TIDAL Music Service streaming / MBPS required?

Hi all,

Need some help from the computer guys on this Forum.

From what I've read on their website, TIDAL streams at 1,411 KBPS for the "highest" quality, which is the equivalent of 11.29 MBPS.

My current e-mail provider can supply, at my internet connect via phone line, 1.5 MBPS and the rep that I talked to said this would not be a problem if I wish to stream TIDAL.

Based on the above, I would think I need a minimum of 11.3MBPS.

Can someone clarify please? This doesn't sound right.

Will I have dropout issues if less than 11.3?

Thank you all in advance for any insight.

GG

Gordon, 1,411 kbps = 1.411 mbps i.e. 1000 times less.

For the cheaper non-CD TIDAL subscription it will work but not well. 3 mbps just about works at CD quality but you'll get dropouts. I currently have 38 mbps and it is OK. But all services seem to suffer a bit at times of stress. Qobuz, Spotify, TIDAL you name it eventually you will get stutter. Friday 6pm here is a bad time for TIDAL as everyone gets home from work after a hard week.

Basically, double the required speed works but not well. The more multiples you can get of the fundamental required base speed the better.

Thanks Justin. I should have known that.

So 1.5 MBPS is inadequate for quality Tidal streaming with minimal dropouts.

I'm checking to see if I can get 60 at my house.

Very helpful input my friend.

Gordon - are they talking "megabits" per second, or "megabytes" per second?

It is highly likely your 1.5 line will be megabits, not megabytes. That is, 1500kbps. Maximum. The actual will be somewhat lower - you can go to speedtest.net (or the like) to verify.

For megabits, Justin is right. For megabytes, divide by eight again. If you had 1.5 megabytes per second than it is likely that would be enough for any audio steraming imaginable.

For Tidal, they stream in FLAC, so although the intrinsic bitrate will be 1,411, the actual bitrate will be determined by compression - usually around half. 700-800 kbps or so.

Now - whether it will work on your line - that depends on a quite a few things - some of which Justin has touched on. Things such as congestion, contention, etc all affect the actual bitrate that you can successfully stream. It may be that you are getting 1.5M, and have really low contention / latency and it might work really well. On the other hand, you might have 5 or 6M and have high contention and going through a RIM multiplexer and dropouts at busy times or all the time. It really just depends on your area and the technology being used. You'll just have to try it. But as above - speedtest.net will show you precisely what you can sustain.

Interesting.

For a CD, 44,100 x 16 bit ( 2 bytes ) per sample is only 88.2 kbps if this were just raw data.

There is definitely a chunk of overhead with TCPIP network traffic and error recovery.

But that is 16 times more information at 1,411 kbps.

Are they sending higher than CD resolution? Is my math wrong?

Adam

From what I can tell from typical useage, the "B" stands for bits, not bytes.

For a CD, 44,100 x 16 bit ( 2 bytes ) per sample is only 88.2 kbps if this were just raw data.

Click to expand...

Ok, I am going to chime in and contest the above statement...
Whipping out my calculator, 44,100 x 16 = 705,600 (bits), which equates to 705.6 kbps for each channel. Feel free to correct me if my math is wrong.

Spike said:

Ok, I am going to chime in and contest the above statement...
Whipping out my calculator, 44,100 x 16 = 705,600 (bits), which equates to 705.6 kbps for each channel. Feel free to correct me if my math is wrong.

Click to expand...

Yep I got I converted to bytes and then used a bits designator. My bad.

And 705,600 for 2 channels is 1,411 kbps and suddenly everything looks right.

Gordon Gray said:

Adam

From what I can tell from typical useage, the "B" stands for bits, not bytes.

Click to expand...

Generally it is a lowercase "b" then.

Irrespective, your 1500 mbps line will only just support streaming at full CD quality of 1411 mbps. Unless you are beyond lucky then you will get drop outs. But at the compressed FLAC rate, you may be pleasantly surprised if you've got a good quality connection in a low-contention area.

My previous advice still stands though - test it and see what it can do. Preferably at different times of the day.

I think it is more to do with the TIDAL servers. Adam.

They supply on a capped basis with massive multiplexing.

However, the way that works appears to be quite erratic, and if you can't 'suck' quickly when the servers supply, you get stutter. Hence slow connections aren't good and I'll bet 1.5 Mbps isn't good enough as I know 3Mbps wasn't for me.

Don't get me wrong for the most part 3Mbps is just about OK, but experience over a period of time will lead you realise otherwise.

With 38Mbps you still get problems when the servers get overloaded.

User211 said:

With 38Mbps you still get problems when the servers get overloaded.

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That is a massive problem at Tidal then. I can't imagine they would get to that, but maybe they do?

amey01 said:

That is a massive problem at Tidal then. I can't imagine they would get to that, but maybe they do?

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Not so sure it is just TIDAL.

Had a fellow audiophile around yesterday. I had the system on from 12 to around 9pm. Mainly used TIDAL - not a glitch.

However, it does do it on Friday's sometimes, and I have had the same issues with Qobuz and Spotify, though not with 38 Mbps as I only had 3 Mbps at the time. Which should have been OK with lossy Spotify - but no.

I still rank TIDAL the best of those 3 options. Spotify for choice, though - massive library - but can you listen to it for hours? Nope - not me.

I have 27Mbps using Tidal in hifi never a problem. I never really get any dropouts. But anything for me below 10Mbps I do get dropouts. Notice lower case b. For me 1.5 would not stream Spotify at the extreme setting. And no way would it stream Tidal in hifi mode. So whoever told you that was not talking about Tidal or Spotify at each highest bandwidth. For me 1.5 would not stream Tidal or Spotify at lowest bandwidth. Just my 2 cents.

Norway84 said:

I have 27Mbps using Tidal in hifi never a problem. I never really get any dropouts. But anything for me below 10Mbps I do get dropouts. Notice lower case b. For me 1.5 would not stream Spotify at the extreme setting. And no way would it stream Tidal in hifi mode. So whoever told you that was not talking about Tidal or Spotify at each highest bandwidth. For me 1.5 would not stream Tidal or Spotify at lowest bandwidth. Just my 2 cents.

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For me, 1500kbps is fine for Spotify. I know because I've got a 1500k line at my holiday house. This line usually gives about 1100-1300kpbs when tested.

At home, I've got 30mbps and Tidal/Spotify at the highest rates are fine without ever a hint of a glitch.

Since about 2 weeks after my last post I've had no issues. Maybe they upped their server count.