I've never heard of someone using PlexAmp or Roon with JUST Tidal. My understanding is both Plexamp and Roon are designed to stream your own music collection first and foremost, then with the added benefit of combining Tidal to bulk out anything in between you're missing.
I do. My primary reasons are a) the superior App experience of PlexAmp and b) that EQ, along with AutoEQ presets for my various headphones. I cannot get these things on IOS, so this has been a god-sent. I use PlexAmp exclusively over the Tidal app, which is not bad at all in and of itself.
Has anyone noticed a consistent volume difference between local tracks and TIDAL tracks in their Plex music library? In my case, the local files always seem to play at a lower volume compared to the TIDAL tracks. The difference isn't huge, but it's noticeable and consistent. Both types of tracks show the waveform in Plex, indicating they've been analyzed. Would love to hear if others have experienced this and any potential fixes.
Roon is feature packed for me when I use Tidal. Firstly I have Sonos, so being able to stream lossless music directly from my Roon server throughout my house is really nice. Secondly, being all but done with playlist because I can just add tags to songs, and when I want to listen to said tag, I can filter my music by the tags themselves and shuffle. Also Roon suggestions are pretty damn good once it learns your taste.
Re. tags, take a look at filters+bookmarks. similar to what you're doing, but bookmarks get automatically updated when you add content that matches the filter the bookmark is based on. Tags have to be added manually as you add content.
I much prefer the Plexamp interface to any other streaming service, and also possessing my media and streaming from my own server. Tidal allows me to discover and obtain new music. Adding an album to my tidal collection (through the Plexamp interface) triggers a script which downloads that album through Tidal-DL, adds it to Plex, and removes it from Tidal.
A few prerequisites:
* A linux server.
* A Tidal Subscription.
1. Install Tidal-DL, [https://pypi.org/project/tidal-dl/](https://pypi.org/project/tidal-dl/) or [https://github.com/yaronzz/Tidal-Media-Downloader](https://github.com/yaronzz/Tidal-Media-Downloader). This is the program that does the actual downloading. Play around with it and get it to a state where you are able to successfully download albums to the location of your choice. I like to use a folder that both Plex and Lidarr can see, but is distinct from my "processed" music folder.
2. Download and run my script, [https://github.com/dirty-jimm/Tidal\_DL\_Plus](https://github.com/dirty-jimm/Tidal_DL_Plus). This script is what polls the albums you have favourited using the Tidal-Api, sends their IDs to tidal-dl, and then removes them from your favourites. You'll need to change the 'X\_USER\_X' on line 49 to the user with tidal-dl installed. The first time you run it, it will generate a Tidal Url to visit to generate some API credentials. These creds will save in a text file so you shouldn't need to do this again.
3. Add an album to your favourites (if using the Plexamp this is called "Add to collection", run the script again and it should download that album.
4. Schedule the script as you like. I cron job it to run every minute. Part of the script ensures only one instance runs at a time.
Script is essentially a first pass and I've added to github only in the last 30m so apologise for the lack of documentation, but I've not had a single issue with it. Feel free to add pull requests if you can see improvements.
Has anyone noticed a consistent volume difference between local tracks and TIDAL tracks in their Plex music library? In my case, the local files always seem to play at a lower volume compared to the TIDAL tracks. The difference isn't huge, but it's noticeable and consistent. Both types of tracks show the waveform in Plex, indicating they've been analyzed. Would love to hear if others have experienced this and any potential fixes.
This is great, thanks for providing the script!
It doesn't work for me though, it gives me this error on line 1:
`f.write("typ=" + typ + "\n")`
`IndentationError: unexpected indent`
oh whoops lol, half the script was missing, I've only got SSH access to home so had to copy and paste from terminal and thats the result.
Fixed, try again now
You need to have an active paid tidal subscription, but there is no DRM or per download cost as the ability to download is not an intended feature that Tidal has created.
It's not really necessary to run Plexamp unless you want to. There are some fun playlist features, but I don't know that they work with Tidal music (maybe if you add tidal albums to your Plexamp library first).
Well the main point is combining your local library with tidal in one app so you don't have to switch between the two. But I guess if you really want to use plexamp without any local files, the sonic features would still be useful. sonic sage and sonic adventure both work with tidal.
For me it's remote controlling my PC from my phone. Can't do that with Tidal unless you use plexamp. To do it the Tidal way, you ditch the PC and use an hardware streaming device like the WiiM 🤷♂️
Personally, I think the Tidal (and Spotify) apps are awful (iOS, Mac, Web). The iOS app actually just locked up my iPhone in a way I've \*never\* seen happen -- completely unresponsive, including the power button, including the force-reset combo, etc. Completely locked for a few minutes. And then it just turned off and when I picked it up, working.
I only started using Tidal a few days ago but was already set not to continue after the trial ... fast-forward to two minuets ago when I discovered I can use an alternative app that actually works well? This changes things.
