Is Tidal in trouble?

Spotify didn’t like this it seems.

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So Danny, I’ve interpreted your responses in this thread as basically saying that Roon are not concerned about Tidal and, as such, no need to worry… Can we infer that other streaming services are not being prioritised for integration with Roon then?

I’ve been asking for Deezer integration for a while now but no evidence from the Roon team that they are looking at it…

:man_facepalming:

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Well, it may exasperate you Mark but others like me are still waiting for an unequivocal answer to this question… still not seeing it.

Let’s hope Deezer join the forces. Deezer is so much better then Tidal, and that is certainly the case for Roon users in Europa.

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I’ve got a Tidal three month freebie running with Roon at the moment. As far as I can see, unless you’re into jazz, rock, pop, hip-hop, dance, electronic, metal, or comedy, Tidal is pretty much useless. Its very limited and principally mainstream classical offerings are already in my physical library so a subscription to Tidal at the end of my three months is not going to happen. On the classical front, Spotify is much better although I doubt I would subscribe, even if it was integrated with Roon. I had Spotify Connect when I was able to access it through my former Naim kit and to be frank I didn’t use it much, mainly because Spotify’s UI and search facility were dreadful. I still prefer tangible assets to a possibly here today and gone tomorrow library based in the cloud.

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https://i.imgur.com/HuihsuX.jpg

Almost a “what have the Romans done for us?” post. There’s an immense amount of slagging off of Tidal going on by people who have plainly had nothing more than cursory glance of the the library, and certainly haven’t done any meaningful comparisons with other services.

Sure, there are minor differences and a slightly different focus within some of the other services - Qobuz plays on it’s classical strengths for example but the 124 versions of Bach’s B minor mass available in Tidal will keep me going, although I admit I probably won’t delve into the 4 versions of Stockhausen’s “Zyklus” suite for percussion.

The truth I feel is despite a very few gaps in each service’s library, they are all much of a muchness and it is largely search quirks that people differentiate on. Within Roon’s enhanced interface, this should mean relative parity between different services, should they be made available.

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I think that to say Tidal is poor is not fair. I am not a classical listener so on that genre I can’t comment but it’s is a very rare day indeed when I fail to find anything on Tidal.
It’s all there but maybe not in the headlines. I am often looking for material by upcoming artists we are thinking of hosting live and I find that if their music is published, it’s on Tidal. Tidal seems to be the ‘Kicking Boy’ with this and Spotify the king, despite low resolution and the problem of not rewarding the artists.
Tidal has been great for me although everybody has to make their own choices.

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Total bollocks. I’ve been a subscriber to TIDAL for 6 months and its taken up more and more of my library (mainly because I’ve filled it with CD quality versions of what is already in my library). However, it is not a scratch on Spotify when it comes to curation, not a scratch on Qobuz when it comes to musical tastes that are more (ahem) European, and Deezer hits the sweet spot of value for money for CD quality tracks. TIDAL is falling between these stools. The only thing it had going for it until recently was MQA and even that has been eroded by Deezer it seems - and is pretty pointless if you use room correction filters as Roon does not do the first unfold. Don’t get me wrong, TIDAL is good but its nowhere near the best and certainly does not warrant the premium they are charging over everyone else. Interesting that Audirvana+ provides access to QOBUZ streaming services - wonder why the Roon team have struggled to come to a similar deal…

Oh, and if you are going to quote make sure you are referencing properly (Monty Python’s The Life of Brian… not The Office).

Because as you have already proved with this post…

…you haven’t looked around the site, or just don’t get the reasons why there isn’t more than one streaming provider for Roon at the moment. There is a lot more required than “providing access” in order to meet the requirements for Roon metadata integration. And so far only Tidal have been willing to provide that deep integration.

Be sure to collect your “no shit, Sherlock” award as you leave :clap:

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Artists need to be paid. The others are too cheap.

It’s about value for money for all parties concerned. TIDAL doesn’t achieve that at the moment.

I know its hard to be wrong sometimes… but you’ll get over it… peace brother

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I use Tim regularly because his face perfectly portrays amused incredulity. Perfect way to sum up my response to your “Tidal is crap if you don’t like these 17 genres” missive.

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In quite a few instances I have old cd’s ripped onto my computer. Tidal has the remastered versions of these same albums and they sound better than my rips.

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Tidal is simply a huge improvement over no streaming integration whatsoever. Their interface is not good for browsing anything but American pop, but there is still a reasonable richness of content if you know how to drill to it, and Roon helps tremendously with that.

I too would love to see Roon hedge our collective bets with another service, but that debate is academic until a willing candidate comes along.

The Roon interface or “shop window” to each streaming service will be the same, surely that’s a large part of the value proposition?

Otherwise you may as well stream directly from your preferred service.

By the way haven’t you browsed by genre? Nothing could be further from “American pop”.

The one thing that I have noticed about Tidal over the last month or two is that it isn’t really keeping up with new listings in all of the genres, particularly classical and jazz. Often several weeks go by with nothing added to the “New Albums” section in those genres. But I then see something new on HD Tracks or ProStudioMasters and search for it on Tidal and it is in Tidal’s library, but hasn’t been added to the “New Albums” page.

My guess is that by being under financial duress, Tidal isn’t spending money on the resources it needs to keep those pages fresh, or is prioritizing its spending toward the genres where it believes it has its biggest audience.

That’s concerning.