Just to be clear, MQA today is delivered in FLAC files. FLAC is just a lossless compression that can be appied to any data. What we’re talking about here is moving to hi-res wav compressed with flac, whereas MQA is a regular res wav file thats compressed with flac and steals the lowest couple of bits the wav fileto allow it to be unfolded into a high res format and hints to the DAC if it supports MQA. Whixh obvously leads to the debate whether MQA is as good as the true hi res file. The unfolded MQA certiamly isn’t identical to the true hi-res version.
it sounds so good.
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I’ll have to wait and see how this unfolds. And no… Not the MQA unfolding thingy.
My 3rd annual subscription to Qobuz just went active a few weeks ago, so I’m “stuck” with Qobuz till at least June 2024. I’m paying Tidal monthly. I’ve went with Tidal next to Qobuz because both have Roon integration and Tidal adds MQA to the mix.
But now with MQA leaving the building and Tidal being quite a bit more expensive compared to annual Qobuz Studio. Things start to look quite differently.
When it comes to adding favorites, I’ve always preferred Qobuz over Tidal. I’ve only added a handful of Tidal favorites, as those are not available on Qobuz.
I’ll wait and see till August when high res FLAC arrives for the non EAP folks, like me, who are subbed to Hifi+.
So does this mean Tidal will pull their MQA library?
It seems so, but, who knows. Only time will tell, as they say.
SKBubba, I don’t think Tidal has any immediate plans to scrub MQA from its catalog. However, the acquisition of future new releases in MQA might be less certain.
The admin of an MQA group on Facebook shared the following reply in response to his query about MQA and Tidal.
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A post was merged into an existing topic: Discuss recent MQA developments here
MQA is the primary reason why many chose not to subscribe to Tidal. They will surely benefit from this.
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Tidal is adding Hi-Res FLAC, as announced in public.
I’ve never read anything from Tidal that says they are removing MQA, in public or private partner e-mail.
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For Qobuz I pay 149,99€/12 = 12,50 per month. Tidal is 19,95€ per month.
May bee I am wrong - but I don’t see any additional benefits with Tidal that would be worth paying the extra amount.
Have a nice WE
Torben
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For my the only reason would be that some music that I am listening to is not available on Qubuz.
But yeah 150 compared to 240 Euro per year is quite a difference.
Depends on the plan you select.
I have Qobuz Sublime for High resolution streaming and purchase discounts, but I also subscribe to Tidal family plan on CD quality and that is much cheaper than the full plan.
The family plan is £14.99 a month for all of us and that seems reasonable.
Well I haven’t bought music for many years now so Qobuz Studio is more than sufficient for me.
Should I decide to buy one or two albums in the future than Sublime still won’t be worth it for me.
I am single so a family plan is quite a waste for me as well.
If Qobuz had all the music that I am listening to then I would drop Tidal in a heartbeat.
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Going sublime was best value for money investment this year. Got so much more music at a very respectable prices and the sales have been great. Shame the price discounts are only on hires purchases as a lot I want to buy is cd only and it’s often cheaper to buy the physical disc. I don’t like how Qobuz catalogue gets reshuffled so often, I know this happens to all of them but Qobuz it seems to happen more perhaps they sign shorter deals.
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Got to agree with this as it has become second only to Bandcamp in my music purchasing. Great value for those that still buy music
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I really like that Qobuz has this subscription option but so far I’ve found that Bandcamp is cheaper (even with the sublime discount) so I haven’t gone the sublime route.
As you point out, I think part of that is that it doesn’t apply to CD quality releases but even for the high res Bandcamp is cheaper, at least for the albums I’ve been looking at.
I have found it often the other way, that its cheaper on Qobuz and on Bandcamp but often it is Bandcamp thats cheaper but its pot luck what you actually get res wise. But I use both as my main sources of purchases. Just got two this very moment for £6.99 each where on BC 9.99 each So swings and roundabouts.
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I have also found this but it is probably 60/40 .
Sometimes Bandcamp is cheaper and CD quality and Qobuz is offering 24/96
Personally I generally choose Bandcamp in those circumstances anyway
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I’ve went over my Tidal added favorites. Added them to Qobuz, apart from only 5 albums which are unavailable. 3 of them I did find on Deezer, to which I’m also subscribed, so I won’t be missing that much.
I’ve decided to cancel my Tidal account for now. My sub expires on Monday.
So I’m basically down to Qobuz, Deezer and Apple Music. The last one is part of my Apple One subscription, although I don’t use AM that much.
Let’s see how it goes. Annual Qobuz sub + annual Deezer sub is only 10 Euro more expensive compared to a whole year of Tidal HiFi+.
The only real downside is that Roon has no integration for Deezer. However the apps for my Cambridge CXNv2, WiiM Mini and Octavio AMP fully support both.
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Tidal seems to have a larger catalog; that would be the one thing it has going for it. Though I mostly stream classical and in that regard, they seem to be about the same, with Qobuz having better means of discovering new albums (for me). The albums I found on Tidal and not on Qobuz tended to be indie rock albums. But I’ve also come across a couple instances where Tidal’s 16/44 tracks don’t sound as good as Qobuz: a few classical tracks where I heard distortion on Tidal but not on Qobuz, despite the tracks ostensibly being the same. For that reason, I’m sticking with Qobuz.