My Tidal subscription is about to expire, what next?

[Tokyo_John]

Most important things for me are:
(1) Extensive music selection
(2) Great bandwidth for reliable streams
(3) How they treat/compensate artists
(4) At least CD quality
(5) Solid app on both Mac OS and iOS
(6) Easy to build/manage playlists
(7) Ability to access my listening history

Tidal seems to tick all these boxes, except for (7). How do the competitors do in all these regards?

 

[Jimbob54]

Most important things for me are:
(1) Extensive music selection
(2) Great bandwidth for reliable streams
(3) How they treat/compensate artists
(4) At least CD quality
(5) Solid app on both Mac OS and iOS
(6) Easy to build/manage playlists
(7) Ability to access my listening history

Tidal seems to tick all these boxes, except for (7). How do the competitors do in all these regards?

Honestly, I'd stick with Tidal- non of them are perfect and if CD-ish quality (lets not bring MQA into it) is key driver, then I wouldnt go to Qobuz- more omissions from the library and zero recommendation. Plus 1000 track playlist limit which are horrid to manage and shuffle.

 

[30 Ounce]

They aren't going to upsample the 16/44.1 master if that's the master. Thats dishonest.

That’s not the point. The MQA process uses 3 bits so now you’ve got 13 bits and the same crappy filter used for 44.1khz. The original 16/44.1 had higher resolution!

 

[Jim Matthews]

Perhaps I'm bucking the trend here, but the simplicity of searching Tidal and the quality streaming across the interwebs is appealing, considering my first experience was streaming off Napster.

$20 a month is a little steep, however.

(If you let the subscription lapse, will the service contact you with a lower priced retention offer?)

 

[SKBubba]

Tidal has a $10/mo hi-fi plan (paid annually) through Best Buy in the US.

Tidal apps are way better, and they have playlist, discovery and radio features that Qobuz doesn't have. They are replacing many CD quality albums with MQA.

Qobuz has industry standard files that play back at full quality on any system. Their plan is $12.50/mo paid annually in the US. Their apps are ok if you mainly select albums and play them all the way through.

Both work with roon. Roon adds many of Qobuz's missing features.

I have annual subs to both for several more months, and still can't decide which one to renew and which one to discontinue. MQA sounds OK in my setup, and Tidal apps are superior, especially for mobile.

But Qobuz is MQA-free, and I'd prefer not to support MQA.

All things considered, though (apps, cost thru Best Buy, mobile functionality, radio features, etc.), I'd probably keep Tidal if I had to decide today.

 

[Chromatischism]

I think the $10 Deezer plan is worth a look. I'm enjoying my first year at $5/mo thanks to Black Friday. 320kbps mp3, interface seems nice, good music selection, queue synced across devices.

 

[Jim Matthews]

Tidal has a $10/mo hi-fi plan (paid annually) through Best Buy in the US.

All things considered, though (apps, cost thru Best Buy, mobile functionality, radio features, etc.) I'd probably keep Tidal if I had to decide today.

Thanks for the lead. Well worth the price for what amounts to a radio station with an endless back catalog.

Streamed directly through Volumio it's as good as my BlueSound Vault - maybe better.

 

[Cuniberti]

It's the only lossless streaming service I've tried so far , SQ is good and the app is pretty stable, but i wonder if other apps could sound better?
Obviously I'm considering Qobuz, Spotify hi-fi and Deezer hifi.

For $10.00 a month (in the US) you get access to pretty much any record to can think of at the HiFI tear lossless 44.1k/16-bit anytime you want. Build a playlist and not mess around with CDs. If you believe you can hear beyond that turn on the MQA, personally I never do.

 

[SKBubba]

Well worth the price for what amounts to a radio station with an endless back catalog.

Yes, and it's cheaper than SiriusXM, plus it sounds a lot better and you control it.

 

[Jim Matthews]

For $10.00 a month (in the US) you get access to pretty much any record to can think of...If you believe you can hear beyond that turn on the MQA, personally I never do.

