Tidal vs Qubuz - Steely Dan "Jack of Speed"

Basing an audio decision based on the assessment, determination, and conclusion of hearing just just one, single, solitary track is not very wise you should expand your horizons they may have even been mastered differently.

Did you bother to level match them ? Qobuz is often not as loud as Tidal…..

op 

what level of qobuz vs tidal did you use?  were you listening to redbook resolution or higher, on one or both services?

did you listen to other tracks, other music?  for popular music, both services have highly overlapping libraries

i think both services sound very good, though subtly different... i would say i prefer qobuz hi-res ever so slightly over tidal masters

Basing an audio decision based on the assessment, determination, and conclusion of hearing just just one, single, solitary track is not very wise you should expand your horizons they may have even been mastered differently.

Man there are some seriously condescending snobs on this blog. I listened to both Tidal & Qobuz for a month, at their highest resolutions. Contrary to your knee jerk assumptions, I based my opinion on more than one track. I simply asked for some other Steely Dan fans to give those different versions a listen. "they may have been mastered differently." Do ya think?

@stevehardy1

Man there are some seriously condescending snobs on this blog.

haha -- well this is certainly true, but you did open the door with your op... peace bro...enjoy the music

Find your favorite streaming source and live happily. It's great, too, that the streaming sources each have their own personalities. Not to mention separate sets of ears.

I have had Tidal for a couple of years and Qobuz for the past month.  I signed up for a year of Qobuz after the free trial.  I agree with @jjss49 who said:

i think both services sound very good, though subtly different

However, I would not ascribe a consistent sound to the difference in that I couldn't say Qobuz sounds like this and Tidal sounds like that - just a little different, maybe.  At at this time, after only a month with Qobuz, I would not definitively rank one above the other based on SQ, although I am enjoying having more content to choose from.  I will likely keep both but wanted to give myself the year to decide.

One track does not an informed decision make.

Good enough for some to opine about.

I have both Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions that I run through Roon software using a Roon Nucleus as my music streamer. I always choose the recording with the highest bitrate available from either service. Most often my preference is to listen to the Qobuz provided recording because in my system I feel that Qobuz sounds better to my ears. I’m very familiar with the song Jack of Speed from the Steely Dan album Two Against Nature, and I like it very much. On Qobuz it is offered in a 96kHz/24bit format. Whereas on Tidal it is a FLAC 48kHz/24bit format or an MQA 96kKz recording. I prefer how Qobuz sounds over Tidal on this particular album. I am not a fan of MQA. 

You didnot mention if you had to have MQA engaged , many dac makers will not pay for what is a enhanced but still compressed Version with  MQA 

I never had tried Tidal. Because Briscati, or Denafrips and many others will  not pay   MQA  and their fee . Please explain what version of Tidal and monthly charge is needed ?

If you want to get a program that will truly improve your music 

check out HQ player , for $200+ Once you read a few reviews and check it out 

for yourself  which  you like best it is a dramatic increase in fidelity across the board. 

One track does not an informed decision make.Good enough for some to opine about.

Wow, so very profound.  Thank you for your insight. 

I have Tidal but have not tried Qobuz yet. Another thing I thought was I interesting was when I got a cd player after a few year without one. The same track on cd sounded clearly better than on Tidal. I tried with multiple tracks and have still not found any track where Tidal is better.

I still use Tidal because of the great selection of music and sometimes I am just lazy and won’t bother to go get a cd. Also I now have a newer dac that only can be connected to my streamer so I can’t compare apples to apples anymore. I did rip some discs and they sound great.

Steve, when I listen to the new Dion album, Stomping Ground, on Qobuz the channel balance seems to be set to the left.  It may be that that's the way the album was mixed or it may be that Qobuz got a bad file.  With the millions of tracks they have there has to be problems in there somewhere.  That's probably what you're hearing.

Audiogon has its share of internet characters and there are few threads that don't get some snark or other nonsense.  It's best to just ignore it if you can.  Some people just like to irritate others for some reason.