Streaming Spotify vs Tidal


Hi, perhaps you can help, a litlle background. I have been steaming Spotify for a number of years and love it except perhaps the sound quality. I stream to my main system which has both Spotify and Tidal built in, and to my networked Bose HT systems and lastly through my phone to my car. My question is does Tidal have the same great connect-ability that Spotify has? If you have used both do you recognize a difference in sound quality? What has your experience been with Tidal? My streamer does not do MQA, not sure about my other devices either. Thanks for your help! 

grm
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Thanks to all for the constructive feedback. In the end I kept them both, each has their strong points. For my main system, I love Tidal. For everything/everyone else, Spotify.

Tidal offers higher audio quality than its competitors, including Tidal HiFi and Tidal MQA, and this helps attract high-end audiophiles and artists to explore music with Tidal. To get Tidal downloads offline on my desktop, I would use AudFree Tidal Music Downloader instead of subscribing to the Tidal Premium Plan.

It helps us to download high quality music from Tidal, regardless of whether we are using a free or premium account. This way, not only can we download music from Tidal to our computer at 5x the speed, but we can also convert Tidal to FLAC, MP3, WAV and other audio formats for proper playback. Afterwards, we can listen to Tidal music offline on any other device we like.

In order for Tidal connect to find your devices, your devices need to support it (eg - Bose would need to implement it). Bose is not listed as supporting Tidal connect on Tidal's website.

Tidal connect support is not as common as the similar Spotify connect. 

Hi and thanks for the responses. I have loaded Tidal on my phone and HT systems as well as my main rig for a number of days now, comparing it side by side with Spotify. What I discovered first is the SQ of Tidal way outshines Spotify. What I also discovered is that "Tidal Connect" is not near as robust as Spotify connect, where Spotify is like a rock finding and streaming to all my devices, yet Tidal only found my main rig and none of my Bose HT systems. Bottom line is I wish I had done this along time ago, I am now cancelling Spotify. 

I have been using Tidal on my iPhone, laptop, and streamer via the Big Rig. Easy to use, enormous inventory; interesting playlists and artist proposed playlists; and you can download onto your iPhone and take it with you. I think Tidal is the cat's meow. (Even though I don't like cats.) Neal

Wow,

Installed Tidal on my phone and PC as well as my HT systems. I realized an immediate improvement in SQ as I bounced back and forth between the two apps and Tidal was a significant upgrade to my main system. Thanks to all who posted with their thoughts. 

Just reread my above post, I need to clarify, sorry.

I would keep Spotify and subscribe to Qobuz or Tidal for my main system only, if that makes more sense.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think for on  the go audio and my HT systems, I'll stick with Spotify, it works great and is feature rich. For my main system, I do have a small collection of DSD downloaded albums that I send to my streamer via USB and JRiver, it works great but I have not been able to find a good selection of music, mostly classical and smooth jazz. So maybe a subscription to Qobuz or Tidal? My taste leans towards classic rock. Again, I appreciate the feedback! 

In my cars I notice a varying degree of improvement with Roon/Qubuz and directly streaming Synology NAS FLAC files to their Auto Android/Apple Play app. My F150 has the lowest road noise and a "good" sound system and the improvement is easy to hear, but for convenience and safety I only use apps that integrate with AA/ACP.  I don't want/need Tidal.

I stream qobuz via Roon so roon provies a very nice interface.  My kids use spotify and it seems to be the leader in ease-of-use by a long shot.  In your car you probably won't benefit from a better quality stream and frankly your Bose HT system isn't considred high end audio and you might not see much improvement switching to a high res source at home eitehr.  Be happy with spotify.

 

Yes Tidal has had a Connect app feature since about 2 years ago but it still only works on limited devices. Qobuz is better and cheaper.