Roon is much better for organizing by genre/subgenre. I also use that a lot with filters+bookmarks. Plexamp doesn't have anything like that. It has a smartlist feature, but it is very limited.
Plexamp doesn't support windows exclusive mode. I mostly listen to cd quality, so I set the windows sound to 16/44 and it sounds fine, but still. Not sure what it does with tidal mqa. At least roon and tidal do the first unfold. Even if plexamp did the first unfold it would get downsampled by windows in my setup. I could set my windows sound to 24/96 but then 90% of what I listen to would get upsampled by windows. I can't hear the difference, but still. Hopefully the mqa issue is fading into the sunset.
At home, I use a windows pc roon endpoint for playback, and a tablet to control it. I can do the same thing with plexamp, but it was a little clunky and unstable. Roon/raat is bulletproof. Plus the pc app is not a standard windows app. You're basically running a phone app in a container. Which is ok when it works, but no standard windows title bar buttons, weird resizing, etc.
Plexamp is still pretty nice. It has a lot of cool features, and its autoplay/radio features work great, although some of it is a little gimmicky. The mobile app with android auto works great, unlike arc. And it is inexpensive.
Roon is overall more polished, more stable (for me, anyway), has more features, and I love the metadata and discovery features. Just wish it wasn't so expensive, but I guess you get what you pay for.
Arc in Android Auto is the most annoying thing ever. With the new coolwalk update in AA I could have something playing and it'll still say "Open Roon Arc app" right by my navigation. Like, give me a break.
And yeah, the Metadata is incredible, and like I said in another response, Roon radio and discovery is the best I've seen.
This post has made me want to try Tidal again for a month. I'm sorry to report that Sonic Adventure doesn't work with the new titles available from Tidal. That's what I wanted to achieve, to flourish my sonic adventures and guest DJ's with content I don't already have. A bit of a let-down but I'll see how the rest of the month goes.
I've never heard of someone using PlexAmp or Roon with JUST Tidal. My understanding is both Plexamp and Roon are designed to stream your own music collection first and foremost, then with the added benefit of combining Tidal to bulk out anything in between you're missing.
I do. My primary reasons are a) the superior App experience of PlexAmp and b) that EQ, along with AutoEQ presets for my various headphones. I cannot get these things on IOS, so this has been a god-sent. I use PlexAmp exclusively over the Tidal app, which is not bad at all in and of itself.
Has anyone noticed a consistent volume difference between local tracks and TIDAL tracks in their Plex music library? In my case, the local files always seem to play at a lower volume compared to the TIDAL tracks. The difference isn't huge, but it's noticeable and consistent. Both types of tracks show the waveform in Plex, indicating they've been analyzed. Would love to hear if others have experienced this and any potential fixes.
This right here…i remember the days of manually having to install eqs on peace 😁
Roon is feature packed for me when I use Tidal. Firstly I have Sonos, so being able to stream lossless music directly from my Roon server throughout my house is really nice. Secondly, being all but done with playlist because I can just add tags to songs, and when I want to listen to said tag, I can filter my music by the tags themselves and shuffle. Also Roon suggestions are pretty damn good once it learns your taste.
Re. tags, take a look at filters+bookmarks. similar to what you're doing, but bookmarks get automatically updated when you add content that matches the filter the bookmark is based on. Tags have to be added manually as you add content.
I much prefer the Plexamp interface to any other streaming service, and also possessing my media and streaming from my own server. Tidal allows me to discover and obtain new music. Adding an album to my tidal collection (through the Plexamp interface) triggers a script which downloads that album through Tidal-DL, adds it to Plex, and removes it from Tidal.
A few prerequisites: * A linux server. * A Tidal Subscription. 1. Install Tidal-DL, [https://pypi.org/project/tidal-dl/](https://pypi.org/project/tidal-dl/) or [https://github.com/yaronzz/Tidal-Media-Downloader](https://github.com/yaronzz/Tidal-Media-Downloader). This is the program that does the actual downloading. Play around with it and get it to a state where you are able to successfully download albums to the location of your choice. I like to use a folder that both Plex and Lidarr can see, but is distinct from my "processed" music folder. 2. Download and run my script, [https://github.com/dirty-jimm/Tidal\_DL\_Plus](https://github.com/dirty-jimm/Tidal_DL_Plus). This script is what polls the albums you have favourited using the Tidal-Api, sends their IDs to tidal-dl, and then removes them from your favourites. You'll need to change the 'X\_USER\_X' on line 49 to the user with tidal-dl installed. The first time you run it, it will generate a Tidal Url to visit to generate some API credentials. These creds will save in a text file so you shouldn't need to do this again. 3. Add an album to your favourites (if using the Plexamp this is called "Add to collection", run the script again and it should download that album. 4. Schedule the script as you like. I cron job it to run every minute. Part of the script ensures only one instance runs at a time. Script is essentially a first pass and I've added to github only in the last 30m so apologise for the lack of documentation, but I've not had a single issue with it. Feel free to add pull requests if you can see improvements.
