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Tidal vs Qobuz experience

KeenObserver

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Warner, Universal, and Sony would like to implement MQA because it is a benefit to them. They implement DRM and they are stockholders in MQA.
MQA would like to implement MQA because it is a benefit to them. They would control the music distribution chain and would collect royalties at every step. The music consumer would pay for every step and would get no benefit. There is nothing that MQA does that is a benefit or could be done better without the consumer having to pay. MQA is simply a tax on the music consumer.
 

KeenObserver

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Ain't no mainstream music company selling MQA records,buy physical media and add to your collection problem solved.

They were trying to push MQA CD, which was a complete failure. The studios supply the masters. If they decide to only supply MQA then that is what would be available.
 

dmac6419

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They were trying to push MQA CD, which was a complete failure. The studios supply the masters. If they decide to only supply MQA then that is what would be available.
Not to my knowledge they weren't, not yet anyway and if they were it would still play regular Redbook cd on a non mqa cd player which there's is none that I know off,if you know more please enlighten us.
 
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dmac6419

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Can you provide a link? Thanks.
Found approximately 5 mqa cd 1mqa cd player ,none from the major record labels, i personally don't see mqa as a threat but as a way of streaming hires music with smaller file size
 

dmac6419

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Comcast about to cap them data rates and start charging for overages, l live in their HQ area and we never had to worry about data or overages
 

Bernard23

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Hi guys,
I've been A-B comparing some music material from Qobuz Studio Premier and Tidal HiFi and both sound clearly different.
No upsampling, no MQA - just pure FLAC from the same CD's.
I wonder if anyone has tried comparing both through Roon and what your experiences are?

I stumbled across this thread (whilst searching for DSP with Tidal) that might be of interest, although it didn't go very far. I'm *sure that Tidal sounds inferior to a FLAC (for both 16/44 and 24/96 tracks) streamed from MusicBee, both players in exclusive mode.
*The caveat is trying to quickly switch between one and the other, so not a blind test by any means

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/tidal-applying-dsp.7897/
 

jae

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Has anyone used Qobuz with both an USA subscription and an EU one? I'm in a country where Qobuz does not provide service for so I registered through a VPN. I'm currently considering getting a family plan which costs $25 USD/month (if using a US account), but the European equivalent costs €35/month. In my local currency this ends up being a difference of 42% more expensive for the european service! o_O

Of course, this makes me want to upgrade to the US family plan. But I have heard the selection for classical is better on eu accounts, which is why I have not completely dismissed the idea of paying more if the selection is much better. But I don't really have any examples of the breadth of albums or labels that are offered on EU and not US, so I'm not sure how to proceed at this point
 

Taddpole

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Has anyone used Qobuz with both an USA subscription and an EU one? I'm in a country where Qobuz does not provide service for so I registered through a VPN. I'm currently considering getting a family plan which costs $25 USD/month (if using a US account), but the European equivalent costs €35/month. In my local currency this ends up being a difference of 42% more expensive for the european service! o_O

Of course, this makes me want to upgrade to the US family plan. But I have heard the selection for classical is better on eu accounts, which is why I have not completely dismissed the idea of paying more if the selection is much better. But I don't really have any examples of the breadth of albums or labels that are offered on EU and not US, so I'm not sure how to proceed at this point

Why not try a free month on the usa quboz? Can check the selection for yourself.
 

mSpot

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I have heard the selection for classical is better on eu accounts, which is why I have not completely dismissed the idea of paying more if the selection is much better.
Two years ago, before Qobuz launched in the US, I had a trial account based in the UK. After the US launch, the US catalog initially had many gaps in comparison to the UK catalog. The reason is that Qobuz must negotiate new contracts with each record label before they can provide streaming in a new country.

During the past 2 years since US launch, Qobuz have been aggressively adding labels and albums, and at this point I consider the Qobuz US classical catalog to be very strong (speaking as a serious classical listener). There may be some small, specialty labels that haven't been added to the US service, but I cannot imagine that an EU account could be "much" better. There may be weakness in other genres such as electronic and jazz, but not in classical.
 

jae

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Two years ago, before Qobuz launched in the US, I had a trial account based in the UK. After the US launch, the US catalog initially had many gaps in comparison to the UK catalog. The reason is that Qobuz must negotiate new contracts with each record label before they can provide streaming in a new country.

