I wish I would have grabbed a screen capture of the annual Tidal subscription (Best Buy) I bought a few months ago because I thought the description stated it would auto renew at the same price.
However, maybe that is now just wishful thinking on my part.
I’m sure that it did say that it would renew at $119.99/year. I had the Best Buy subscription for a few years (have since cancelled) and before the renewal I would receive an email with this:
BTW, when I first signed up they were running a promotion for $100/year (but renews at $120/year) and I saw the promotion go as low as $80/year which is an insane deal.
I just received an email from Best Buy letting me know that the Tidal/Best Buy deal is over. The $120/year deal was very nice and ending it is Best Buy’s and Tidal’s prerogative. However, the WAY that they’re ending the deal is, well, infuriating. Rather than letting the current subscription run to its end, subscriptions will end on 9/28/2023. I renewed for a year three weeks ago but it’s all over on 9/28. The email from Best Buy has a personalized link to a Tidal site, where you can get 30 days free listening and then be charged $10.99/month for HiFi, or $19.99/month for HiFi Plus. In other words, double the price of the Best Buy deal. If you transition to Tidal, you have to call Best Buy to get a pro-rated refund for your annual subscription. If you don’t transition, Best Buy refunds you automatically (I think, the email is a tad ambiguous and you may have to call anyway).
IMHO, not honoring the current subscription term is annoying and feels wrong. I’ll stay with Qobuz only, because I don’t like how Tidal is treating me.
Here’s the email from Best Buy, with personal information removed:
Yep, I just got the same thing. But I had the family plan and was paying about $16/month for 6 seats of HiFi.
It is now $30/month for the same thing or an extra $160/year
$30/month is the same as one hifi and one regular individual account.
I’m not sure what I’ll do now.
TBH I’d say it was Best Buy who were “treating you” since that is who you have the contract with.
Fair point. I don’t know if Best Buy or Tidal, or both, cooked up the forced cancellation.
Same here… Enjoyed this deal through BB for the last several years. May consider switch to Qobuz who’s pricing has gotten better, but I wish they had native Tesla integration as Tidal does. I did trial Qobuz years ago, but their app was pretty poor back then and didn’t even have something as basic as a “radio” feature.
I’m with you.
I just checked. QOBUZ is only $17.99 — for family or $15/month for Duo (my wife and I)…compared to $30/month for Tidal HiFi.
That looks like a winner.
Big downside is I have almost 400 Tidal albums in my library…anyone know a quick way to transfer to QOBuz?
When I switched over I used Soundiiz. It worked quickly, and seamlessly. I believe that there is a code something like “helloqobuz”
So am I getting reimbursed for the subscription I just renewed if I transfer to Tidal or are they crediting it?
This really highlights the need for Roon to support more streaming services. Spotify should be prioritized.
My subscription was supposed to renew at $120 on 9/22. I just cancelled it effective 9/22. They can keep their free 30 days. I’ll use Qobuz and Apple Music and be happy.
EDIT: I’ll use just Qobuz and Apple Music for a while and see how things go. My Tidal and Qobuz albums were the same, for the most part. If, I find I need Tidal for some strange reason, I will resubscribe later and use Soundiz to copy my albums from Qobuz back to Tidal. It’s possible Qobuz will take this opportunity to raise their prices. If I resubscribe to Tidal, it will be to the Hi-Fi tier.
EDIT: OK, I caved in and resubscribed to Tidal and downgraded to the Hi-Fi monthly plan. I copied my music links from Qobuz to Soundiz to Tidal and they are now repopulating Roon. At least this way, I can drop Tidal again if I decide I don’t really need it. I mostly want the smaller CD quality files for streaming over cellular when at the MIL’s house for weeks at a time.
I don’t think Spotify should be a priority until they actually launch a lossless tier.
If I 'm reading the email from Best Buy correctly, Best Buy will refund a prorated amount of your annual subscription.
Very few can hear the difference (see the online tests). More important to have different price options.
I wasn’t clear on whether that is only if you take no action/cancel. In any event, I see Qobuz is the same price annually as the Tidal Best Buy deal was, so that’s it for Tidal for me.
I called to cancel immediately instead of them refunding me a month from now,. I was paid until March 2024. Forget Tidal,. Ill take my money back,. thank you very little !
Yep. Same here,. I feel the same about this. Tidal, Im sure had pushed the decision on BestBuy. For some time now (at least a few months) Best Buy has not shown the subscription as being available fo new subscribers. Now this abrupt ending on 9/28. It has to be Tidal forcing this,. why would it be in the interest of Bestbuy to do so just to jam up their customer service people on the phone? They have no skin in Tidals service in general,. just collecting the funds for them. Tidal can kiss my A___.
Qobuz has a better selection of Hi Res music anyway. It’s also much less expensive than Tidal. Actually every single album on Qobuz is at least 16/44.1. I’ve come across a few on Tidal that are 256 kbps AAC with no CD quality option, yet Qobuz has it in CD quality.
I’ve also had luck with Qobuz customer service being helpful the few times I’ve needed them.
This is exactly what I have observed for quite some time.
Fortunately I had already given Tidal the boot back in April.
There are also a large amount of true hires albums available Inc a large number of 192/24 versions.
