How To Correct Your Hearing With Tidal And ARIA ONE

What This Does

This guide shows how to route Tidal through ARIA ONE on Mac or Windows. Tidal plays into a virtual audio device, ARIA ONE reads that signal, applies your hearing correction, and sends the result to your headphones or speakers.

Tidal has its own sound output setting on both Mac and Windows. That means only Tidal needs to be routed; the rest of your computer can stay on its normal output.

Before You Start

You need Tidal and ARIA ONE installed on a Mac or Windows computer, plus an Altitude Audio account. If you do not have one yet, ARIA ONE can create it the first time you open the app.

Open ARIA ONE and sign in. On first launch, choose Cloud Mode so your profiles and presets stay in sync across devices.

Use the INSTANT Onboarding Pathway

On first launch, ARIA ONE opens onboarding automatically. To get listening quickly, choose the Instant pathway and continue. Available pathways include:

• Instant — no test. ARIA ONE loads an age-matched hearing profile so you can finish onboarding and start listening immediately.
• Quick Results — the full hearing test without setup and calibration. Around ten minutes.
• Full Accuracy — the complete test with setup and calibration. Fifteen to twenty minutes, and the best result.

Use Instant to finish onboarding now with an age-matched profile. When you have more time, come back to SETUP and take the full test so ARIA ONE can replace it with a profile built from your own results. At the end, choose Simple View for music listening.

Set Up The Audio Routing In ARIA ONE

ARIA ONE needs to sit between Tidal and your physical output. Tidal plays into a virtual audio device, ARIA ONE reads from that device, applies correction, and sends the result to your headphones or speakers.

If you have not installed a virtual audio device yet, start here: what is a virtual audio device and which one should I install? That page covers the setup on Mac and Windows.

Then open Audio Settings from the gear in ARIA ONE. Set INPUT to the virtual audio device and OUTPUT to your headphones or speakers. Set the sample rate here to match the virtual audio device; 44.1 or 48 kHz is a safe choice.

Point Tidal At ARIA ONE

Tidal has its own sound output setting, and it works the same way on Mac and Windows. You do not need to change your computer’s system output.

Open Tidal Settings, go to Streaming, and find Sound output. Choose the virtual audio device from the list. You can also reach the same list from the speaker icon in the bottom right of the Tidal window.

Only Tidal now goes through ARIA ONE. Notifications, video calls, and every other sound on your computer stay on your normal output.

Tidal Settings To Check

Tidal includes several settings for direct, bit-perfect playback. These settings do not work easily with virtual audio device setups, so check them before you judge the sound.

Exclusive Mode. Leave it off. If you want the simplest setup and user experience, do not let Tidal take exclusive control of the device.

Force Volume. Turn it on. It keeps Tidal feeding ARIA ONE a constant full-strength signal instead of changing the level song to song.

Passthrough. Turn it off. Tidal needs to decode in software before the signal reaches the virtual audio device.

Loudness normalization. Turn it off. ARIA ONE works best when Tidal is not adjusting tracks before output, so 0 dB into ARIA ONE is actually 0 dB. ARIA ONE handles track-to-track level changes itself, and Adaptive Drive can find the right drive for each song.

Streaming quality. Set it as high as your plan allows. The correction can only work with what is in the stream.

Sample Rate Is Handled For You

Tidal’s catalogue mixes sample rates: CD-quality tracks at 44.1 kHz, hi-res tracks higher. Tidal has no sample rate setting of its own, and you do not need one. With Exclusive Mode off, Tidal hands its audio to your computer, and the computer converts every track to whatever rate the virtual audio device is running at.

The only thing to keep matched is the rate on the virtual audio device and the rate in ARIA ONE’s Audio Settings. 44.1 or 48 kHz is a stable choice for both.

If those two disagree you will usually hear clicks between tracks, the first second or two of a song missing, or playback at the wrong pitch. Set them to the same value and it stops.

Check That It Is Working

Play a track in Tidal and watch the input meter along the bottom of ARIA ONE. If it moves with the music, Tidal is reaching ARIA ONE and the routing is correct.

Toggle the correction off and on to hear the difference. In Simple View, open Sound and tap PERSONAL AUDIO / ORIGINAL AUDIO. In Advanced View, use Bypass in the top bar. Listen for clarity, detail, and changes in the sound image.

A still meter means the routing is not complete. Confirm ARIA ONE’s INPUT is the virtual audio device, and that Tidal’s Sound output is set to that same device by name.

Tidal Connect Bypasses The Chain

Tidal Connect lets the desktop app hand playback to a network streamer, receiver, or speaker. The music then goes straight from Tidal to that device, never through your computer, and ARIA ONE receives nothing.

Click the speaker icon in the bottom right of Tidal and confirm playback is on this computer. If ARIA ONE’s input meter is still and the music is playing, check this first.

Using It Day To Day

Once the routing is set, daily use is simple: open ARIA ONE, open Tidal, and listen. Because Tidal routes itself, there is nothing to switch back when you are done; the rest of your computer stays on its normal output.

If you move between headphones and speakers, save a preset for each in ARIA ONE. The right correction for one is rarely the right correction for the other.

When you have time, rerun SETUP and take the full hearing test. ARIA ONE replaces the Instant profile with one built from your own measurements.

What About Your Phone

This routing works on Mac and Windows only. iPhone and Android do not let one app capture another app’s audio, so Tidal cannot be routed through ARIA ONE on a phone.

On mobile, ARIA ONE can still play music files you own with your correction applied using its built-in player. Your hearing profile stays synced across devices.

Common Problems

Known-Good Details

Tidal changes menu names and placement on its own schedule. Everything in this list was accurate when this page was last updated. If a setting has moved, look for it by name; the routing logic above is unchanged.

• Sound output — Tidal Settings, under Streaming. Also reachable from the speaker icon in the bottom right of the player.
• Exclusive Mode, Force Volume, Passthrough — under Sound output, and only shown once a device has been chosen by name rather than as System Default.
• Loudness normalization and streaming quality — Tidal Settings, under Streaming.
• Tidal sample rates — CD-quality tracks are 44.1 kHz; hi-res tracks vary up to 192 kHz depending on the release and your plan. Tidal has no sample rate setting. With Exclusive Mode off, your computer converts to the virtual audio device’s rate automatically.
• Tidal Connect — the speaker icon in the bottom right of the player shows the current playback device.
• ARIA ONE Audio Settings — the gear in the top bar. INPUT, OUTPUT, and sample rate are all set here.

Summary

Tidal routes through ARIA ONE cleanly because it has its own output setting: set Tidal’s Sound output to the virtual audio device by name, and ARIA ONE reads from that device, applies your hearing profile, and sends the result to your headphones or speakers. Turn off Exclusive Mode, Passthrough, and loudness normalization, turn on Force Volume, keep the virtual audio device and ARIA ONE on the same sample rate, and make sure Tidal Connect is not sending playback to another device.