A couple comments in this thread seem to suggest it’s just a labeling problem, which I hope is true. Anecdotally it sounds similar played from my library versus a search in the plex web app, and the network activity seems consistent on the AAC 320 playback as with the FLAC playback.
Again, considering this is paid software and Tidal is partner platform from which I’m sure Plex gets a piece of the action on sign-ups, the silence from Plex is concerning.
That is the issue. The silence. Acknowledgement from a dev of this issue would at least be a start
Agree.
That’s a bummer! I was trying plexamp some months ago and didn’t like what it offered compared to what I’m normally using (roon). I thought I give it a try again since my audio setup changed and I thought plexamp (with all it’s shortcomings) could work for me this time and it did until I found this issue 
For me it’s actually always AAC 96. Really annoying thing is that when I add one track from TIDAL album to local playlist, whole album plays at AAC 96 afterwards, no matter if I play it from local library or from TIDAL library. Even if I remove the track from playlist or delete entire playlist album keeps playing at AAC 96.
It isn’t a minefield in roon. All tracks there play bit perfect flac or event MQA masters (which I don’t really care about) so this really isn’t limitation of TIDAL api.
I agree completely. I have Roon as well and had hoped I’d be able to cancel and save a considerable amount of money by moving entirely to Plexamp. Alas, this won’t happen at the moment because of this issue. I use Plexamp in the car as quality is not such an issue in that environment but I hardly ever use it at home now and when I do it’s usually to check whether this issue has been addressed or not. It’s a real shame because I would love Plexamp to become my go to player but unless someone at Plex Labs acknowledges there is a problem here, that’s not going to happen any time soon. @elan any chance of some clarity on whether this issue is acknowledged and is anyone looking into it?
We’ll that’s another fortnight gone with no input from any of the Devs. @elan is this really going to be the status quo for this issue? Why can’t we have Tidal in flac rather than AAC? Or is it an insurmountable problem? Love Plexamp but this is a big letdown.
I agree that this is disappointing.
I completely can accept that there is very likely no difference between FLAC at Redbook quality and AAC 320, but that’s not the point. Tidal Hifi plans now serve up FLAC (sidestepping the whole ‘some of this will be downsampled MQA’ issue, as it’s not really relevant…) and its integration into Plex is not following this. Not to sound dramatic or anything, but I find this leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. It’ feels a bit off.
The fact that weeks go past without any action on this by Plex is really disappointing.
One observation made by comparing bandwidth usage on my Plex server - apart from the server identifying all Tidal content (whether in my library or not) as AAC. I had AAC 256 copies of some tracks the same as the Tidal files, and bandwidth usage was the same. Repeating this with FLAC copies on my PC, the bandwidth was far higher usage. An observation only, but this leads me to think the Tidal content is not FLAC as it plays.
All a bit disappointing. I will try seeing what happens if I upgrade to Hifi Plus again. I think last time I did this I got FLAC. It was several months ago. If so, leads me to wonder if Plex hasn’t caught up with the changes in the Tidal tiers, and still serves up AAC to the cheap seats. Weird.
So I just took one for the team and upgraded to Tidal Hifi Plus (or as it’s still referred to in Plex, Tidal Hifi) to test this.
After re-authorising the Tidal link, all Tidal files play in FLAC in Plex and Plexamp, are labelled as such, and it does look like an appropriately larger bandwidth share is being used.
So my guess is that Plex has somehow not moved with the Tidal tiers change to supply FLAC on the lower tier (or, if it did, there’s now a bug or some other oddity that has caused it to regress) and as noted above, still using the old tier terminology of Premium and Hifi.
This does matter IMO. A bunch of threads and previous experience has demonstrated that Plex will not play hi-res MQA via Tidal even if compatible hardware is used that can decode it. So if Tidal themselves offer FLAC at £9.99 a month (I do appreciate that I get a £1 discount if subbing via Plex), there is no incentive to pay more if the fancier formats don’t appeal. However in effect if we want to get FLAC via Tidal in Plex, we have to pay £10 more.
