install running on a Mac/PC/Linux box, or a dedicated box such as Roon R.O.C.K (a Linux image designed to run on certain Intel NUC hardware).
Point here is, have a plan for where to run a Core before you sign up for the trial.
Roon Endpoints are devices or computers that receive and process Roon audio streams from a Core. You can have as many as you like. You can use the same computer as both a Core and an Endpoint.
Roon Remotes are mobile apps for phones and tablets. They can control and direct streams to any endpoint, move streams between endpoints, etc. You can also stream directly to a Remote.
So, the long answer is essentially, yes–the phone app works well. There’s a limitation tied to screen size and the version of the GUI you get; I think 8" is the smallest you can go before you have to use the more compact phone interface. I have used a small Galaxy A tablet and that works well with the higher density GUI, but the phone interface is still easy enough to navigate.
Here’s a video review of Roon from ~4 years ago. It’s a bit long, but will give you a sense of what Roon can do. It has only gotten better since; recently they also added Qobuz integration.
Yeah I would love to use roon, it looks awesome and a amazing listening experience, but I’m not paying that much for a fucking media player no matter how good it is hahaha do they ever do sales/discounts on the lifetime memberships?
Agreed. I was really uneasy about the cost of the lifetime license (not to mention another several hundred for a NUC), but less than an hour into playing with Roon I decided that was some of the best money I’ve ever invested in HiFi.
In a nutshell: I have seamlessly integrated my large collection of CD rips with Tidal. I can stream anything I want to one or more zones in my home, transfer tunes between zones, and link zones for whole house audio. Roon ensures that streaming quality is as good as any endpoint will support and lets me see the entire playback chain. I can explore my music collection and find new music with unprecedented ease, because EVERYTHING is hyper-linked. I listen to Tidal at work using the web interface, and anything I favorite shows up in Roon when I get home. And that’s but a fraction of the quality of life improvements Roon delivers. I’ve had some good times sitting in front of the HiFi system with friends and using Roon like a jukebox–anyone can use their phone + Roon Remote to add songs to the current playlist.
I would get a roon licence, but tbh I already had equipment to host my own custom made stuff that suits me better, but otherwise it has to be the most feature rich and simple/reliable music software I have used.
If you have a large collection and invested in a good system already, it makes sense. Otherwise I would not suggest it if you are anywhere near just starting out, as you should focus your budget elsewhere
I don’t get Roon. I thought it was the most complete and promising streaming service ever, and then realized, what the hell, it isn’t even a streaming service (like tidal/spotify), just an interface. To each their own, but to me that’s like paying 10$ a month for wikipedia. And you need a server for it.
I just don’t get it. Roon is like, enterprise-audiophile stuff.
If any actual streaming service one day includes Roon in the price, in the app/website, hell yes, I’ll be interested. But right now Roon is definitely not for everyone.
Some info on Roon since I’ve spent the better part of a month looking for what I wanted. Roon isn’t about music quality or selection. Roon is about your experience listening to your music. So basically if listening to music for you isn’t an experience or dare I say occasionally a “ritual”. You don’t need it, save your money.
I had a similar reaction when I first started looking at it, why should I give them money when all they’re doing for my money is showing me my own content in a pretty and organized way? It’s certainly not of value if that’s your perspective. Where Roon shines is in the associations it creates with your music, being able to deep dive into producers, musicians, bios, and a myriad of other associations between the music you’re listening to or music you enjoy and opening up an infinite branching out point from there into other new content.
Even if you add this IMO it’s still not enough for someone like me that listens to music in my car, with a iPod. My desk with a local library shared for iTunes & Foobar and in a living room stereo setup where I stream music from or listen to CDs. In other words, I don’t have multi room, multi environments, multi homed systems and management of my systems is limited to right there and now type of control. In other words I don’t need to control a downstairs den listening area and have a system that I also want my music in when I’m summering/wintering in a vacation home. No vacation home.
So for a guy like me Roon is nice from an experience standpoint but I’m leaving a lot of the benefits of it on the table. Enter the Elac DS-S101G Music Server. It includes a perpetual Roon server/endpoint license that allows me access to most of the Roon services that index and branch your music into the infinite realm of artist and genre music association and it does it for no $500 lifetime Roon license or monthly recurring charge. Elac obviously worked a deal with Roon, but the failure of the system to get traction means that the device now can be found for way less than its original $1100 price, typically under $400. Basically you get a lifetime Roon license for ONE endpoint location, for free.
For me, that’s a perfect scenario. I get the benefits of Roon without cost but limited to the one place where I sit to have a musical experience listening while browsing an iPad for the Roon content.
Ok, edit to myself; use the app at each location. But now have to hardwire to ethernet to tap the server, hmmm. But i don’t have any music on files, i only stream services, thus for someone like me i still can’t justify it or the added expense of having to figure out how to hardwire my other systems, and no idea how to add the 2 HOme theaters to it…
Dammit, still can’t make it worthwhile.
Ok, so if i were to buy one of these things i would have to hard wire it to my internet in one location and then for the other 4 locations where i usually stream my music via bluetooth or xbox i need more Roon endpoint equipment. Is this correct? I could not get music to my other systems otherwise.
do they ever do sales/discounts on the lifetime memberships?