Unfortunately we don’t have proper reference Apple Music capable streamer yet to fairly compare Tidal or other streaming services to Apple Music.
Apple Music vs Tidal for SQ
I compared Tidal to Apple music for the first time using speakers, not headphones. Apple seems bright and a bit less smooth the tidal on my system. I never tried the apple codec before but so far not a fan, it seems to have treble that is a bit fatiguing. What is your experience?
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- 32 posts total
Not being impressed by MQA, I've had a "CD-quality" plan from Tidal. I was under the impression that Qobuz was double the $9.95/month I was paying for Tidal, but thanks to @fuzztone I learned that Qobuz is closer to $11/month. Wanting higher quality music, I subscribed to Qobuz this week and was quite impressed. Qobuz's CD-quality content was similar to Tidal's but on many tracks more detail could be heard. The Hi-Rez content was mostly much higher quality... to the point that it inspired a stupid-late 3 hour listening session... exploring familiar favorites to hear the improvement. The free Soundiiz online transfer utility worked flawlessly...importing my thousands of tracks, playlists and albums. Overall it's been a great experience. |
I subscribed to Tidal and Qobuz and appreciate their sound quality. While both are great, I find Qobuz to be more natural and smoother, making it the preferred option for my system. Despite this, even Apple Music and MP3 files sound pretty good on my setup. At the moment, I am utilizing Amazon HD for my music streaming needs, but I have intentions of exploring Tidal in the upcoming year. Although Qobuz sounds better to me, Tidal has a more extensive selection of music that aligns with my personal preferences. |
I gave Qobuz the slight nod over Apple in a post above, but Apple is certainly listenable. Neither of them sounded as good as my CDs either played from a streamer or on a CDP, but we are talking really small degrees of differences here. I am curious to see if Apple's new Classical derive, to be started on 4/4, will offer any improvement over their current standard sonically |
I wouldn’t make a blanket statement that Qobuz is better than Tidal. Here’s why…
Both Tidal and Qobuz, however, sound better than Apple Music with almost anything I listen to even in the car or in the gym with headphones. |
- 32 posts total