The State of Streaming Audio

+1 on Qobuz. In fact, my perception of the relative sound quality of streaming services.has Tidal sounding worst of all of the streaming services as of Nov 2020.

1. Qobuz

2. Primephonic

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

4. IDAGIO

5. Amazon HD

6 Tidal

Also prefer Qobuz. 

Are you including Tidal MQA in that comparison - just curious.

Quick background on my typical usage - I tend to use Tidal to "try out" albums, and if I fall in love with one, I'll buy the highest resolution I can find for "serious" listening. So my library at any time tends to be a mixture of hires files and Tidal albums/tracks, which is why the seamless integration of my Tidal library into Roon is a must have.

But I'm always up for experimenting, so maybe someone can help me out - suggest 1 or 2 tracks available on the other platforms in high quality that you feel really highlights their superiority to the same track on Tidal and I will do a comparison on my gear.

Thanks.

@gwillis MQA uses an algorithm that someone at Tidal thinks makes the music sound better but alters the original content.  Qobuz doesn’t do that, nor does it require you to have an MQA-compatible DAC or do all of its silly unfolding.  To me, the only benefit of Tidal is that it works better in mobile situations because it’s less demanding of bandwidth, but even that’s less of an issue as 5G rolls out so there’s that.  As a bonus, Qobuz has a ton more hi-res content than Tidal and, to me, a better user interface.  I switched from Tidal to Qobuz a couple years ago and will never go back, and many here have done the same.  Hey, it’s free to try and see what you think.  There are also differences in their libraries/genres so that could be significant too.  Decide for yourself. 

I have had Qobuz and Tidal for a few years and I prefer Tidal for the MY MIXES feature. It makes mixes based on you listening patterns, your library, along with Tidal's recommendations.

I have a very eclectic mix of music that I listen too and I regularity see new curated Tidal mixes for me that seem to always lead me to great new discoveries. I have been on a early 70's R+B and Soul bender for a while now. One Tidal Mix I tried last night went deep into the artist catalogs and led me to discover new artists, such as The Jackson 5. A group I thought from a distance was really bubble gum music, but there are some good tracks in their catalog.

This is a bit different from ROON Radio which seems to focus on more well known songs.