To clarify - sound quality-wise I totally accept there is probably no difference between FLAC and AAC 320, but that’s not the point here.
It may be this is just something that is sorted with a simple fix on Plex’s part. Cynically, I suspect it’s more complex than that, and that’s fine. However - it’s not great to have to pay more in Plex for what Tidal supply for £10 less. I feel very lucky that I can casually experiment with flinging an extra £10 at this to test it, but many can’t, especially in present times.
Could anyone from Plex please look into this? Thanks 
for me, logs indicate that Plexamp is requesting and playing the correct lossless/flac Tidal content
(note, I have a standard Tidal HiFi subscription, not HiFi Plus)
if you have access to a Linux or Mac terminal, go to the directory where Plexamp logs are stored on the playback device and enter the following command after playing some Tidal tracks from your Plex library (yes, it looks ridiculous, but it works ok) …
grep -o '\(\(aac\|flac\), [0-9]* Kbps\|library/parts/[a-z0-9]*-[A-Z]*\)' Plexamp.log
the output for each track should look something like this (if the track is already cached, you won’t see the first line) …
library/parts/158563262-LOSSLESS
flac, 742 Kbps
I will occasionally see lower bitrate AAC, but this is when there’s no FLAC version available from Tidal
Yes, it’s still a little confusing/annoying to have things labeled incorrectly, but to me it looks like Plexamp is playing the right thing
Well, that’s certainly interesting - and thanks for taking one for the team!
It’s a shame someone had to take a £ hit just to test this theory, yet in the month+ lifetime span of this thread (and not counting previous historic threads on the matter) no dev has even raised their head to even acknowledge the issue or give a reason, never mind offer a solution/fix
Thanks for this. Okay, so I will freely admit that I didn’t think to check the logs! Thanks for the reality check, and I will look at this later 
Your guess was correct. We’ve fixed two issues (cloud + server),
Excellent! Thanks @elan! 
@elan Excellent, I saw an update for Plexamp today that mentions the Tidal issue, is there still a Plex Server update that’s needed? After updating, I removed a couple of Tidal tracks that were labeled as AAC 320, searched for the FLAC Version and after adding them they show up right back as AAC 320.
server fix is needed.
@ecr80 - same issue here. I think I’ve read all there is available on this subject before commenting.
All my client and server softwares are up to date.
I’m still seeing AAC 320 for albums I absolutely know are FLACs when played through the Tidal web player or Tidal app. But the ones I’ve ported over from Tidal to my Plex Music collection are all listed as AAC 320. I appreciate those who dove into the logs to verify that indeed they are the proper FLAC files in a sonic sense, but I use the label indicated on the app to verify whether my server is or is not transcoding. So when I saw AAC 320 for the first time, I immediately started troubleshooting all my settings on server and client(s), and that’s what lead me here. Normally everything I have on my server is ripped from the original CD in FLAC, so that’s how I like my Tidal imports as well, and it’s the sole reason I’m a Tidal supporter, especially at home where my audio equipment is capable of distinguishing the differences. (In the car or at work, AAC 320 is fine, but I would still prefer to see the proper label when streaming Tidal content through Plex even if I know for certain that the equipment I’m using is incapable of lossless codecs).
I found the problem corrected for me with updating Plexamp and Plex Media Server.
did you update Plexamp and Plex Server?
Server needs to be at least 1.32.2.7002.
after server update, i found i had to clear the app cache before some Tidal tracks in my library would show as FLAC
in the settings for the Plexamp player that’s being used for playback, go to Advanced > Caching and hit the Delete Caches button
I’m running 1.32.1.6999-91, but the server gives no indication that there’s another update available. Says it’s “up to date.” If it helps, I’m running PMS on a headless Linux machine (select the Linux dropdown in the link above and you’ll see that 1.32.1.6999 is the most current).
All client versions of Plexamp are likewise up to date: tried it on iPhone and Android, and I also tried it via the web player (in Chrome, Win11).
looks like it’s still in the beta channel for server updates
