Qobuz vs. Tidal

I have Spotify Premium, which to my ears, doesn’t sound too bad at all.  Wondering how much better QoBuz will sound?

@lou_setriodes Well, they offer a free trial so why not just give it a try and see what you think?

I have both Qobuz and Tidal and listen primarily via Roon.  When mobile, I use Tidal alone rather than Qobuz or Roon's ARC.  I find the Tidal interface to be easier for mobile. 

There shouldn't be a difference in SQ unless they are different masters.  In general, the only difference to me is the different libraries of music.  Occasionally Qobuz seems to have their servers at capacity. 

Qobuz absolutely sounds better, with a vastly superior collection of high resolution files, and if you choose to upgrade to their premium plan, you have the added benefit of being able to purchase the files for half off of the regular price, which is another great bonus.

As for their customer service, it does suck and is admittedly slow, but if there is ever an issue, they do ultimately respond  but there are rarely issues  

I currently have Qobuz annual and Tidal on a 30 day trial. April 10th Tidal is lowering it's price where the 2 services are competitive. I stream through a Node and modded Node 2i using the coax pass through to my Anthem receiver and Peachtree integrate which both have superior DACs.

It's fairly easy to A/B between the streaming services and I find Qobuz to sound better on same songs.The interface with Tidal is better and I wish Qobuz had the very convenient Tidal Connect feature. They both sound good through Android Auto on my car. In the end SQ trumps features. I will be re-upping with Qobux.

At first, I thought that SQ alone was what should decide.

Qobuz won right away for having a default player that finally actually doesn't sound bad compared to even the average local-file player.  After that, Qobuz won, even while playing both on the best player that supports both streamers also, Audirvana.  The reason is because Tidal was busy screwing customers by charging double for a false invisible bandwidth saving technology that makes stuff sound worse than the original 44.1khz versions, MQA.

Except after Qobuz winning by sounding the least broken, Qobuz had new music browsing that was the same only around two pages for my whole 6 months with them.  On top of that, and a point on which Tidal destroys ever other streamer, is that my Qobuz personalized playlist never offered anything I cared about.  Tidal gives me 8 different smart playlists all separated by music types, which also rotate every few days.

That turns out to be the actual winning point in the streaming services war, how good are my personalized playlists.  Although if they didn't also offer the best playback copy of that track, I would complain.  Since Audirvana supports Tidal and Qobuz streaming for their users, the only thing to desire is downloading the FLAC file, decompress it onto a temporary hard drive wav file, and then play that file instead of having any streaming overhead, either.  If you're a believer in FLAC still sounding like it's all there, and is also inaudibly altered for playback, try seeing if you can hear the disappearing brass instrument effect of uncompressed original playback, which you have to admit is required for reference playback quality.  Too much gets played back by lossless compression playback, you're supposed to be able to fall asleep compared to lossless compression playback, if it's a good track.

So, Tidal proves to me that 8 smart rotating playlists wins first, and then whichever service runs through Audirvana, so that I can only complain about the isolated compression and even worse streaming issue, that could be defeated, as above.

I still have to get more into pressing favorite whenever a track is better than the rest, to work the system most effectively.  I think we need a number out of 100 to really help with the custom playlists, not just favorite or nothing.

Anyways, Tidal is (for some reason not all as one batch file that could be finished in a day) reverting all their tracks to normal, non-MQA,  Their player remains disappointing only when compared to Qobuz's, and especially compared to normal local file players, but their browsing and customizable playlists are way ahead of the rest.  But $10 per month for an Audirvana subscription allows both Tidal and Qobuz streaming also through the #1 local file player.

Also, after Jay-Z got out of the Tidal business, they made higher res streaming included in the regular recently lowered subscription cost.  That makes up for me sticking with them through the MQA scam, just to get my 8 smart playlists.

As it stands, I only have to suffer with less than stellar audio quality if I want to hear sound from a game at the same time, when I'll have to use the default streamer's player.  Audirvana locks my audio device into the only "not adding any problems to the output" ASIO output mode.

I quit Tidal years ago and went to Amazon HD and Qobuz  I’ve been wanting to stop Amazon, but the wife really likes it and finds it much easier to operate than Qobuz. They each have their pros and cons. With having two music suggestions, it’s gonna be a while before I try Tidal again.

I've used both, but prefer Qobuz. There's more space,  nuance,  detail,  etc.  That said,  Tidal is more user friendly. 

If you use Roon it at least equalizes the UI part, so you can make a decision more based on SQ. I personally like Qobuz just a tiny bit more but it's not as obvious to me as what some people say.

Also keep in mind all streaming services have an issue with not being very obvious about which master is involved. Not a big deal for some music but things like classic rock has quite a few versions out there. When comparing two streaming services, we may actually be hearing different masters which will impact the conclusion.

@greg_f  I'm a metal head.  I find Qobuz to have a more hi res  choices.  In the other hand Tidal does have a few more obscure bands if you're into extreme metal. 

In my opinion, Qobuz sounds cleaner and more refined to my ears. While both streaming services don't quite match up to a locally stored file on a correctly copied hard drive, Qobuz stands out for its superior high-resolution files. On the other hand, Tidal tends to feel more confined and less expansive. Depending on the album, I perceive Tidal to be somewhat rougher and less smooth overall, whereas Qobuz offers a clearer and slightly better clarity.

I have both but I should really cancel Qobuz. Tidal has got some incredible features that I use regularly, such as My Mix. I need to figure out what is in my library specific to Qobuz. If it is not too much, I am dumping Qobuz.