During the past 2 years since US launch, Qobuz have been aggressively adding labels and albums, and at this point I consider the Qobuz US classical catalog to be very strong (speaking as a serious classical listener). There may be some small, specialty labels that haven't been added to the US service, but I cannot imagine that an EU account could be "much" better. There may be weakness in other genres such as electronic and jazz, but not in classical.

I also do listen to quite a bit of jazz and some more obscure small-label electronic music as well, those 3 genres probably account for at least 95+% of my listening. I guess maybe I'll have to spend more time with it and compare. I wonder if there any tools to compare a list of artists or some playlists to listings on qobuz. I do know there is a service that lets you share and sync playlists between tidal, apple music, qobuz and a few other streaming services, perhaps I'll try that and see how many favourites I "lose" swapping from one to another
 

Bernard23

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FWIW, I decided to try out Qobuz to compare to Tidal. My listening has been conducted using a Marantz HD Dac1 and Grado hemp and 352e phones, mostly on 6 tracks that i know very well as I've sued them consistently over recent years as test tracks on any new kit that I was considering purchasing. I also listened to several tracks that are available in both 16/44 ( non MQA) and hi res formats from both providers. In all cases, with my middle aged ears, and my system; I slightly prefer the more forward and slightly brighter presentation of Tidal. Indeed, some of the 16/44 tracks in tidal sound better than the 24/96 versions in Qobuz, but we are talking very slim margins here, and probably unlikely to be consistently differentiated under a blind A/B test. Although here in the UK Qobuz is significantly cheaper than Tidal, the missing tracks when migrating across playlists isn't worth the saving to me. However, if that wasn't the case, then I would switch to Qobuz, as the sonic gains from Tidal are not worth the extra cost. I still feel that MusicBee (which is free) streaming 16/44 FLAC files is the best quality source I have, but again these are small marginal differences that I doubt would withstand a quantitative evaluation.
 

ezra_s

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I'm definetly staying with Qobuz.. subjective experience seems to be like real cd's or better with qobuz, while on tidal It didn't feel as clear with all music I like to listen too... but that's subjective and could be mi imagination soo... I'll go straight to objective points.

With qobuz I get to stream the whole top freqs and bits with picoreplayer while on tidal I'm stuck with 320kbps aac. Also with RME on windows with MADIface if an album is 24 bits 96hz I also get that, thing that with tidal seemed impossible, at least for me.
 

Dr. X

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FWIW, I decided to try out Qobuz to compare to Tidal... In all cases, with my middle aged ears, and my system; I slightly prefer the more forward and slightly brighter presentation of Tidal.

Same exact experience here. Switching from Qobuz to Tidal playing the same track I seemed to gravitate towards Tidal pretty consistently. Just enjoyed the sound more. I don't even have an MQA decoding DAC. So they must be doing some DSP.

Super annoying since I really want to like Qobuz better. I cancelled my Tidal subscription and will try Amazon HD. Keeping Qobuz for now.
 

dmac6419

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Same exact experience here. Switching from Qobuz to Tidal playing the same track I seemed to gravitate towards Tidal pretty consistently. Just enjoyed the sound more. I don't even have an MQA decoding DAC. So they must be doing some DSP.

Super annoying since I really want to like Qobuz better. I cancelled my Tidal subscription and will try Amazon HD. Keeping Qobuz for now.
My Dac is better than your Dac,My Spotify is better than your Spotify,This schitt is gettin redickculous
 

dmac6419

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Whoa. Hold up. What did I write to prompt that?
Nothing,it's not personal,it's just always this is better than that,the record companies sells records,cd's, digital files straight from their webstore,pick a streaming service you can afford,have what you want and enjoy it.
 
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phoenixdogfan

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When I trialled Tidal it was constantly pushing Jayz' stuff and similar pop music, which is not what it could glean from what I did select to play....or its algorithm is really screwed up! :)
The home page seems to be 100 percent Beyonce and Jayz'. Fine if you like it, but my taste runs to Classical, Jazz, and '60s and '70 rock and pop, and no way I could see to make my homepage display Neil Young, Sonny Rollins, and Loren Maazel.
 
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