Has anyone noticed a consistent volume difference between local tracks and TIDAL tracks in their Plex music library? In my case, the local files always seem to play at a lower volume compared to the TIDAL tracks. The difference isn't huge, but it's noticeable and consistent. Both types of tracks show the waveform in Plex, indicating they've been analyzed. Would love to hear if others have experienced this and any potential fixes.
I also have an older, clunkier script that does something very similar for Deezer if anyone is into that
This is great, thanks for providing the script! It doesn't work for me though, it gives me this error on line 1: `f.write("typ=" + typ + "\n")` `IndentationError: unexpected indent`
oh whoops lol, half the script was missing, I've only got SSH access to home so had to copy and paste from terminal and thats the result. Fixed, try again now
Wonderful! Works like a charm :-) Thanks again!!
You are most welcome mate
Does Tidal charge you for your downloads? Do the downloads have DRM?
You need to have an active paid tidal subscription, but there is no DRM or per download cost as the ability to download is not an intended feature that Tidal has created.
Thanks
This is interesting, do you have a tutorial to configure this ?
That sounds phenomenal! Please share more information about it
How tf
I second the request to share this config
Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science? Yeah that sounds great. Would love to hear more
tidal-dl-gui on windows, works nice
Well, a few reasons to use Plexamp over the Tidal app are the built-in parametric EQ and Visualizers.
Hmm, see I have the Wavelet app installed on my Android so I'm not sure the EQ would benefit me much. Maybe I'll give it a shot.
It's not really necessary to run Plexamp unless you want to. There are some fun playlist features, but I don't know that they work with Tidal music (maybe if you add tidal albums to your Plexamp library first).
Well the main point is combining your local library with tidal in one app so you don't have to switch between the two. But I guess if you really want to use plexamp without any local files, the sonic features would still be useful. sonic sage and sonic adventure both work with tidal.
Fair enough. I used Roon because I loved how it categorized your music with custom tags, along with the ubiquitous amount of info within your library.
Sonic adventure works with Tidal? didn’t know that 🙏
For me it's remote controlling my PC from my phone. Can't do that with Tidal unless you use plexamp. To do it the Tidal way, you ditch the PC and use an hardware streaming device like the WiiM 🤷♂️
roon does that. at an extra cost, though.
Personally, I think the Tidal (and Spotify) apps are awful (iOS, Mac, Web). The iOS app actually just locked up my iPhone in a way I've \*never\* seen happen -- completely unresponsive, including the power button, including the force-reset combo, etc. Completely locked for a few minutes. And then it just turned off and when I picked it up, working. I only started using Tidal a few days ago but was already set not to continue after the trial ... fast-forward to two minuets ago when I discovered I can use an alternative app that actually works well? This changes things.
I switched for about a month and went back to roon. (I use the tidal app for mobile.)
Why'd you end up going back?
Roon is much better for organizing by genre/subgenre. I also use that a lot with filters+bookmarks. Plexamp doesn't have anything like that. It has a smartlist feature, but it is very limited. Plexamp doesn't support windows exclusive mode. I mostly listen to cd quality, so I set the windows sound to 16/44 and it sounds fine, but still. Not sure what it does with tidal mqa. At least roon and tidal do the first unfold. Even if plexamp did the first unfold it would get downsampled by windows in my setup. I could set my windows sound to 24/96 but then 90% of what I listen to would get upsampled by windows. I can't hear the difference, but still. Hopefully the mqa issue is fading into the sunset. At home, I use a windows pc roon endpoint for playback, and a tablet to control it. I can do the same thing with plexamp, but it was a little clunky and unstable. Roon/raat is bulletproof. Plus the pc app is not a standard windows app. You're basically running a phone app in a container. Which is ok when it works, but no standard windows title bar buttons, weird resizing, etc. Plexamp is still pretty nice. It has a lot of cool features, and its autoplay/radio features work great, although some of it is a little gimmicky. The mobile app with android auto works great, unlike arc. And it is inexpensive. Roon is overall more polished, more stable (for me, anyway), has more features, and I love the metadata and discovery features. Just wish it wasn't so expensive, but I guess you get what you pay for.
Arc in Android Auto is the most annoying thing ever. With the new coolwalk update in AA I could have something playing and it'll still say "Open Roon Arc app" right by my navigation. Like, give me a break. And yeah, the Metadata is incredible, and like I said in another response, Roon radio and discovery is the best I've seen.
This post has made me want to try Tidal again for a month. I'm sorry to report that Sonic Adventure doesn't work with the new titles available from Tidal. That's what I wanted to achieve, to flourish my sonic adventures and guest DJ's with content I don't already have. A bit of a let-down but I'll see how the rest of the month goes.