Differences between Tidal and Qobuz App audio output

[Carl]

Hi @TheGuy,

Understood and it will be interesting to see what you discover with Roon.

However, as everything thus far is sans-Roon a separate topic is more appropriate.

[mjw (Here I am with a brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper. Call that job satisfaction? I don't.)]

Can you please explain the difference between these spectra / real-time charts?

[TheGuy (Nico)]

Yellow line is real time freqs, red line is avg max hold. And spectra is basically the same than red line but spread in time. So they’re multiple max holds put together to form the time line. Not sure how to explain it better. What matters in this case is the red line that shows the compression more clearly than the spectrum.

Edit: you want me to explain the difference between both charts? If so the tidal one shows how they push lower intensity freqs up compressing the sound, the whole thing is more compressed (evened out) you can tell it clearly with the lower freqs how they bump them and tend to form a horizontal line. That’s what makes tidal sound a bit more loose and less complex but more powerful than qobuz app which sounds more hifi of course, detailed, defined with more air.

[woodford]

@TheGuy

That’s what makes tidal sound a bit more loose and less complex but more powerful than qobuz app which sounds more hifi of course, detailed, defined with more air.

this mirrors my highly subjective, unscientific, impressions of both services, dating back to the days of LMS, when using Roon, or either app via CarPlay.

I have not done a Connect comparison, but now that I have a system that supports both Qobuz and Tidal Connect, perhaps it’s time.

I’ve had Tidal Connect for a while, but seldom use it. The few times I have I’ve found the sound to be sufficiently irritating to make me want to turn it off.

¯_(ツ)_/¯