Apple Music vs Tidal for SQ

I have been using Tidal for 2 years and enjoy it immensely. Not only is sound quality excellent (especially MQA, and now they have added Atmos), but also their enormous inventory I am seeking. As well, their utility and ease both on computer and iPhone does not require a degree in Computer Science, and if you have a query, they respond within 24 hours! Neal

I use Qobuz for home streaming, but recently started an Apple Music trial. I don’t believe that Aurender’s Conductor will stream Apple Music. I’ve been using Apple in the car, while working out and walking the dog. I don’t drive much, but other uses amount to two to three hours per day, which is more than I listen to my home system. Much of my listening on Apple consists of more pop music and lately, lots of Korean music. I have an interest in a new artist, BiBi, who has many styles from rap to ballads and everything between. What Apple seems to be good at is tagging other music to the end of my Korean playlist, which exposes me to other artists that I haven’t heard. I have another playlist with Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo. Again, I get a number of alternative artist. I must admit that I don’t listen to much Ella Fitzgerald on Apple, because I don’t want to relax while working out. Apple claims that they have high resolution streaming and it does sound good on Apple EarPods. BTW.. The watch with cell service is a great way to listen and leave the phone at home. I have been a Garmin Fenix owner for years, but for walking, running, indoor treadmill and elliptical, the new Apple Watch Ultra is amazing and the GPS is great in high resolution mode. In the gym I use a Polar 10 chest heart rate monitor which connects to the watch and the gym equipment and allows me to train to my heart rate. This is a great way to workout for those of us that were born when analog computers were cutting edge.

Interesting takes. I have found Tidal to sound very muddy/flat with levels all over the place, requiring constant adjustments to the volume - not a good listening experience. Especially in regards to streaming an infinite playlist for background music.

not to mention Tidal’s search and app are an abomination. Horrible UX. Not intuitive. Doesn’t allow for queuing while listening in a good way. And their curation is not my taste. Not a fan of their playlists.

tried Qobuz for a minute but it is missing so much music.

Apple Music’s UX and search is by far and away the best. Their curated playlists are fantastic and the algorithm is the right balance of stuff from my library and matching music I haven’t heard. SQ is excellent over Airplay to bluesound node 2i.

not as good as a CD, mind you.

one note. You must go into settings on the phone and turn on LOSSLESS. It is off by default on Apple Music.

I wouldn’t make a blanket statement that Qobuz is better than Tidal. Here’s why…

• Some albums available on Tidal, missing on Qobuz. 
• Redbook versions of some albums sound better on Tidal

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. 

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 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.

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. 

Unfortunately we don’t have proper reference Apple Music capable streamer yet to fairly compare Tidal or other streaming services to Apple Music.

I haven’t listened to Tidal in years.  I switched from Qobuz to Apple for various reasons and while I give Qobuz a slight edge in sonics I found Apple to be a lot closer than I had anticipated 

So got my new Sony Signature dac/pre/headphone amp unboxed and hooked up today. It sounded amazing right out of the box and has a ton of filters. I found the the DSD remastering was best for my taste. So I hook up my Onkyo DP-X1 DAP which has a USB out that I haven’t used, use it more with headphones. Worked great. It also has a feature to upmix files to DSD but only with ripped files, not streaming. The Sony DSD remastering works with everything. The good news is I can listen to everything I can rip in DSD after going through this conversion process. The bad news is now streaming, while still good, will be less satisfying than playing ripped tracks. I can purchase CD quality downloads, replay at the remastered DSD format. Thank you Sony and Onkyo! Marantz also has a DSD remastering feature on their higher end SACD players. I never gravitated to DSD much because a lot of the music I like isn’t available and what is starts at $25 a pop and goes up from there.

https://www.themasterswitch.com/review-sony-ta-zh1es

My ripped CDs sound better than Qobuz or Tidal CD quality music. Qobuz HiRes and Tidal MQA sound a bit better than my ripped CDs. Quboz HiRes sounds better than Tidal MQA. DSD128 songs played via the Zenith beats them all.

I play Qobuz through a Zenith MK2 to Matrix-X to PS Audio DSD DAC via i2s.  I play Tidal through the DSD DAC’s Bridge II card.  When playing via the Zenith, I use the Innous Sense app.  I play Tidal via Roon. Sense sounds much better than Roon.

Tidal is good without paying for MQA and I couldn’t really tell the difference any way.

Can anyone clarify the difference between Tidal Master and MQA?

