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Qobuz vs Tidal App Comparison

macauley86

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I switched from Tidal to Qobuz since the latter now offers hi-res music for practically the same price as Tidal's 320 AAC plan if you pay annually (not that I can hear the difference between the two formats). https://www.soundandvision.com/content/qobuz-drops-mp3-moves-cheaper-streaming-plan

I must say, however, that I much prefer the Tidal Mac desktop app to the Qobuz one:
- it's dark vs white. Less fatiguing on the eyes, especially in the evening or early morning, which is when I listen to music;
- it has pictures for all the artists. Qobuz shows no pictures for most artists, including Neil Diamond. Really?
- Overall navigation and GUI is more polished
- Once it plays the selected album, it automatically switches to another album by a similar artist. Qobuz just stops playing
- Light on system resources. Qobuz makes my Mac's fans spin like crazy and uses 80% or so system resources (occasionally)
- Tidal never skips. Qobuz occasionally skips (bigger files and all that, but still, I have a 50 Mbps cable connection)

My two cents.
 

oivavoi

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Beyond the GUI things you mention, it must be mentioned that Tidal is a bunch of evil corrupt crooks (look up Tidal-gate), who do the multinational corporation thing of threatening to sue a whole country when it doesn't do their bidding... whereas it seems like Qobuz is being run by decent people.

The moment Qobuz become available here in Norway, I will jump ship from Tidal without blinking.

Btw, have you considered Roon? The GUI is among the best there is, IMO, and you can still use Tidal as your streaming service.
 

dkinric

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Agree on the interface appearance with Qobuz (I never had any issues with performance using iOS app). Roon solves all and makes provider transparent.
 
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macauley86

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Didn't know that about Tidal. I'd only heard that they paid the highest royalties to artists.

Roon seems to have a great interface but, if I understand correctly, it's just a $500 GUI on top of third-party streaming services, right? With lots of other features like multiroom, DLNA, etc. that are very cool but I don't need at this time. I'd love to use Roon, but hard for me to justify right now.
 

dkinric

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Understood, it is hard to justify. Then, I tried it (free 30 day trial). In the end, I ponied up for the $119.99 yearly option. I liked it so much, it was so much better than anything else, it was worth it to me to pay another $10/month for something that adds so much enjoyment to my hobby.

I actually did cancel before the trial period was over and they reached out to me via email and politely asked if I liked the service. I said I did, but just couldn't justify paying for it right now. He asked if I would like another 30 days of free trial, which I gladly accepted. I ended up buying before that was over. It was a email from an individual on the Roon team, not an automated response. A nice personal touch, which only added to my positive impression.
 
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BDWoody

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Understood, it is hard to justify. Then, I tried it (free 30 day trial). In the end, I ponied up for the $119.99 yearly option. I liked it so much, it was so much better than anything else, it was worth it to me to pay another $10/month for something that adds so much enjoyment to my hobby.
I agree...
Roon is another of those things this site introduced me to, and I have nothing bad to say about it. I paid for the first year, and bought the lifetime subscription shortly thereafter I was so impressed.

I use Tidal and Qobuz both (for now...just got qobuz), and Roon does work nicely with both for me so far.
Christmas is coming...maybe some hints for a (lifetime?) subscription to music loving loved ones?

Certainly not necessary to enjoy music, but it seems to facilitate it well for me.
 

BDWoody

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I moved from Tidal to Deezer. All of the pluses with none of the minuses. And the whole hi-res thing is kind of overblown, don't you think? Can you really hear the difference?
I can't...to me it's about the master, not the sample rate...
 

dkinric

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That's a big can of worms, there. I enjoy telling myself that I can, but it sounds good regardless <mostly I just like to see the numbers on the DAC change>

I own my cognative biasses* and embrace them.


