As for price, Roon is competitive at $9.99/mo. with an annual subscription, much less with a lifetime.
Wow, Apple Music is $3/month cheaper - audiophiles will be leaving Qobuz in droves so they can save the $36/year in order to buy those $10k speakers they’ve always wanted, an upgrade from the $5k ones they already have. (insert sarcasm emoji here).
There’s a reason that even currently 9 out 10 people when you mention Qobuz or Tidal - or Roon - no matter how big of music fans they are - look at you with a blank stare. It’s a niche, and niche’s generally survive because they are a niche, and cater to the niche, no matter if they cost a more than the generic white bread.
I sell fine art prints of my music photographs. Every so often I get an order for a very large 44X66 inch print, and I’ll post an image of it at the printers. These prints cost me in the order of $700 just to have made (and generally run about $2-2.5K. Undoubtedly, I’ll get at least one email asking me how much for one of the ‘posters.’ Of course when I send them my pricing I’ll never hear from them again. Most people can’t or won’t afford one, but those that do will cherish them for a lifetime and know what they’ve got (plus my editions are small). The best in life doesn’t come free or cheap, so why should streaming? Theoretically, vinyl should be 30 feet under by now, yet lines outside record stores yesterday for RSD to pay astronomical prices.
No, Tidal is not JUST for hip hop fans, but it is the type of music they curate to be up front and in quantity. That’s fine - but it’s also one reason myself and others have switched to Qobuz (not just because of MQA). As the companies all ‘serve up the same thing,’ curation, not just price, will be key.
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I’ve got over 1000 linked albums in Qobuz. I have the same 1000+ linked in Tidal. None of them are hip-hop. Not that I have anything against hip-hop or any other particular music. It’s just not what I enjoy listening to. I would not drop Tidal as long as it has what I listen to.
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I get that but you are comparing one off’s/limited runs to pretty much exactly the same service with streaming.
And I had over 3000, only a handful of them hip hop. I’m talking about what’s presented as new releases curation, not the entire catalog.
Why does that matter? The owners can and should manage their product as they see fit.
Yes, I know, and I think my point got lost in my rambling. I guess I was talking about the concept of loyalty, no matter the cost. Thing is, knowing record collectors as I do (and once was), most of them play their expensive albums on turntables that probably cost less than the cable many here use to connect their streamers to their DAC’s. It’s all about priorities and loyalties.
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If that’s directed to me, of course, that’s their prerogative to fulfill what they see as their prime demographic. I just found it a difficult with Tidal to find new releases that I was interested in so I often had to go to Qobuz to see what’s available new and then go back to Tidal and search for it. So at the end of the day, it was worth it for me to just switch to Qobuz.
Tidal vs. Qobuz…. Library content, it depends on your music you listen to. For me, folk, Americana, alternative/ indie songwriter, and similar, Tidal is richer. Many lesser known artists on these genres are in Tidal, but not in Qobuz. So I subscribe to both Qobuz and Tidal. In the grand scheme of things, their cost is very reasonable. And Roon for me is free 
. I paid for Lifetime some four years or so
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It’s just a matter of time till they’ll figure out (as Netflix did, and Amazon after) that producing is way much profitable than reselling. Problem solved.
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Tidal I feel may be the first to go down that route.
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I still find Tidal beats Qobuz on many things and still has a much bigger and richer catalogue for the music I listen to. I made my choice and have to live with it now though. Curation on Qobuz is lacking and their app is just horrid. Even now I don’t have an active Tidal account the app sends me updates and still curates music Tommy tastes better than Spotify.
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Glad to hear that you are delighted with Class D amp. What model & brand ? Bcz I had an amp Nuprime STA9 2x120 W Eventhough it drived very well my B&W 604S speakers I did not like the sound (too sensitive & too harsh) So I came back my favorite mark NAIM. Now I have Naim NAP100 only 2x50 W, but I like its smooth sound when I listen at low volume.
But regarding your RME DAC it should be a good one. I want to buy it also.
