STREAMING - QOBUZ VS TIDAL AND ROON'S PREFERENCES

I have Spotify Premium and Tidal Hifi with Roon. Qobuz is not available in my country. My DAC is Musician Pegasus. 

Spotify Premium sounds more compressed and slightly grainy when the music gets loud and busy. 

Tidal Hifi with Roon sounds more spacious and cleaner. 

Spotify Premium sounds better when I am using my TWS, Tidal/Roon sounds better when I am using my main speaker setup. 

I tried using DSP Upsampling in Roon. All the PCM and DSD upsampling options come at the cost of loss of details, smaller dynamics range, and more 'digital' sound so I keep it off. I actually like the MQA tracks, they seem to have better dynamics compared to non MQA ones. 

I can't quantify it, but I felt Qobuz sounded better to me than Tidal.  For lack of a better description, Qobuz sounded less digital.  Tidal has a few, more obscure, artists I like that Qobuz doesn't, but in the end the cheaper price and better sound quality (whether real or perceived) won out.

I am going to differ from many here. On my setup, tidal $9.99 hifi sounds better than qobuz $12.99 plan. It gives me way more depth and a little more width in soundstage. Can't speak of Tidal MQA or qobuz upper plan since they are not feasible on my android through wifi feed.

A bit off topic, but after months of using Quobuz to Roon (which sounds better than Tidal to me) I finally compared to my old setup, Audirvāna into DAC via usb. Audirvāna was substantially better. All going into Chord Qutest, Roon via Ethernet with server in other room. 

I stream both Tidal and Qobuz through Roon and honestly despite the Tidal haters it sounds fine!

I agree that Qobuz sounds better than Tidal, but in my opinion not a huge difference. I don’t quite get the negative comments on Tidal. Tidal sounds good, has more albums, and better personal playlists. I kept both for over a year, but finally did just keep Qobuz due to having more high resolution albums.

Agree. Qobuz sounds best. 

I use Roon and Innous Sense as my music front ends.  Regardless of front end, I find Qobuz better sounding than Tidal in general, but not by much.  Using a PS Audio DSD DAC, I find little difference between Qobuz HiRes and Tidal MQA. I listen to Tidal most often because I like their playlist much more than those provided by Qobuz.    

For critical music room listening, I use Sense because it’s sounds more natural than Roon.  I’ve created playlists using a combination of Qobuz, Tidal, and songs stored on my Innous Zenith.  Sonically, all of the music sounds good to me.  As is the nature of digital music, some songs clearly sound better than others.

@jeffseight Why is it we have to provide scientific evidence to support our opinions but you do not? Where’s your scientific evidence to support Apple and Spotify sound better than Qobuz, cause I ain’t never seen anyone else on this site say that and there are plenty who’ve heard all of them and all that I recall prefer Qobuz. Perhaps you should bring your statements to ASR as they seem more up your alley.

@jeffseight I prefer Roon with Qobuz as do my ears. My ears & I also don't think Tidal is as bad as others seem too.

No "scientific evidence" required. 

I rejected Tidal because my McIntosh D/A doesn't support MQA, so why pay for inferior sound?  But on my system, streaming provides variety, but vinyl supplies the best listening experience.

Okay let's stir the pot. 

1. Roon Software degrades SQ

2. Spotify and Apple sound better than Qobuz or Tidal

3. MQA is a waste of time

4. A Streamer without a Ripper and Storage is not a smart buy.

5. Tapping into a good source of new music is the most valuable goal.

Now if you are going to challenge any of the above statements

please include your scientific evidence. 

Never was a fan of Tidal but did compare it to Qobuz years ago, and preferred Qobuz. But I think tidal really shot themselves in the foot when they increased their pricing and you need their highest tier to get MQA (which I'm not a fan of). So basically they are double the cost of Qobuz, cause why would you want Tidal without MQA?

I fixed this bu unsubscribing to tidal.  Never look back.  

Thank you audiotroy for the suggestion of logging out of Tidal.

I have replaced many favorites or playlist songs with Qobuz.  Not all of my desired tracks are on Qobuz though... If I like the album, it is worth having Tidal for it.

Yes, 100% Qobuz sounds better to me. Some notes on my perceptions of the sound quality of various streaming services & of Qobuz vs Tidal specifically:

My subjective impressions of the musicality and sound quality of the major HD streaming services: (as of November 2020)

1. Qobuz

2. Primephonic

3. Spotify Premium (320 kbps Ogg Vorbis which is not lossless)

4. IDAGIO

5. Amazon HD

6 Tidal

-----------------------------------------

Round 2, Qobuz vs Tidal: So far Qobuz is clearly better than Tidal even listening through pretty cheap desktop passive speakers. Tidal sounds very two dimensional and flat in its sound quality but with some harshness in the high frequencies. I'll listen a bit more to Tidal, but so far I'm not impressed at all. Spotify Premium even seems to sound better than Tidal. 

Some additional thoughts about Tidal after listening on higher quality equipment. I think they have applied some equalization to boost the bass and treble. In the process, I think side effects of doing this is to take out some of the presence of voices and instruments and add an artificial quality to voices and instruments.. Qobuz sounds a LOT better. Spotify Premium also sounds better. To my ears at least. (Disclaimer: Your results may vary). I'm currently listening to a track that is a MQA file on Tidal vs a CD quality file on Qobuz. The CD quality file on Qobuz sounds a LOT fuller and more natural. 

Not a big fan of hip hop, but decided to listen to something that is squarely in Tidal's area of focus. I listened to 'The Box' by Roddy Ricch which is a MQA file on Tidal and CD quality on Qobuz. Same results. The Qobuz file sounds fuller and has more presence. Almost sounds like two different recordings when listening on Qobuz vs Tidal.

The short answer is no, Roon does not have a preference setting for search results There are multiple threads on Roon's community forum and it has been a requested feature for years.

youcan open the quobuzz tab and just select trom there or log out of tidal problem solved

Dave and Troy

Audiointellect nj

streaming specialists 

Yes, Qobuz sounds better and had about 500,000 high resolution albums a few months ago, while Tidal had only around 50,000.

My dealer recommended I switch from Tidal to Qobuz for nearly a year before I tried Qobuz… the comparison was over in a day. Only Qobuz now.