I haven't really browsed the MQA offerings. My Bluesound Vault supposedly decodes them on the fly, but most of the recordings are off my regular menu.

If I'm listening to something unfamiliar, I hardly notice. Certainly it's not something I want to buy, at a premium.

 

[Pearljam5000]

I avoid MQA by using this setting, even if it's a "MASTER " album it will still play the FLAC version of it.

 

[amper42]

Most important things for me are:
(1) Extensive music selection
(2) Great bandwidth for reliable streams
(3) How they treat/compensate artists
(4) At least CD quality
(5) Solid app on both Mac OS and iOS
(6) Easy to build/manage playlists
(7) Ability to access my listening history

Tidal seems to tick all these boxes, except for (7). How do the competitors do in all these regards?

I subscribe to both Qobuz and Tidal. In the beginning I used their individual apps but after I tried Audirvana I quickly found it's interface was far superior for searching and playing from either services within the Audirvana app. After that I stopped using the app provided by Tidal or Qobuz. Here is what I found as I compare the two services over several months:

A. When I read about a song in a review or on this forum I search both Tidal and Qobuz to see if they both offer the song. About 35% of the time Qobuz would have the song but Tidal did not. About 5% of the time neither service offered the song.

B. Qobuz offers a huge amount of Hi Res songs. Tidal not so much. I also found several songs on Tidal that were at such a low level that they were not very appealing. I never had that issue with Qobuz.

C. Qobuz has great bandwidth and so does Tidal. However, with Audirvana it's a moot issue as it caches songs. In fact, if you setup a playlist it will cache over an hour of the online music. This is great because if you have an internet disruption the music continues OR if you have a device that has marginal wifi Audirvana will work much better with it than any of these services alone.

D. Audirvana offers better playlist features than Tidal or Qobuz. So by using it there is a HUGE upgrade to functionality. In addition, if I had to rate the Tidal vs Qobuz app, I find Tidal is easier to use. But, Audirvana is far superior to both of them so why bother using either app?

Qobuz finds significantly more of my music searches than Tidal and sounds better with some of my songs. I have gotten to the point where Qobuz/Audirvana is my combo of choice and I'm probably going to drop Tidal as I use it so rarely.

That being said, if I find an album that I really love, I always buy the CD. Audirvana allows me to play my ripped CDs, Qobuz or Tidal all from the same page which is an amazing feature. Having the CD is a great way to support the artist and have the music on hand even if no internet is available.

 

[Jimbob54]

I subscribe to both Qobuz and Tidal. In the beginning I used their individual apps but after I tried Audirvana I quickly found it's interface was far superior for searching and playing from either services within the Audirvana app. After that I stopped using the app provided by Tidal or Qobuz. Here is what I found as I compare the two services over several months:

A. When I read about a song in a review or on this forum I search both Tidal and Qobuz to see if they both offer the song. About 35% of the time Qobuz would have the song but Tidal did not. About 5% of the time neither service offered the song.

B. Qobuz offers a huge amount of Hi Res songs. Tidal not so much. I also found several songs on Tidal that were at such a low level that they were not very appealing. I never had that issue with Qobuz.

C. Qobuz has great bandwidth and so does Tidal. However, with Audirvana it's a moot issue as it caches songs. In fact, if you setup a playlist it will cache over an hour of the online music. This is great because if you have an internet disruption the music continues OR if you have a device that has marginal wifi Audirvana will work much better with it than any of these services alone.

D. Audirvana offers better playlist features than Tidal or Qobuz. So by using it there is a HUGE upgrade to functionality. In addition, if I had to rate the Tidal vs Qobuz app, I find Tidal is easier to use. But, Audirvana is far superior to both of them so why bother using either app.

Qobuz finds significantly more of my music searches than Tidal and sounds better with some of my songs. I have gotten to the point where Qobuz/Audirvana is my combo of choice and I'm probably going to drop Tidal as I use it so rarely.

