That is not how this works... that is not how any of this works.
 

Posted to r/audiophile today - the latest advert for Jay-Z's lossless audio service, Tidal.

The advert completely misrepresents the lossless audio community and the demonstration is 100% audiophilic snakeoil. How is the community at large reacting to this garbage?

To correctly post a YouTube video, you must take the following part of the code from each link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q6iXyE6fSE

And use it as such:

[.youtube]9q6iXyE6fSE[/.youtube]

Ta-da:



As far as Tidal goes, I agree.

Only wrap the alphanumeric code with the YouTube tags.

People need something to waste their money on.

There's a lot of armchair activism I can get behind... I share social unrest content on social media and the like... but this is perhaps the first time I feel intellectually attacked on "my own turf." I know its silly and inconsequential and that my rights and freedoms are in no way trounced upon by these peddlers of bulls*it, but I genuinely object to the gross-misrepresentation of the media format, particularly for profit.

HD audio and FLAC certainly have their place, like archival work, but this crap is downright stupid and does the whole lossless community a great disservice.

I'll keep shaking my fist until Jay-Z gets off my lawn.

[/soapbox]

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3427/3...62d3056712.jpg

Yeah, it seems stupid to me.

The whole thing seems like a vanity project to me. And an attempt to earn more money, of course.

How many artists are going to be on there? I have spotify because of the extreme variety, whereas Tidal seems to only showcase artists that are well known.

My thoughts as well. The thing I saw on TV about it was pushing it as something that gives the artists a better deal financially. The problem is I care about the little guy, I don't give a shit if Jay-Z and company are making more dough per download.

Presently, major label signed artists (like Jay-Z) receive $0.007 per play on Tidal, while unsigned artists receive $0.0179 per play.

Based upon a US average minimum wage of $1,260 per month, 6% of Tidal's unsigned artists successfully yield the 29,302 plays per month required for them to earn the equivalent of minimum wage.

I never understood services like Tidal. Can't someone get "lossless" audio by just buying a CD, and uploading/ripping it to their computer as a FLAC?

Absolutely, though only a handful of the last 500 albums I've picked up are available in the CD format. Are most artists still releasing CDs? If so, where are they sold?

(This is genuinely an honest question and I'd love to know the answer.)

Dude, come on. You know what a CD store is.

Okay - a little background - odd duck here - threw out my television and radio around 1999, sold the car in 2002. I walk to work and back, and to the grocer and the antique shop and used record shop at the top of my street. Other than that, I have next to zero contact with the general public. Ever.

From ~2000 to the present, I've made very few purchases, occasional 2nd hand cell phone upgrades and pro audio gear via Audiogon and similar vintage audio markets.

I employ a number of filters, proxies, and other simple but effective utilities to remove 99% of adverts from my web experience, (though few of the sites I frequent are ad-supported to begin with.)

The result of which is, I live in a comfortable cultural vacuum, devoid of contemporary fashion trends, modern street slang vernacular, classism, mass media, or commercial media of any kind.

It's been 15 years since I've been in a franchised storefront so I honestly don't know what they're like.

Now to return to the original question - Every article I've read has cited the impending end of the CD market. And I am quite serious when I state that I can't think of an artist who has made compact disc versions of their recordings available for sale in quite some time.

I've been around my city, and while there are used and new record shops in every village and township, none have a new release CD department and I've not seen or heard of a dedicated CD store in ages.

So I'll ask again - are these shops still around and who's albums are they selling... and to WHOM?

I like to go to a local shop called The CD Cellar. It's got a huge selection of used vinyl, CDs, and movies. Also, they really like to stock up on local music, and they have a few sections dedicated to new CDs and vinyl put out by local artists. They've also recently started stocking up on those fancy "180 gram" reissues, usually of rare and cult classic albums.