I’m totally unbiased. I call it like it is and relay my experiences. You however don’t have to like my experiences, or even believe them, your choice. I wish more than anyone that my experience was different but I’d be remiss if I didn’t convey them.
Unbiased?
When you clearly have an axe to grind with Qobuz?
No, I don’t work for Qobuz. I was previously on a monthly plan for $24.99 per month. When Qobuz offered their deal, I switched to an annual plan for $149.99. Net price is $12.50 per month or 50 percent of the previous price. You don’t get a refund if you don’t purchase another year’s worth of service.
I subscribed to TIDAL the moment I bought into Roon. When Qobuz came on board I also subscribed as a friend told me how wonderful it was. My main genre of music I like is jazz and for the year I had Qobuz I don’t think there was one album that wasn’t also on TIDAL. I did like the pdfs of the album covers and some of their playlists. To my ears using my KEF LS50W I did just prefer the Qobuz sound to the TIDAL MQAs but the reason I gave up Qobuz is that my KEF LSXs can play TIDAL MQA 192 but not the Qobuz 192 without stuttering. It’s now been 6 weeks and I don’t miss Qobuz.
I did that, and didn’t get the refund, hence my disappointment.
BTW, lest folks here think I’m the only one who has experienced customer service difficulties with Qobuz, I’m definitely not. See:
I also subscribe to Tidal at $19.99 per month and like MQA through my Dragonfly Cobalt. However, I may drop Tidal when my 6 months deal runs out because I don’t really need both Tidal and Qobuz. Almost everyone of my 800+ albums is available on both.
The Qobuz offer is not available in Europe. (Still 250 euros = 279 dollar per year)…
Even in the USA it’s only a temporary limited time deal.
Anyhow, their catalogue is not as big as Tidal (about 30% less with alternative, singer songwriter and folk). I’ll stick with Tidal and keep patiently waiting for Deezer Hifi-integration in Roon…
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It’s a one year deal. We don’t know what the price will be after that. It’s a competitive market now. How limited their catalogue is depends on what you listen to. In my case, Qobuz and Tidal both have almost everything I look for. It’s 6 of one, half-dozen of the other.
I agree, TIDAL wins hands down with these genres.
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By the way, nowhere does it say the $149.99 annual subscription is for one year only. In the absence of such a statement, I have to assume it is renewable at that price until/unless there is an overall price increase. So, the current Qobuz monthly price is $14.99 or annual at $149.99 for those who switch to annual by 1/31/2020 if you are within the first 100,000.
Part of me wants to switch to Qobuz, I want us all to have more choices. A very UNscientific comparison of song availability shows gaps in Qubuz (US Region). They say they are filling out the library but I don’t know how we will know.
Part of my discovery is to find things on Spotify and then batch them over to Tidal or Qobuz with Soundiiz. Here are my results from 17 playlists. Genres are electronic (EDM) and contemporary jazz/lounge/chill. Tidal did much better. No surprise, I have been consistently getting that.
My outright switch to Qobuz is hindered by Roon not having a function to update “Roon playlists” from Tidal version of songs to Qobuz version of songs. As my newer playlists I am building with Qobuz songs but I hate to lose the Tidal song based play lists in Roon. So for now I am running both.
cheers,
Rob.
You probably have about 6 days left that you can get a year’s subscription to Qobuz for $149.99. Then, when it’s time to renew Tidal, you’ll have a decision to make.
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I’m on the lower pricing of Qobuz, that is why I turned it back on. I am not sure if I will order a full year or not. The mobile app is working fine. I may just turn of Tidal from Roon for a few days and see how much I notice (my playlists will go away)…
Rob.
I think 1/31 is still the deadline unless they have changed it.
I prefer Qobuz but I’ve had both Tidal and Qobuz subscriptions for a while, and I can confirm there are still some pretty significant gaps in the Qobuz catalog compared to Tidal. It’s getting better, but they’re still a ways behind.
One way I’ve tested is to use soundiiz to sync playlists from Apple Music or Spotify to both Tidal and Qobuz. Tidal’s still consistently better in that regard.
I had both Tidal and Qobuz for months but there was such an overlap, that I decided to give up Tidal when Qobuz lowered their prices. I can’t justify an extra $20 per month for Tidal, when I’m able to access 99% of the music I like using Qobuz alone.
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