That being said, if I find an album that I really love, I always buy the CD. Audirvana allows me to play my ripped CDs, Qobuz or Tidal all from the same page which is an amazing feature. Having the CD is a great way to support the artist and have the music on hand even if no internet is available.

You must have very different tastes to mine. A lot of my additions are based on Pitchfork.com and similar music sites and I find Qobuz to be the worst, for not having (possibly 5% of the stuff that is available on streaming I want isnt on Qobuz, most is on Tidal). I use Roon which I believe operates similarly to Audirvana and does improve both Tidal and Qobuz.

 

[Taddpole]

Most important things for me are:
(1) Extensive music selection
(2) Great bandwidth for reliable streams
(3) How they treat/compensate artists
(4) At least CD quality
(5) Solid app on both Mac OS and iOS
(6) Easy to build/manage playlists
(7) Ability to access my listening history

Tidal seems to tick all these boxes, except for (7). How do the competitors do in all these regards?

Doesn't tick (3) that well. Qobuz appears to pay much more, believe Amazon HD does too.

Long used lastfm to handle 7 with various streaming sites.

No experience on 5 at all.

I don't really use playlists (6) but made one {of 50 songs} just before christmas on the tidal android app and it was tedious process. No idea how anyone would make one over 1000 songs as people talk of.

 

[Tokyo_John]

I subscribe to both Qobuz and Tidal. In the beginning I used their individual apps but after I tried Audirvana...

I also use Audirvana, on my primary laptop. If I just used that one laptop, and nothing else, I'd be happy with Audirvana for straight playback. Audirvana has "Tidal Rising" which I enjoy exploring, although it doesn't have the same auto play (with suggested/related content), pre-arranged playlists, and other features that Tidal apps offer in abundance...and that is something that causes me to use Tidal app more often than Audirvana since there are many times that I wish to re-discover music, and I'm like "wow, I haven't heard this song in ages!"

Audirvana also has a fussy licensing that is not convenient for those who use multiple computers, tablets, etc., and need to switch playback frequently between them. I tried once (some years ago) and Audirvana didn't allow me to switch without going through a lengthy process of de-authorizing one computer and re-authorizing the other each time. No thanks. And they had no straightforward multi-computer license. Also, Audirvana has no tablet or smart phone app, it is only for traditional computer audio.

Audirvana could offer a "family-type" license...but I just checked and it seems they still do not. They could also get into tablet/smart phone apps, and it would go a long long way to help connect them with a potentially huge customer base, but they seem to have restricted themselves to a single style of platform.

 

[Daverz]

I have Qobuz and find it satisfactory.
I haven't subscribed to any others but all have the common problem in dealing with classical music (song, artist being primal rather than composer, work) including Qobuz, which is why I don't stream much (and usually buy the CD if I really find something I like )
"Higher" res than 16/44 is pointless though IMO given 16/44.1 encompases everything audible.

The LMS Qobuz app has a "Browse by Work" feature that allows you to play classical works on an album as a unit. Not all albums provide the metadata for this, though.

 

[theglobalelite]

Way too much unscientific "this sounds better than that" in this thread.

This guy made a good attempt at a scientific comparison between various streaming services:

 

[elliott]

Way too much unscientific "this sounds better than that" in this thread.

This guy made a good attempt at a scientific comparison between various streaming services:

Thanks for posting this. I'm shocked Apple Music hasn't been mentioned much, if at all, in the thread. To my ears Apple Music has always beat out spotify and tidal (non-hifi), and if you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem, it seems like a no brainer when you start to factor in cost, especially if you have a family plan.

Since the OP is only asking for Apple compatibility, I'd suggest keeping Apple Music in the running. Take a listen, you might find it totally satisfactory.

 

[Racheski]

I tried Qobuz but got fed up with their PC app - Tidal and Spotify are lightyears ahead in usability. I think all of the music sounds the same.

 

[sal]

LOL how is mqa lossless? Plenty of other choices than that nonsense....

They stream 16/44.1 lossless in addition to MQA for most of their titles