* Yes it's spelled correctly - I looked it up. "However, in more specific contexts, the plural form can also be biasses e.g. in reference to various types of biasses or a collection of biasses"
 

BDWoody

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I own my cognative biasses* and embrace them.

bi-asses? ;):cool:

e6d9bfc4dbdd94a4170bd38cd809f7b9.jpg
 

BDWoody

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What do you mean by "master"? What makes one app's lossless playback more true to the master than another app? (and please don't say MQA…)
The master tape or source for the distributed recording. I will take a well engineered/recorded 16/44 over a crap 32/768 any day.

If they are playing the same recording at different bit/sample rates, I wouldn't expect to hear a difference.

Edit: MQA...left out because it's not an issue to me...more of an annoyance.
 
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Jmudrick

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I abandoned Tidal for Qobuz a year ago because I found the search function on Qobuz a lot less problematic. I recently switched from Ireland to US site. I can live with the lack of a Neil Diamond photo, it seems to work ok for me, using the Audirvana or BubbleUpNP remote mostly so the app interface isn't that critical. The fan on my old Lenovo laptop doesn't turn on when Qobuz is running.
 
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macauley86

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I moved from Tidal to Deezer. All of the pluses with none of the minuses. And the whole hi-res thing is kind of overblown, don't you think? Can you really hear the difference?

I can't. I did an ABX test online. I couldn't tell the difference between 320 Kbps lossy and redbook-quality lossless for the life of me. And I tried hard.

But now Amazon HD and Qobuz offer 24/192 for less than $13/mo, so why not? I like underdogs, so I chose Qobuz.
 

mk1classic

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...

The moment Qobuz become available here in Norway, I will jump ship from Tidal without blinking.
No problem running Qobuz here in Norway with Roon. Just don't expect to get the Android app install on your phone (google know where you live...)
 

oivavoi

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No problem running Qobuz here in Norway with Roon. Just don't expect to get the Android app install on your phone (google know where you live...)

Hello fellow Norwegian! That sounds exciting. Had roon for a year but didn't renew because of moving and a temporary lack of hifi system. Will pm you :)
 

Mtbf

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I must say, however, that I much prefer the Tidal Mac desktop app to the Qobuz one:
- it's dark vs white. Less fatiguing on the eyes, especially in the evening or early morning, which is when I listen to music
I prefer the Qobuz app over the Tidal one (I only use my iPad, never PC or Mac for this purpose).
- Qobuz has recently added a dark mode, if that’s important to you
- Qobuz shows the albumcovers in my playlists, Tidal doesn’t
 

Ratatoskr

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I prefer the Qobuz app over the Tidal one (I only use my iPad, never PC or Mac for this purpose).
- Qobuz has recently added a dark mode, if that’s important to you
- Qobuz shows the albumcovers in my playlists, Tidal doesn’t
Where is the switch for dark mode in the Qobuz desktop player for Windows? Can't find it anywhere.
 

ripvw

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Over the last few months, I've compared Tidal to Apple Music, Amazon HD and Qobuz. I can't hear any differences between Tidal, Amazon HD and Qobuz, but thought I heard some problems with Apple Music on certain tracks when compared to Tidal - specifically when listening to albums on Bob Katz's Digital Domain honor roll of well-recorded pop music.

https://www.digido.com/honor-roll/

The bigger issue was the ease of use of Tidal's Mac interface as mentioned by Macauley86 above as compared to all the other Mac interfaces. Even more important to me was the ability of Tidal's IOS app to have a completely different set of music choices and settings than the Mac interface. I can choose to download albums, songs and playlists on my iPhone that are completely different than my choices for the Mac. The other interfaces and apps I tried seemed to be linked - change something on the Mac interface and it affects the IOS app and vice-versa.

So even though Tidal is now $5 a month more expensive than Qobuz and $7 a month more expensive than Amazon HD it just works better for me. If I can't find what I want on Tidal I just buy the CD - preferably used - and then rip it to the free Apple Music Mac interface as an Apple Lossless album saved both locally and on iCloud. And Roon at $199 a year or $499 for life for a (maybe) better interface and (potentially) higher resolution that I apparently can't hear anyway is a non-starter for me.

If I missed something about the operation of either Amazon HD or Qobuz please feel free to enlighten me...
 
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