I also dropped Tidal, and kept Qobuz. I also still buy and burn CDs to FLAC on my Roon server. When I had both I could not tell the difference in sound. Qobuz had about 99% of the same albums that I lost with getting rid of Tidal.
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Qobuz for me over three years now - the best
I’ve tried both but have stuck with Tidal now for 5 years. Occasionally try Qobos when there’s an offer on but always go back to Tidal. Can’t hear any difference in SQ within Roon or outside of Roon, but I just seem to find what I like better with Tidal. Can hear different SQ between different versions of albums though.
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.in what respect Roon no differences at all. In general Qobuz have better quality in their recording than Tidal I wonder why.
Higher resolution, i.e., bit depth and sample rate, does not equate to better quality. The quality of a recording is determined by the artistry, mixing, and mastering.
The exact same recording from Qobuz and TIDAL are bit-identical, and will, therefore, be indistinguishable from each other when played.
However, there are times when a good remaster is only available (with certainty) in a hi-res format, so these may be necessary at times.
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I currently have and prefer Qobuz, mostly because it enables me to buy price reduced high-res downloads, whereas Tidal does not offer that. I had Tidal for a while too though as well to try it out.
I can say that in my experience, in most cases, Qobuz and Tidal offer exactly the same sound quality, because the masters the labels deliver are the same. So a FLAC is a FLAC, bits and bytes are identical, so there is no sound quality between Qobuz and Tidal… in most cases. I even noticed a flaw in a Nielsen recording and found the same glitch on both Qobuz and Tidal, so the files came obviously from the same source.
However, as some have pointed out already, some albums exist in different versions, and unfortunately, these versions are not always immediately obvious from the metadata in these services, so it may be you listen to an album in one version on this, in another version on the other service, so you might get the impression that one service “sounds better” than the other, when in reality, you are listening to two different masters. (And obviously, Tidal still has a lot of MQA albums on their roster, but that’s a different story.)
In any case, you can choose between Tidal and Qobuz based on whatever service suits you more, there is no inherent sound quality difference between these two services, neither with nor without Roon.
Yes recording quality determine final quality. But sample rate and bit depth surely allows better reproduction and quality it is not the same hearing 44khz than 196 .But as well how the company manage the recordings , it is not the same to copy from a cd , store and use that copy for sharing in the net, than for example getting access to a master tape to get recording info. One the reasons of great quality in Berliner Philharmoniker is that they utilized their own master tapes. I wonder if Tidal difference in quality ( not all) is due to matters like those .
I have CDs and digital copies of exactly the same release versions. Bit depth and sample rate is irrelevant here since playback of both is identical. So, yes the same mastering is often used for both digital and CD (vinyl may use a unique master.)
The difficulty with streaming is that you never know what version(s) is available. So it is plausible that Qobuz and TIDAL have different versions at any one time, and these may sound different.
If you want control over quality, you have to purchase. More often than not CD / SACD / hybrid SACD offer the best version of a particular recording.
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20 posts were split to a new topic: Differences between Tidal and Qobuz App audio output
Exactly Sacd from its beginning so many years ago is the best Technology is not yet able to get dsf to be streamed
Exactly what? All I’ve said is that the medium / format has nothing to do with sound quality. Sometimes and SACD carries the best mastering. Sometime it doesn’t.
Exactly