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RME User Forum → ADI-2 & 2/4 Pro series, ADI-2 DAC series → Streaming service for RME ADI-2
I am currently using Spotify Premium. My streamer is a Blue sound Node. I plug my Hifiman Ananda's straight into the RME. Is there a better streaming service for the RME? I live in the USA. I read that Tidal Hifi+ won't work well with the RME as it doesn't support Tida's MQA. Any other recommendations? Thank you.
Qobuz 
I am currently using Spotify Premium. My streamer is a Blue sound Node. I plug my Hifiman Ananda's straight into the RME. Is there a better streaming service for the RME? I live in the USA. I read that Tidal Hifi+ won't work well with the RME as it doesn't support Tida's MQA. Any other recommendations? Thank you.
I have used both Qobuz and Tidal with my ADI-2 DAC FS. I prefer Qobuz, but Tidal/MQA will also sound fine using the RME. You won't get a full MQA unfold with the ADI-2, but if you allow the Node to do the first unfold (which many argue is the most important), you can still stream MQA at a max of 24/96. You won't get 24/192 but many would argue that there is little audible difference between the two anyway. In fact, MQA with my ADI-2 sounds better than other full MQA DACs I've used from Gustard, Topping, and SMSL. Just my opinion/experience.
Go with Qobuz. Avoid Tidal if you can. MQA is pretty much nonsense and doesn't do what it says on the tin.
See here for some informed criticism of the format:
I‘m kinda stuck with Tidal, being used to it and having a huge collection.
Nevertheless, I’ve noticed the switch from CD quality to MQA without knowing what’s going on.
A/B comparisons with the original CD (hardware-) releases confirmed a sound degradation.
The (upsampled) pseudo-HiRes does not reveal any advantage.
Might be different with newly produced real HiRes material, I can’t comment on these.
Of course good music and good recordings exist in every format, thankfully.
Meanwhile more and more streaming tracks are replaced with “remastered” versions, usually not to the better, so I tend to listen to CDs more often now.
This is not the fault of the streaming services, but the record label’s who think they will sell more if they squeeze out the last bit of loudness until there are obviously annoying distortions, in favor of quality.
Loudness war isn’t over, it’s worse than ever.
BTW: there’s no difference between the various streaming services in this regard, they all have to publish the same versions.
+1 for Qobuz
I've been using Qobuz for exactly One (1) Year, and in that time have been quite pleased with it. "Hi-Res" tracks come down as such, and no proprietary hardware/decoding is needed. Further, Qobuz has cost me approx $75 LESS than Tidal over the year. For me? It's a better service, and costs Less.
Curt
So I signed up for a trial of Amazon HD. Then I discovered that my streamer, Bluesound Node, will only allow Amazon HD thru the BluOS system which is very clunky. I really want to avoid that route. Canceled the Amazon. Actually, only Spotify and Tidal can work directly, without BluOS. I am trying Tidal Hifi+ right now. Interestingly, on the RME State Overview screen Spotify Premium streams into the RME at SR of 44.1, Bit 16. Tidal Hifi (non MQA ) tracks stream at 44.1 SR & 24 bit. MQA tracks stream at 88.2 SR & 24 bit ! I have no way of comparing the sound quality of the same track in Hifi vs. MQA. However, both Hifi and Master tracks clearly sound better than Spotify Premium.
My favorite music genre is Smooth Jazz which is not the most popular of genres. Only about 15-20% of the albums are currently MQA, the remainder are Hifi.
MQA tracks stream at 88.2 SR & 24 bit !
Those numbers provided by Tidal are misleading. MQA only represents between 13 & 15 bits of dynamics and anything above 48khz is compressed and/or upsampled + a filter applied.
So MQA has less than the 16 bits dynamic and ca 2khz (24 vs 22.05) more bandwidth as the CD-format provides.
Where do the remaining 8-9 bits between 15 and 24 go? They are used for control bits of their DRM (blue light), filters + the compressed content between 24 and 48k.
MQA on playback also applies antialiasing filters to the signal without any control by the original mastering and mixing engineers.
