Staying with Tidal.
44.1/16 FLAC sound identical, MQA sounds fine, way larger library for alternative/independent music (from punk to singer/songwriter) and costs less… great for Roon to offer subscribers the chance to choose though.
I am staying with Tidal too.
Will reconsider Qobuz once they add all those albums I am missing. Quite a few! I am sure another opportunity will arise for another free Qobuz trial down the road, in a few months
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I am keeping both for now. I’ll give it a couple of months and then decide. Thusfar, I’m not seeing an advantage to Qobuz over Tidal.
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I’ll be dropping Tidal. All the hires albums I’ve tested sound better with Qobuz. Currently in the US beta I’m missing plenty of albums that I have on Tidal but I expect those to fill in once Qobuz goes live next week. I’ll probably keep Tidal for extra month of overlap to run Soundliz to sync up the missing albums.
I also enjoy seeing the pdf cd album art that Qobuz offers. I’m not sure why roon themselves don’t have direct access to this as well and build it directly in the software. Also read the Qobuz blog that the other sections on their app will be coming to roon in the future. I’ve been exploring this on the iPhone and find it interesting for discovery.
Is the album pdf limited to the Qobuz app or can you also see it with Qobuz in the Roon integration.
As 4 missing music, I’m in Germany and still missing 25% of my playlist - manual search tells me some significant music for my taste is just not there - too much 4 me to accept.
Roon does have access to the digital booklets of Qobuz, and displays the PDF icon in the Album Details screen. What it does not (yet?) have is the ability to view the PDF files directly in Roon, but uses the PDF viewer of the OS being used. Direct viewing in Roon has been asked for.
I just spent an hour A/B testing Tidal MQA and Qobuz Hi-Res with Roon, using Amused to Death, Wise Up Ghost and Automatic For The People as source material. There are differences between them, but not enough for me to choose either based on sound quality. I marginally prefer MQA, but Qobuz Hi-Res is slightly more natural. Changing the DAC filter is enough to make them sound almost the same. So, my first conclusion is that I obviously need to spend at least £20,000 on a new DAC before making the comparison again.
My final choice might come down to their Apple Carplay implementation. Tidal’s is awful, it constantly forgets where it is in a playlist or that it is playing a playlist at all. If Qobuz can manage that any better, I’m in.
Qobuz is worse on carplay. No real streaming only local music is played. Each piece of music is considered an album which makes no sense.
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Well - thats another Argument for Tidal there. As I have a huge library of music and usually buy/own the music I love on Vinyl or on digital file stored locally and added by some Tidal stuff here and there and played & organized via Roon @home, the main benefit I take from a streaming service is mobile play when in the car or on vacation + searching for new music.
I’m just using a $500 ifi micro and can hear the difference in my headphone setup. The difference is more clear when comparing roon unfolding MQA vs Qobuz hires then both upsampled to HQPlayer. Bass little deeper, soundstage wider, placement clearer, and vocals cleaner. It’s still all very subtle but the Qobuz hires is the best I’ve heard. Just sound more real and natural.
Now maybe after I switch and find too many albums missing I’ll reconsider. But I’d have to think they can negotiate the same deals Tidal has made. Even now can see almost every MQA has the hires version in Qobuz. Also finding several hires albums in Qobuz that are not in MQA.
One other bonus is Qobuz can do hires from the iPhone if use the camera adapter. Not sure if MQA unfolding on iPhone for Tidal is in the works. Believe it’s on one brand of mobile phone is all.
I’m dropping Tidal. Mainly because I don’t want to spend $50+ a month for 2 services and also I don’t really like MQA. I feel like it’s something in the middle of the music that is not needed.
Only a true double blind listening can help to make the difference. Above all it is advisable to make an audiogram to know your real true hearing performance. There is too much bias, as in a wine tasting.
A French test on both services http://www.laudioexperience.fr/test-de-tidal-vs-qobuz-en-qualite-cd/. Anyway the sound quality of both services is excellent.
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I’m an ophthalmologist so please double masked and not double blind! 
Sorry in French we say “Double aveugle” for medical test which is “Double blind”. 
It’s all about priority.
Is the marginal better sound quality worth a much smaller library? (In my case missing roughly 15%-20%)
Do you like to listen to music or do you just like to listen to your stereo setup?
It’s up to you. I know what I choose.
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How did you generate that image? I can’t sort out that particular view no matter how I click around in Focus. Thanks!
Got my notice of being able to test via beta. Signed up and I’ve got to admit, I’m liking Qobuz more then I would have thought, the hi-res stuff is really very good, gives me an opportunity to test different versions.
Sometimes I prefer the unfolded MQA, sometimes I prefer the hi-res. I don’t however see it as a replacement for Tidal on mobile yet, and see them as commentary to each other.
Trying to justify the extra $25 a month is going to be tough, though for those albums that Tidal only has the CD version and Qobuz had the hi-res version, I’m inclined to try.
I keep Tidal and the stuff I really like I buy on Vinyl or high-res from Qobuz… better than keeping 2 streaming services as I still buy lots of music anyways… this way it’s 4 keepers 
I didn’t get that far with the Carplay implementation. When I tried using it at the same time as Google Maps, they both crashed.
I have both services and will likely keep both. The cost p/month is very reasonable for the music access they provide. Like many folks, I used to spend a shed load of money on LPs, then on CDs…
Not any more, I have all of my old music stored on a NAS and backed up, but increasingly listen to hi-res albums via streaming. I will not be buying music on a physical format again 
I must say that Roon has made such a big difference to my music listening experience, more than any other software of digital service.
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