Tidal or Qobuz

I cancelled Tidal after using Qobuz and Tidal for about a year. Slightly better SQ but also the MQA nonsense was a turnoff. 

I'm going to try out Amazon HD thanks to this thread. 

Does anyone know where their respective servers are?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the difference of opinion relates more to data sped and loss and corruption getting  to where the listener is located than anything.  This is not necessarily geographic thing, but the greater the distance (typically) the more times the data switches hands before it gets where it is going.

If everything is working right, that won’t make a difference, but there is always something wrong somewhere.

I find Qobuz much better SQ on my reference system, very highly resolving with lots of digital bells and whistles, e.g., network switches, fanless silent mini with optimized settings, LPS, great DAC, balanced cables, big tube amp with lots of headroom, and  99dB speakers. Qobuz Interface however SUX.

Amazon HD good enough on my other four rigs, great interface, great recommendation logarithm, new releases drop quicker, more “fun.” I actually look at  Amazon on my phone to select content to pick on Qobuz! Qobuz bigger deeper soundstage, more stereo separation, depth, and detail. 
 

Haven’t tried Tidal, but based on thread sounds like Qobuz better SQ, pun intended.

davetheoilguy

I wouldn’t be surprised if the difference of opinion relates more to data sped and loss and corruption getting to where the listener is located... If everything is working right, that won’t make a difference, but there is always something wrong somewhere.

Streaming services such as Qobuz are using TCP/IP protocol, so the signal is bit-perfect to the user's modem or router and on to the streamer's cache. As for speed, you need very little even for hi-res audio - 20 Mpbs is way more than enough.

I have both TIdal and Qobuz. Tidal for years with the "master" account. I kept seeing videos and people saying Qobuz sounds better, so a year ago I also signed up for Qobuz. In my experience, Qobuz is the CLEAR winner (as far as sound quality goes). I still do experiments and confirm this by playing the same song back to back- one on Tidal and next on Qobuz. Tidal has nicer features and a bigger catalog, but 90% of what I listen to is on Qobuz. I'm afraid Tidal's subscription days are numbered since I use it less and less.