I did trial Qobuz but really didn’t put much effort into the trial before it ran out but this thread has prompted me to have another go.

I don’t hear much about Deezer on AG, nor do I know much about it. Any opinions?

@oldschool1948 

So you are saying the ripped versions sound better? What difference do you hear? Just curious. 

My experience is all the services make it harder than it needs to be figure out which recording you are listening too. Start with the same recording, ensure you are bit perfect, no volume control in the app or automatic controls, and Apple, Qoboz, Amazon HD will sound the same. Tried Tidal. Sometimes it sounded exactly the same. Sometimes it did not. I assume that was whatever processing they are doing.

Qobuz here…. Tidal wasn’t a real possibility for me due to the inability to decode MQA.

I have Tidal and Qobuz.  I like them both for SQ.  Qobuz sounds a bit more natural and smoother and therefore better on my system.  Apple music and even mp3 files sound pretty good on my system, but you can clearly hear the difference between streamed Tidal and Qobuz songs and my CD collection ripped to FLAC on my Zenith MK2 streamer.

Tidal has more of the music I like (Old School R&B, Jazz, and Soft Rock) and the songs in their personalized playlists (mixes) are much better than the Qobuz playlists to me.  

Another happy Qobuzer here. 

In 2 years spotify stock has gone from $338 to $79, they better change to lossless fast.

@mofojo Anyone heard any news on Spotify Hifi. Sure are talking their time!

I’m hoping its great since my wife demands to have a Spotify subscription and I demand to have a "lossless" subscription.

Since 2017 Spotify has been dragging their feet on/off about lossless - closing out one community forum gripe post to the next by its paying members. Past two years in a row the’ve outright lied about making LOSSLESS available to its subscribers by "year end", a ploy to keep people hanging on tied to their special playlists and outdated learning engine. Both Amazon and Apple continue to surge ahead.

They are knowingly losing more customers to Amazon and Apple now. The latest excuses are around their inability to license content. My guess is their bean counters are being cheap again. WhatHiFi did an article on it months back.

@lalitk , very different from 5 years ago. I have been using the DAC in my Marantz HT processor and have 3 different transports. A Bluesound Node (bluos OS is convenient and the SQ is OK), a Sony SACD/CD/ Blueray player (for discs and streaming via DLNA), and finally an X-Box Series-S for streaming online concerts and Tidal via Plex AND listening to Atmos music in my HT. This is where I set up the Apple Music app to check out their lossless and spatial audio.

My DAC was just upgraded today, I got a Sony Signature TA-ZH1ES headphone amp/dac/preamp. I just unboxed it and will set it up later. Will compare Quboz and compare..

https://www.themasterswitch.com/review-sony-ta-zh1es

My experience with Tidal vs. Apple Music is pretty much the same as the OP’s.  I could easily live with an Apple subscription if that was the only one available but I preferred Tidal hands down.  Haven’t tried Qobuz yet but hope to in the next year or so.  Most of my experiences listening to Tidal have been so good I’m reluctant to change anything but, like with all things, there’s the occasional flaw — Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” album is an ear drill of the worst sort on Tidal Masters to my hearing!

“I tried Quoboz about 5 years ago and found it a bit fatiguing”

@kota1 

What are your current digital streaming components? 

Tidal MQA is a real deal. It sounds better than normal FLAC to me. So, I don't know what every body here is smoking about? I have both Qobuz and Tidal, and to me they are very close in sound quality. 

Anyone heard any news on Spotify Hifi. Sure are talking their time!

I'm hoping its great since my wife demands to have a Spotify subscription and I demand to have a "lossless" subscription. 

I tried Quobuz 5 years ago, will try today and post.

Qobuz for sure after trying Tidal, as long as you have a decent streamer and DAC it is very good.

If you find Qobuz fatiguing I’d suggest the problem is somewhere else in the chain. 

I tried Quoboz about 5 years ago and found it a bit fatiguing, I'll try it again and see what happens. Thanks

They both blow from what I’ve heard. Doesn’t matter which one is less bad. Give me Qobuz or give me (take me back to) Spotify.

Wait till you hear Qobuz! 

Neither.  Go with Qobuz.  MQA is a total farce, and Qobuz has a lot more real hi-res content not altered by some mystical algorithm. 

I’m currently using Amazon HD and am planning on checking out Tidal in the new year. Amazon isn’t shiny at all, but I want to check out Apple, Tidal And Qobuz. Now I’m thinking that Apple might soon be off my list.

All the best.