Tidal & Plex - Streaming Quality

[EddieJo]

I subscribe to Tidal Premium which provides streaming quality up to Master quality (proprietary MQA supposedly up to 96 kHz/24-bit depth)
Using the Tidal App in Windows OS will indicate the track is being streamed in ‘Hi-Fi’ (FLAC: Lossless) or Master (Best Audio Quality if available). That’s my experience with this environment.

Using Tidal through the Plex web app (Windows OS) playing any track including available Master tracks the ‘Hi-Fi/Master’ indicator does not illuminate which makes me doubtful the music is streaming at the highest audio quality.

Any insight into this difference?

[OttoKerner]

MQA is not available in Plex.
It is a proprietary technology that is not available freely (both in ‘monetary’ and ‘license’ meaning).

[presidentbellacourt]

There’s a few other audio apps out there (Roon etc.) that do first unfold of MQA.
Plex outputs music at a max of 24/48 afaik anyway.

[OttoKerner]

@presidentbellacourt

Plex outputs music at a max of 24/48 afaik anyway.

That is an over-generalization. It is always depending on the type of device and the particular Plex app.
I have an external DAC on my desktop and I get music 96/24 in 5.1 from plex web (5.1 only in flac), plex media player and plexamp.

[presidentbellacourt]

Thanks for the correction. I had read some posts from Elan recently (here) that made me think this was the case.

[EddieJo]

The first reply to my OP focused on MQA which was not the point of my question. I only mentioned it because Tidal offers four levels of streaming quality — Normal (lossy), High (lossy), HiFi (lossless) and Master (best/MQA) — which commensurate with a user’s subscription. I subscribe to the premium level.

I wanted to know whether or not the streaming indicator in the Plex app behaves in the same way as Tidal’s app. I provide further captures for clarification of my question. This time the clarification will omit any reference to Master/MQA.

Below once again is the Plex Tidal app with the streaming quality indicator circled in red.

It is not ‘illuminated’ as it would be in the Tidal App which is shown below at the bottom of the image.

Here, the indicator is illuminated in blue.

Next, I changed the streaming quality in my stand alone Tidal desktop app so that the streaming quality is throttled all the way back to normal which is the lowest bitrate (96 kbps) and lossy.

Here the indicator is ‘unilluminated’ which is as it should be. To me this suggests that the Plex app’s unilluminated indicator might not be streaming lossless quality.

In short, I doubt: the Plex app is streaming Tidal music in lossless 1411 kbps (FLAC/lossless).

[presidentbellacourt]

Apologies, I’v reread you OP and now understand exact;y what you’re asking.
What is the client you’re using for playback/screenshots? I can see no quality indicator in either the web client or iOS clients.
One thing I noticed from your screenshots was the orange vs blue progress bars. Maybe that shows the quality change in your client? Clutching at straws here though…

[OttoKerner]

If the Plex app says “Hi-Fi”, then this is the current Tidal quality level.
(Plex doesn’t use this “illumination” style like the Tidal app)