Qobuz vs Tidal


Just sharing my recent experience.  I'll be brief.  I've been a dedicated music streamer for the past 4 years and have enjoyed it immensely.  I always had both Tidal and Qobuz at my disposal, but because Tidal had a more extensive music catalog, sound quality comparable to Qobuz, and seemed more user friendly, I decided to make Tidal my Roon default (most all of my music library was Tidal).  All was well and sounding great.  Yes, I was fully aware of the fact that Qobuz was widely recognized as the "audiophile's" choice over Tidal, but when I occasionally did "brief" comparisons between the two, I thought the differences in sound quality were negligible, so I left things as they were.  Well, after all this time, just the other day, while watching high end audio show video footage on youtube, I noticed that all of the exhibitors who were streaming their music were using Qobuz, as opposed to Tidal.  This observation prompted me to really want go back, take my time, and see for myself which streaming service really did sound best to my ears.  After hours of back and forth comparisons, I have to say, Qobuz came out on top.  What I noticed was that Qobuz sounded slightly more focused, more refined, more natural and real-to-life.  I was convinced!!!  I believe that switching to Qobuz from Tidal actually succeeded in elevating the overall sound quality of my listening experience a notch.  I immediately began the process of converting my entire music library from Tidal over to Qobuz.  Happy listening.                                    

kennymacc

Numerous news articles state that last spring Tidal lowered their high tier price but eliminated the military discount...

Yea, I've kept my subscription to Tidal because sometimes titles not on qobuz are available but have barely used Tidal the last couple of years. Qobuz just conveys music better and is more enjoyable. Something coming through Tidal makes me want to turn it off, can't quite explain what it is. YMMV.

@stray_cat 

Same here!!!  Although I had both Qobuz and Tidal, most all my Roon album library collection was Tidal, because I assumed they both sounded too similar to make that much of a difference.  Until one day I decided to really take time out to compare one against the other.  That's when I realized way most all high end audio show exhibitors, reviewers, and audiophiles prefer the sound quality to Qobuz over Tidal.  I've  converted all my Roon albums to Qobuz.  With Tidal, I always got that eerie feeling when listing to music that something was missing from the music.  But that all went away once I switched to Qobuz.  I stream my music exclusively, so my new found discovery of Qobuz is like a musical dream come true.  Happy listening.    

@ghdprentice not to pick on you in particular but because you brought up the point…

High resolution audio is 100% marketing bullshit

the best Audio possible is whatever was happening in the mastering room, that is what was approved by the artist, the label, etc.,

 

there is no upgrading this by making it have a higher sample rate or more bits, etc.

 

24/96 is not better if the original masters were printed to 16 bit/44.1

I know this is a difficult concept for many people to grasp, but in simple terms, when you change the audio, that’s not an upgrade, it’s a downgrade.

 

back on this topic… I've never done the comparison, but I'm interested in the observations, I still don't stream anything here and I'm open to the idea but it's never been really necessary