Why limit yourself to one streaming service?


I’m always puzzled when I read posts from people with 10K+ systems who feel they have to choose between Tidal or Qubuz or whatever. Sign up for however many brings you more joy. That’s my two cents.

128x128m669326

fuzztone -- I've got thousands of LPs, singles and CDs, but it's still eminently worth it to me to essentially have access to a good part of the rest of the recorded music universe. It doesn't hurt that some of the recordings on the streaming services are surprisingly excellent.  It doesn't hurt that they're minus the cracks, pops and the wow ya' get from off-centered pressings.

I had three services at once. Can only listen to one @ a time and only 10-15% of the time at that. I have plenty of recorded music available besides streaming.

I have zer0 need for more than one. And I get the 2¢ too.

I am currently subscribed to Qobuz for its SQ. Does it have every album…NO but large enough library to keep me humming along. No issues with Qobuz in my car or away from home. I do plan to add Spotify once they start offering CD res quality. I believe they have the largest library of songs.

I started with Tidal and moved to, and prefer Qobuz, but added Amazon when Auralic started supporting it. It's cheap and the two combined are around $20 a month a small price to play for zillions of albums.

One thing I've learned about people "who have the money". They have money becuase they spend less than they need to. This includes multiple subscription services including streaming. Luckily, I just share family subscriptions with my brothers on Qobuz and Roon, so I'm basically paying for one subscription while having access to both.

FWIW, I do like the sound quality on Qobuz more than Tidal, but Tidal has all the kiddie music that Qobuz does not, which keeps my son and daughter happy. :)

I appreciate finding out why others approach this differently. I guess that varies a lot.

I use streaming primarily to screen recordings for purchase, so having two services wouldn't make much sense.  I switched from Qobuz to Apple because my wife wanted to stay with Apple and Apple is cheaper and "good enough" sonically.  I have also found that Apple  works much better in my car.  Qobuz kept dropping when I drove around to the point where I had stopped using it.  I use an LG Android Phone and as usual the phone company and streaming service pointed fingers at each other.

   I do have a second "boutique" streaming service called Pristine Classical, that specializes in historical recordings.  So adding Tidal or something to the two services would just not make much sense

 

I guess it depends on what genres and how obscure your music choices are. I find lots of things on Deezer, for example, that aren’t on Qubuz.

If Roon ever integrates with Deezer I might add that along with my Qobuz subscription.  I had it for years before going to Qobuz.  I think its great.

As is mentioned above, Qobuz and Tidal generally cover too much of the same territory to make it imperative to have both.

When it came time, though, to track down a second streaming service for my all consuming, gotta-have-it-all classical needs, I ended up getting Idagio. 

For a time I subscribed to the classical streaming service Primephonic, but when Primephonic got subsumed by Amazon, I decided to switch to the scrappy German classical provider.  True, Idagio doesn't offer Hi Def, but their CD quality streams are more than good enough for me. Putting it another way, the Idagio dudes & dudettes have first class sets of ears.

Hi Jerry,

I guess it depends on what genres and how obscure your music choices are. I find lots of things on Deezer, for example, that aren't on Qubuz.

I like to have one system that I know well, am comfortable with, and operates seamlessly.

Most songs are on both tidal and qobuz at the same resolution so having both is mostly duplication.

If there becomes an issue where there are  many songs available only on 1 or the other sources, then it would necessitate getting both. Haven’t seen that or even close to that yet.

Jerry

Yep!  Indeed, anything goes in high end audio, so if you got the pennies to spend, then by all means, spend them!