Tidal FLAC vs. Qobuz

I too would still be with Tidal if they hadn’t cold-cocked us with dropping the Best Buy annual membership mid year and made us subscribe at twice the monthly price for Hi-Res.  I drop-kicked Tidal’s plan, signed up for a year with Quboz, transferred all my music using third party software that I had to pay for 1 month.  Tidal had much more music I listen to and the sound quality is the same on like file levels. After a cooling off period I may have to sign up for Tidal reg plan just to get access to songs Quboz does not offer.  I have lifetime Roon so integration of the two is excellent.  Grrrrrr!

That’s what I’m doing while having the Roon lifetime subscription:

Tidal HiFi (regular) CD Quality at $10.99 for their 100 million tracks.

Qoboz Studio (Hi-Res) at $10.82 for their 424,000 Hi-Res tracks.

vs Tidal Hi-Fi Plus at $19.99 for their 100 million CD quality and 25,000 Hi-Res tracks ($1.83 difference w/out taxes in comparison to above). 

Like some of the previous users here, I’ve found Qoboz falling short on a few of the artists and their tracks I enjoy. Tidal seems to have a much higher success rate, but then again, some of the sub genres I listen to are pretty “eclectic.”

When I was younger making minimum wage I remember spending $16-$20 for a CD album - sometimes three or more per month. $20 now for both Tidal and Qoboz seems like a pretty good deal IMHO. Even if I only make $2 more than minimum wage :)

I believe Qobuz pays artists more than Tidal. The majority owner of Tidal is also Block inc which does not deserve my appreciation. That and the rap are reasons to avoid Tidal.  
 

About 4 years ago when trying to decide which music service to go with, I did a comparison of a few songs I am very familiar with using, and this is key, the exact same album on both QoBuz and Tidal.  Both in CD-quality, not Hi-Res.  After closely listening, in my opinion QoBuz sounded a little more realistic and micro-detailed on all the songs than Tidal, so I went with QoBuz. I have not tried Tidal again since, and I have been really satisfied with QoBuz as well as their array of music.  As others have stated, your personal tastes and experience will be the judge of which to use.  Good luck choosing your music source...