About to leave Tidal, but what's next?

[merifon]

So did I, then went back to Qobuz.
I still don't trust Tidal.

MQA have/had many different aspect and suffered from bad presentation, mainly from its creators and a lot of misunderstanding of how it works and what level of applications can have. To simplify, it is/was lossless in audio band and lossy for the ultrasonic part. Since Tidal dropped MQA by long time ago and its use for HD masters derived and replaced them with original HD Flacs, this kind of application it's no more significant.
MQA was also applied to CD quality masters and delivered with 44.1KHz 16bit MQA files. In this case, the one recalled by video you post, MQA encoding was just a file flag telling to dac to use custom MQA upsample to 88.2KHz and antialias filter, just another type of dac filter, and the PCM part is identical to normal CD Flacs.
Since this equivalence, there wasn't any reason to completely replace files. Tidal removed just flag but some DAC, like the BluOS ones, still recognize the former MQA structure and activate upsampling and custom antialias filter.

Like it or not, I find that the topic of MQA is generally treated superficially, as in the video reported.

 

[WmB]

So did I, then went back to Qobuz.
I still don't trust Tidal.

Still no

 

[WmB]

Am I getting it right if Apple music
*Dont have support in Wiim Amp/app
*The highest quality from iPhone therefore is airplay (not great)

Apple Music is worthless with a Amp?

 

[hgo58]

Apple Music support Chromecast and with good quality.

 

[Burnside]

Apple Music support Chromecast and with good quality.

Not if you’re on iOS…

 

[WmB]

Apple Music support Chromecast and with good quality.

But then my LG tv, Apple TV or wiim amp is no use ?
I need a chromecast separately in a hdmi-port?

 

[WmB]

Not if you’re on iOS…

Yeah that’s what I thought

 

[hgo58]

Not if you’re on iOS…

Yes you can! With Google home app. Make sure your Chromecast is set up through Google Home app and add Apple Music as media.

 

[Burnside]

Yes you can! With Google home app. Make sure your Chromecast is set up through Google Home app and add Apple Music as media.

I don’t have an Apple Music subscription to verify the quality of that route but given Chromecast doesn’t support the lossless ALAC format Apple Music uses, I suspect it’s delivering lossy AAC just like AirPlay.

 

[Dennis from Venice]

I changed from QOBUZ and Apple when Tidal lowered their price. Tidal has a good user interface. I couldn't get used to Apple.

But here's another point of view.... https://www.pcmag.com/categories/streaming-music-services

 

[Burnside]

Yes you can! With Google home app. Make sure your Chromecast is set up through Google Home app and add Apple Music as media.

Once you’ve done that, how do you then get the Apple Music app to cast using Chromecast? What steps would you need to take?

 

[BK308]

I still have Apple Music. I used a Apple TV
-> Tv -> WiiM amp. Honestly the quality wasn’t as good as the native WiiM integration with the other streaming services. Apple Music though my tv sounded more compressed and dull sounding vs the other guys. If you have to use a chromecast in the hdmi for Apple Music than I don’t think it’s worth it.

 

[BK308]

Once you’ve done that, how do you then get the Apple Music app to cast using Chromecast? What steps would you need to take?

This seems like way too many steps to get Apple Music. I don’t think it’s worth it.

 

[Burnside]

This seems like way too many steps to get Apple Music. I don’t think it’s worth it.

I’d still like to know how it’s done as I suspect it’ll be no better than airplay as Chromecast doesn’t support ALAC.

 

[KNVPStudios]

Qobuz + Roon.
Life is too short.

This.

 

[Weathercade]

Any thoughts on Deezer? Would any of you recommend it?

Deezer is limited to CD quality and has no queue management options with WiiM or Chrome Cast. I want to use Deezer because they are trying to a good deal for artists on streaming platforms and if we don't start trying to get a decent income for the artists we love, music will suffer. Sadly though the limitations of their service is a deal breaker, CD quality I can live with but I need queue management.

I wont use tidal because of the Jay-Z ownership and the fact that they fudge the streaming numbers to support their favorites, thereby robbing other artists of their rightful income. You can read about it here

Qobuz is brilliant but their catalogue is the most limited of all the streaming services (in Australia) and I listen to a lot of alternative and indie music.

That leaves me with Amazon Music Unlimited who are an evil corporation but no more evil than Apple, Google or Spotify (who are the worst of all).

Edit: I know this will be unpopular but Roon is way overpriced and a friend of mine who swears by Roon conceded that streaming outside of Roons DSP actually gave a better listening experience.

 

[adias]

I’d still like to know how it’s done as I suspect it’ll be no better than airplay as Chromecast doesn’t support ALAC.

That process assigns Apple Music as the default audio source for Google’s speaker ecosystem. I tried it but that’s what it does. One can’t Chromecast to a WiiM device. No use for me.

Re Apple Music and AirPlay: Apple’s AAC implementation is excellent. The difference between AAC’s Airplay 2 and a direct to DAC lossless connection is very small. For anything other than critical listening is actually very good. I subscribe both to Qobuz and Apple Music and I prefer Apple. Sound quality the same or better, far better metadata, especially for Classical Music subscribers.

For background listening I Airplay to Audio Pro A10 and from there to a WiiM group. For critical listening I use a dedicated iPad connected to a DAC.

 

[KNVPStudios]

Yes you can! With Google home app. Make sure your Chromecast is set up through Google Home app and add Apple Music as media.

I just tried this, thanks! What’s the best way to invoke commands if I don’t have a Google hardware device with a microphone? And what resolution is Apple Music being cast? Lossy 44.1/16?