For above reasons MQA will sound different than a proper 16/44 file. If that difference is "better" is another question.
If you want real high-res content - whatsoever it's value is - Qobuz and Amazon HD are your only options. Amazon HD is very fuzzy, I'd recommend Qobuz.
There are tools on the net to import Tidal playlists to Qobuz.
The problem with MQA: a basically good technical idea was turned into a money-making machine with their licensing model.
They even try to rip off the artists/labels.
Then they crippled the sound quality for the non-licensing, average user, which might be 95% or more of the audience.
The question arises: do we need a proprietary data-reduced format to stream HiRes Audio in the days of Gigabit Internet?
A standard HD YouTube Videostream uses 12.000 kBit/s
CD-quality audio is just 1/8th of that, even less if FLAC is used.
According quality streaming services:
For CD Quality DEEZER is a viable option too.
I've got some experience with streaming services, as I've been promoting my music on Spotify for a while now. From what I've seen, Tidal Hifi+ might not be the best choice for the RME, as you mentioned.One option is Bandcamp. They offer lossless audio files, and many independent artists and small labels use it as their main platform. It's a great way to discover new music and support artists directly.Aside from streaming services, I'd also recommend a platform called songlifty.com. It's a site that connects musicians with music lovers and provides a simple way to sell and stream music online.
I've got some experience with streaming services, as I've been promoting my music on Spotify for a while now. From what I've seen, Tidal Hifi+ might not be the best choice for the RME, as you mentioned
Tidal quality varies a bit:
The tracks marked as “Master” are MQA, which is controversial.
The others are lossless CD-Quality, if you have a “HiFi”-subscription.
Spotify is still not offering lossless quality, according to this recent info:
https://www.techhive.com/article/790882 … oming.html
Qobuz seems to be the way.
Personly I’d still be on Deezer if they hadn’t limited their Premium offering to Sonus hardware then.
So they lost a customer.
BTW:
Do you publish solely on Spotify?
If you’d go through e.g. DistroKid you’d cover all streaming services.
What’s you artist’s name on Spotify?
Always searching for new music
So I signed up for a trial of Amazon HD. Then I discovered that my streamer, Bluesound Node, will only allow Amazon HD thru the BluOS system which is very clunky. I really want to avoid that route. Canceled the Amazon. Actually, only Spotify and Tidal can work directly, without BluOS. I am trying Tidal Hifi+ right now. Interestingly, on the RME State Overview screen Spotify Premium streams into the RME at SR of 44.1, Bit 16. Tidal Hifi (non MQA ) tracks stream at 44.1 SR & 24 bit. MQA tracks stream at 88.2 SR & 24 bit ! I have no way of comparing the sound quality of the same track in Hifi vs. MQA. However, both Hifi and Master tracks clearly sound better than Spotify Premium.
My favorite music genre is Smooth Jazz which is not the most popular of genres. Only about 15-20% of the albums are currently MQA, the remainder are Hifi.
Also a fan of Smooth Jazz here.
You can cast HD content from Amazon, using Amazon own native application, to a WiiM Mini that you can connect via optical to the RME, if you are interested in that.
About Tidal I just use the first unfold, and that's about it. Not really interested in all the extra filtering and upsampling.
Qobuz is just fine, from my point of view.
For AirPlay, I have been happy with 2 repurposed 2012 Mac Minis with AirServer installed, outputting to the optical S/PDIF, set to 44.1 kHz / 16 bit. Configured AirServer with a "lossless quality receiver" option.
In this setup, AirPlay works bit-perfect at 44.1/16, passing the RME bit test if the volume on the streaming device is set to 0 dBFS.
I also run Spotify on the same Macs, configured to "very high" quality and auto-adjust set to off. It is convenient if you prefer to use Spotify Connect, in which case the stream is both received and rendered to audio directly on the Mac.
Before using Macs, I wanted to repurpose an old 2nd generation Apple TV. However, I found that it uses a rather bad resampling algorithm (its S/PDIF output is always 48 kHz / 16 bit), with a noise floor of about -80 dBFS, so decided to drop it.
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