What streaming service do you use?

[Monster]

Just thought I would update my earlier post on this.

I was with Amazon Music Unlimited but the Amazon Android app and, even more so, the Windows desktop app were driving me nuts. The desktop app won't even allow casting to Alexa enabled devices, like the Wiim Pro. After the furore of the MQA debacle I swore I would never subscribe to Tidal, so I went for the three month Spotify free trial. The Spotify Android and Windows desktop apps were fantastic after the Amazon apps but the sound quality was pretty awful, even in the max 320 kbps mode. After three days of the Spotify three month free trial I renewed my subscription with Amazon Music Unlimited. Roll forward two months and Tidal come out with their new pricing plan and a commitment to move away from MQA to FLAC and I'm sufficiently tempted.

So what's my view of Tidal so far? Well the apps are great. As far as I can make out, pretty much as good as the Spotify apps. There is still quite a lot of MQA content there but, fortunately, the Wiim Pro will do the first 'unfold' of MQA files. Once 'unfolded', to my old ears, the sound quality doesn't seem appreciably worse than red book 16/44.1 CD quality, but it's certainly no better either. As the number of MQA tracks should diminish over time, I think I'm willing to live with that.

Anyway, I have 56 days left to continue exploring the Tidal music streaming service before making a decision whether to stick with them, or not. However, if Spotify ever get around to bringing out a 'hi-res' FLAC based service, at a competitive price, I would still seriously consider switching back to them.

 

[gat3keeper]

I'm using Spotify for years until few weeks ago, I switched to Tidal. I thought it was the highest quality for streaming possible or is it Qobuz ? I was surprised most people here us Qobuz and Spotify , only 3rd for Tidal.

 

[Monster]

I'm using Spotify for years until few weeks ago, I switched to Tidal. I thought it was the highest quality for streaming possible or is it Qobuz ? I was surprised most people here us Qobuz and Spotify , only 3rd for Tidal.

I think many here were put off by Tidal falling for the MQA nonsense. Certainly had Tidal not committed to moving away from MQA towards FLAC I would not have considered signing up with them. The reality is that there is still far too much MQA content on Tidal but that should improve over time.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

I've signed up for a year of Qobuz after testing it against Amazon. Clear winner for the types of music I listen to most frequently. My one complaint is that the search is terrible, although not as bad as Amazon's. Searching for music by genre is a waste of time. You'd think that with tagged music you'd be able to search for something like renaissance classical and come up with a set of albums of classical music written in the Renaissance. Oh well.

 

[Robin L]

I only stream to find tunes vis ITunes, mostly to share to ASR. My attempts at streaming in the past gave me troubles, find playing my numerous CDs much less hassle.