Tidal will have to reduce price. Didn’t Jack Dorsey just invest in them? Qobuz will probably also reduce price, but Tidal is now the outlier. I have Apple Music and they are still way behind with their lossless offering. However Amazon HD is the one for Tidal and Qobuz to worry about. Amazon does a really good job. Spotify remains to be seen.
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I have enough on vinyl to last a lifetime if it all goes wrong. The exercise may do me good!
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I am a lifetime Roon member so will stay. All the things Roon has to offer in my home would have me keeping it anyway,
I will keep Tidal as I had more of my music on it, I have used software to populate it with Qobuz files. Will discontinue Qobuz .
I and my family have total Apple products and with Apple One Premier we all have Apple music.
Previously I only used it for out of home stability.
I have now populated it with my content from Tidal.
I think both Roon and Tidal will survive.
I agree with the comment on the amount of money most of us spend on equipment far exceeds the yearly cost of Tidal(maybe they will have a cheaper yearly option??)
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They are all not Levis. Some are Valentino, some are made to order. Ignoring the differences in catalogues, there are major differences is the interfaces and supported devices. Can I stream Qobuz via HEOS? No. Apple TV app? Not that I can find. It is much more difficult to get to the devices I use. Tidal has an Apple TV app. Roon has built in Airplay2 support.
I am not a fan of the Apple Interface. Tidal for me is much easier to use, allows sorting by, say, title where apple makes me scroll through hundreds of entries to find what I want. Distracting graphics. Much easier to do searches by title, album, artist, etc. in Tidal.
Not so sure. Jay Z sold Tidal to Square just a few weeks before the Apple announcement for ~6 times what Jay Z paid for it so it now has almost unlimited cash available. It isn’t just a streaming service, it also includes the licensing deals with labels and artists. Square is also using it with hip hop influencers who reference the Cash app in their lyrics.
There is also the deal with Sprint, and the fact that Tidal is integrated into a lot of other products. The Marantz/Denon HEOS app, for example, allows you to stream Tidal, but there is no option to stream Apple Music. Roon allows you to integrate Tidal with your own library, etc.
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What ever happened to loyalty?
As per @Charles_Peterson, are we so fickle with the new shiny that for saving bugger all money we stab companies in the back that have catered to us audiophiles for years when the big guys didn’t give a monkeys butt about us.
I have over the years subscribed to Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz, which is now my only streaming service.
Deezer and Qobuz have been providing audiophile streaming since 2007 (yes, yes I know their worldwide roll out has been slow at times) and Tidal since 2014.
These companies (esp Qobuz with hi-res) care about audiophiles, understand us and have stuck with us for over 14 years in the case of Qobuz/Deezer.
Don’t be fooled by Apple and Spotty pricing… it’s all out of the Amazon/Google et al playbook. Price a service for bugger all money, crush the small players then bump prices up/provide a ■■■■■■ service/kill it after a few years (see for example https://killedbygoogle.com).
Stay loyal and support the companies that cared/care about us.
Peter
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Thank you and well said. And it needs to be said again and again.
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That’s a funny comment. I guess you haven’t followed the blue-jean market. At the end of the day, we can say that denim is denim (not true, but let’s assume that it is true). You can find “blue jeans” that are cheaper than Levi’s. You can find designer jeans that are much more expensive than Levi’s. Yes there are differences in cut, stitching, detailing, and weight of fabric. But a lot of the difference in price is brand.
I don’t know the economics of the music business, but I’m willing to bet that if the Tidal brand is strong enough (I don’t know anything about Qobuz), it can survive even at a higher price point if it has some differentiation vs. the Big Boys.
I’m a Roon fanatic and don’t care about Tidal’s user interface, but I think Roon users are a minority of Tidal’s business. I hated the Spotify and Apple interfaces (I never tried Amazon). If Tidal innovates, then why can’t it attract a small but loyal audience. It could be the “designer jeans” of music streaming. Same “denim” but better stitching, detailing, and cache.
I predict a merger of Tidal and Qobuz and maybe even Roon.