I had evaluated both Tidal and Qobuz for over a year and then decided on Qobuz Sublime (without +).
I don’t need Hi-Res for streaming because I largely only need streaming to find new music. What I like, I buy and download in the best possible quality.
The reasons for me, which have clearly spoken for Qobuz was primarily that for me the original in Hi-Res almost always sounded better than the MQA version at Tidal, moreover, I reject in principle MQA and thus Tidal because the major labels with MQA restrict our free choice and want to enforce something like DRM again in the medium term.
Since I usually buy the albums that I like, the financial aspect was also important for me. As a Sublime subscriber, I can usually download the albums in hi-res quality cheaper than the Redbook version would cost at Qobuz or as a CD in the store of Amazon, for example. Since I download far more than 50 albums a year, my Sublime subscription is virtually free for me.
As an Italian and if you primarily listen to jazz or classical music, also consider Highresaudio.com in as a streaming source. Their catalog is better in these genres in my experience, and unlike Qobuz or Tidal, you can be pretty sure you’re not listening to upsampled hi-res fakes.
Why? I ask, because I think about the question, whether it is helpful to use Qobuz and Tidal in combination. I am a fan of Qobuz since some years, but I am curious …
Same experience here. First I ended my Tidal subscription, but found too many holes in Qobuz’s for electronic music. No such problems for jazz and classical.
I have just ended my Qobuz sub. I will return if they fill in the holes. Best sounding service of the lot.
While I like Qobuz better overall, it has too many holes in it’s catalog. That said, the one hole that drives me nuts is Post Modern Jukebox. If Qobuz would fix that one gap I could live with them
It’s not an insignificant sum, and I’ve not been able to bring myself to do it. In my teens and twenties I’d think nothing of spending a far larger part of my disposable income on records. Once I was working about £100 a week, when that was worth a lot more than it is today (it was worth a LOT more $s then as well ). Anyways, I now baulk at spending less than that monthly. It’s possibly as the value in the second service is only filling the gaps in the first. That’s a significantly worse value proposition when you think about it I guess, but still only the price of a couple of CDs.
That’s exactly it. When I had both Tidal, was just a gap filler for Qobuz. I liked the sound of Qobuz better, but I couldn’t ultimately justify the additional expense. Tidal sounds very good too, and I just added an MQA DAC. I still prefer the sound from Qobuz though. I will miss it.
I remember trips to the record store in my 20’s when I would spend a couple of hundred on music.
Depends on needs if that involves mobile don’t use Qobuz.
I don’t think I’d sink a year into them at the moment, the Spotify hifi could be a game changer for them especially as they are under resourced and slow to deliver fixes or developments.
I used Tidal for a couple of years and switched to Qobuz a year ago. At the time that I switched, there were about 14 out of 200 albums that I had listened to on Tidal that were not available on Qobuz. At this time half of the “missing” albums are now available on Qobuz.
I never liked the idea of MQA as as hardware specific service. I did try a couple of MQA capable modems along with an Audioquest Dragonfly Red that I own and I was never impressed with the sound of MQA. Qobuz sounds very good. I generally stream music rather than buy it, but I have purchased and ripped CD’s when the music that I want is not available in Qobuz. I listen to a lot of Americana/Bluegrass/Folk music and Qobuz has been very good in terms of both older music and new releases in these genres that are available. As months go by, more and more new releases are available on Qobuz in high resolution formats. I will be sticking with Qobuz.
I’m going to go with Spotify hifi when it comes out. Too many holes in Qobuz catalog and don’t like that Tidal has a lot of MQA only albums now. If they kept just normal cd quality, I’d probably use them. In my last trial of Tidal I even found AAC files.
With Spotify I’ll have to stop using roon but then can use Spotify Connect and after testing their app for a week, find they have better discovery features than roon. Or at least do a better job. Their playlists seem to be spot on. Only issue is don’t know when this year that the lossless will be release.
Yes, Tidal apps are better, desktop and mobile. Roon overcomes the desktop shortcomings by replacing the Qobuz app and providing the missing discovery and radio-like features. Qobuz says they are working on that, but they’ve been saying that for a while.
Regardless, I have purged Tidal from my roon setup (mainly because of MQA) and I’m very happy with the roon/qobuz setup. For mobile, I just put lots of favorites from my local library on my phone.
People who hate MQA will “vote” Qobuz, even if they don’t subscribe to Qobuz. I have both, so no skin in this game. Sound quality wise, indistinguishable to me, most of the time. Generally Tidal catalog is better, at least for the music I listen to.
Both are great, and every Roon subscriber should be thankful they exist.
I subscribe to both Tidal and Qobuz. My last annual renewal was $100 for Tidal (BestBuy) and $150 for Qobuz. I like both and use both and have the same 1200 or so linked albums on both. I play mostly Tidal MQA on my MQA DAC’s and Qobuz 192/24 or 96/24 on my non-MQA DACs.
At home, I use Roon/Nucleus and away from home I use Audirvana/Dell XPS 15. For mobile, I use the Tidal and Qobuz apps streaming with my iPhone 11 Pro Max and Sony headphones. In the car I use SiriusXM and Apple Music/CarPlay.
Hello Frank
I did subscribe to Tidal to engage with"MQA".
I am a vocal MQA critique since the beginning, but thought I need some “flexibility” training.
I subscribe to Qobuz (my favourite streaming service), Tidal, Amazon HD and HRA (highresaudio). I mostly listen to jazz and classical. I only have locally stored music in my library (CD rips and downloads from Qobuz, HRA and Presto Classical etc.).
). Anyways, I now baulk at spending less than that monthly. It’s possibly as the value in the second service is only filling the gaps in the first. That’s a significantly worse value proposition when you think about it I guess, but still only the price of a couple of CDs.