But thats hardly a contender, the native Qobuz app does not even offer exclusive mode afaik. And Roon does cache Qobuz, have a look at your network traffic in the first 20seconds of playing back a tune from Qobuz.
One thing that often comes up in these comparisons is that Tidal is biased towards Rap/R&B although it is probably an exaggeration / myth.
But one thing I donât see mentioned is that Qobuz is a French company and consequently there is a distinct Francophone bias. It probably is an exaggeration also, in that the Francophone catalogue on Qobuz is available also on Tidal. Still, things like playlists and the structure of the Qobuz website have certainly guided me towards French language genres I enjoy immensely and donât think I would have found otherwise.
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The Qobuz native app under Windows offers me the choice of WASAPI or WASAPI (Exclusive Mode) for my (Chord) DAC.
Obviously any software that plays back streamed music must cache a segment of it. The point I was trying to make was that if you believe that streamed music sounds worse than locally stored music because of network activity, processor activity, disc activity, bad karma or sunspots then Qobuz gives you a very simple way of checking that out as it can store albums in its offline library which you could playback without any streaming and thus make a comparison. But you should be aware that Qobuz will cache whole albums anyway, so if network activity affects playback then they should sound better the second time they are played.
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I find the records Qobuz chooses to highlight on its front pages to be more my taste - and they feature a wider selection of genres as highlight records. Tidal feels much more one dimension in terms of what they choose to show as new selections.
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I found that the really obscure stuff Qobuz has and Tidal did not. I also like their store. I still purchase music I plan to keep regardless of subscription services I may not want in the future.
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I also had this attitude until a few years ago, my worry was always the discontinuation of services, but on a death always came two new services and now the move is also made even easier.
I moved everything to my hard drives, backed it up and gave away all the CDs, LPs tapes etc. This of course brought tears of joy and happy moments. I stood for many days in the summer with a table on the street (only pedestrians to the beach) and had many good conversations about music with vacationers. Of course, some wanted to bring something over later to share your happiness (bottle of wineâŠ)
But it took me decades to make this decision.
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I, personally, didnât like Tidalâs sound. When Apple Music went lossless, I dropped my Tidal subscription.
The problem I was hearing was that there was no way to get away from MQA. Even when something was just âCD qualityâ, it sounded as if the MQA chain had been used to master it. The space was gone. The detail was gone. The Qobuz track was audibly superior matching my Red Book originals, something Tidal was clearly not doing at any âqualityâ.
[Moderated, this topic is not the correct place to discuss MQA technical details.]
Itâs ok that you donât like Tidalâs sound, although I end up scratching my head as to what people seem to hear. Greater detail and space are the reason most of us that like MQA listen to it. The Qobuz equivalent sounds fuzzy by comparison. (Caveat: I have a good MQA DAC.) And then there are the many who say they donât hear any difference at all.
[Moderated, this topic is not the correct place to discuss MQA technical details.]
This isnât about MQA, and Wiki really makes the detailed effort to not send it unfiltered just through the lens of one manufacturer. Tidal uses it, Qobuz does not. Those are corporate decisions.
Hi guys,
This topic is about Qobuz vs Tidal, and whilst MQA is certainly a factor in the comparison and user choice, this topic is not the place to start discussing the detailed pros and cons of MQA, there are other topics for that.
Please donât let this topic going down the MQA rabbit hole, letâs keep it constructive.
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They are just inept, incapable of sorting out the licensing issues. I have Qobuz in Canada through Roon using my US address. in terms of expanding their user base Qobuz is probably the dumbest outfit in the streaming business.
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entering new music markets is no easy task, and everyone budgets their resources to take advantage of the best expansion opportunities first.
The BIGGEST differenceâŠTIDAL has a LIMIT on how many albums you can add to your Library. I hit my limit and when I tried to add more TIDAL would not let me. Qobuz has NO limit. I like to add my favorite albums to my Library!! I continue to keep both services because I have many Playlists made when I only had TIDAL. But whenever I want to add an album and it has both a TIDAL and Qobuz version (most do) I add the Qobuz version to avoid the dreaded LIMIT on TIDAL. In my opinion,with the kind of money we are paying for these premium services there should be NO limits.
What is the limit?
So heres the solution Ive come to. I really do prefer Qobuz in terms of pure SQ. But then again, the catalogue is very limited opposed to Tidal. About 30% of my music is missing.
I opted for going with Qobuz Studio for listening on my main system and went with the basic 9,99 EUR version of Tidal.
I need Tidal for my playlists, for mobile playing and getting to know new music, which I mainly do whilst running, driving or sitting in a hotel. In 80 % of the cases I end up buying the music I really like as physical media anyways, be it as Vinyl or CD. In all other cases or when I really feel like streaming - sometimes even on my main system - I want best quality though - and that`s with Qobuz. So anything I do not end up buying or when I feel I just want to stream on the main system I have the quality I want with Qobuz.
Qobuz Studio is 149 EUR/year, which comes down to 12,50/Month - so for 22,50 I have Qobuz for premium listening and Tidal for my playlists and searching for new music - opposed to Tidal only as premium for 19,99âŠ
Best of both worlds 
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Tidal 10k song limit. Apple 99k I believe and Spotify unlimited apart from playlists which are still limited to 10k.
Donât know about Qobuz.
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Just like Raz saidâŠQobuz has NO limit (per my discussion with their Support team)
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Itâs only your library if you own it. If you donât then things have a habit of disappearing. If you stream you are borrowing it for as long as they can lend it.
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I had both services and compared them using Roon.
Qobuz sounds slightly better. Tidal sounds like the highs are slightly subdued and may be lower resolution in spite of what my playback software says.
FYI, Qobuz just dropped their price by a buck.
Hmmmmmm. I understand what you are saying but Iâm an organizer and if I like an artist and/or albums I like to add to My Library to better access and keep my favorite music organized. I havenât had any issues with anything âdisappearingâ. Roon does a good job on the Home page keeping track of your totals. I track this to make sure I donât lose anything.