■■■■■■■■■ Tidal is not slanted toward any certain music type. You can search and find almost any music you want. I get really tired of reading this just because some people don’t like who the owners are.
Qobuz has almost anything you could ever want to hear. With both Tidal and Qobuz, there is little music you can’t find, except perhaps for classical.
Jim, has Tidal changed significantly over the past year or two? If so, I am willing to give it another chance.
I can only tell you that I tried, I set up genre’s and I still was bombarded with albums such as Beyonce’s Lemonade (it was popular at that time) constantly. I don’t like Country Music either but I don’t ever remember my opening page trying to get me to listen to Travis Tritt.
I don’t care if it’s owned by Jay-Z, as long as it lets me choose genres I want so see/hear and not be inundated with those I don’t I’d be fine with it.
I’ve decided to give it another chance. Since I was a prior subscriber, I’m not eligible for another free trial, but I signed up again for a month of hi-fi and I’ll see how it goes.
I don’t use genres or individual tracks from Tidal or Qobuz. I link to albums I like and want to listen to. I have 620 albums linked in Tidal and the same 620 linked in Qobuz. I make sure I have the highest resolution available from both services and like to listen to both to compare.
I still don’t like Tidal. Does it eventually figure out what you like and stop serving up crap that you don’t? It still had my favorites from before. I added another 50 bands.
I click Home and 50% of the screen is covered up the Album “Colores is Here” by J Balvin. Swipe Left and I get Jay Electronica. I don’t know if that’s a group or the name of the album, then next it’s Kerry Washington, 90’s House Party.
No matter which way I go on the screen, I get things that I have no interest in listening to. No Metallica on Tidal either, by the way. The is my whole frustration with Tidal and it hasn’t changed. Nothing is filtered by the genres you want and it is mostly rap and pop music. I actually do want exploration and new albums coming out and playlists so that I can explore new music, I just want it to be related to what I actually like and Tidal continues to push you towards rap and pop.
Tidal is not mostly rap and pop music. Link it in your Roon account and use it properly through Roon. Search Roon for the artist you want to listen to. Find the albums for that artist and link them to your Roon library. Click on “Versions” to select the resolution you want from Tidal and/or Qobuz.
The only time I use the Tidal or Qobuz app is if a Roon search does not bring up the artist I am looking for. I will then search Tidal and/or Qobuz and link from there. It will then soon show up in Roon.
Jim:
I know Tidal works OK through Roon. I had that experience before too. However, there is no reason that the phone/car experience (where I can’t use Roon) also can’t be good too. When I first went with Tidal, I dumped my subscriptions to Spotify and Pandora, leaving just Tidal and SiriusXM. Tidal was almost impossible to use on the go because it wouldn’t filter anything and seemed mostly oblivious to my preferences.
They may not be hip-hop-centric in terms of their overall music library but they push that genre so much harder than others it sure feels that way.
In the Tidal app, “like” the albums you want to listen to. Then, when you go into the Tidal app in the future, click on your “liked” albums. By the way, what is wrong with hip-hop centric if that’s what the owners (artist) record? Just don’t listen to that if you don’t like it.
Just checked 11 Albums and 4 EPs plus some versions now on Tidal.
Though Qobuz does have a slightly larger Metallica collection.
Jim, in one post you stated that Tidal isn’t slanted towards any certain music type. In the last post, you said that there isn’t anything wrong with it being hip-hop centric.
What’s wrong is that if I’m paying $20 a month, I want to be able to filter and only see things that interest me. There are new bands coming out all the time. I don’t have time to go through 100 new albums trying to figure out ones that fit the genre’s I like.
While linked to Roon, Discovery within Tidal works great. I can easily see new music on Tidal and Roon does a really great job showing me things that I’d be interesting in listening to. Why can’t I have the same experience in the Tidal App while I’m out of the home? That’s my whole problem with Tidal. It doesn’t give you that ability unless you happen to love rap and pop in which case you’re going to be happy with it.
If that was the general case with all the subscription music app’s then fine, I’d live with it, but it’s absolutely not the case and that’s one of the reasons some of us don’t like Tidal. It wouldn’t be that hard to put a little effort into their app to make it more genre-agnostic but at this point, it’s hard to argue that the experience is not great for those people who aren’t into rap and pop, at least if you want to use the app for music discovery and curated playlists and things like that. I’m sure it’s fine if you want to pre-select a few 100 albums and just listen to them but that isn’t everyone’s goal.
I didn’t say it was hip-hop centric. I asked what is wrong with that.
If you don’t like Tidal drop it. I get lots of suggestions from Tidal and Qobuz everyday. They come up in Roon based on what I am listening to.
Since this thread is about Amazon, why don’t you just use Amazon when away from your Roon system? That doesn’t mean it needs to be incorporated into Roon. I use Apple Music and Sirius Radio in the car. Tidal and Qobuz don’t seem to work very well on CarPlay for me.
I have Roon on my laptop and a Dragonfly Cobalt for use away from home.
I have Qobuz and it finds 61 Metallica albums. Roon groups them slightly differently, 42 main albums, 4 singles/eps, 17 with various artists, and 6 appearances. That has to be enough for anybody!
It depends on where you are from, as different regions have access to different music. USA Qobuz only has six Metallica albums, as of today, but two versions of each, at different bit rates.
Jez, with long running bands, like Metallica, a lot of the albums that come up are single performances, like a live performance at the R&R Hall of Fame. This is the same as Tidal. However, I will give Qobuz props as they have added some actual Metallica albums since I dropped them. In an email titled from Qobuz titled, “Weekly New Releases…#34” a week ago they noted added two Metallica albums in at the top of the email so they may have quite a few by now. Tidal still has none.
It’s not that I care about them specifically, I already own all their original albums, but as a rock fan, there are about 10-15 bands that I search for when evaluating a new service and Metallica is one of them.
Jim, I’m not trying to be a jerk. If there are some features in Tidal that make it do a better job of sorting/filtering based on one’s interests, please give me some tips, even if they only work within Roon.
Since I reconnected them, I have the extremely useful “New Releases for You” listing on my Overview page which I think is Roon controlled. This is very relevant and aligns with my interests quite well.
However, below that, the Tidal Top Albums and Tidal Recommended playlists are still not related to my interests. Is there any way to get these to be filtered or somehow more relevant to my interests (even just within Roon)?
I have nothing more to add.
Thanks for the help, Jim.
I filter the playlists by ignoring them
Tidal and Qobuz don’t do what Spotify does with curation they give you a broader take on the catalogue. It’s not all hip hop not when I look at suggested new albums anyway. Spotify however just presents you with what it feels is your taste. I personally have grown to dislike Spotify’s presentation as that’s all it is and I am discovering less new music as a result and badly use it at all now. Its playlists are stale and just repeat the same tracks and bands.
Yes, it has. When you go to the homepage of the TIDAL app the top banner still has the more popular (and what you would interpret as biased) selection but right below it I get the following (in this order):
As you can see, the app now predominantly pushes stuff it thinks you will like (in my case that’s rock, jazz, blues, metal…). This was not the case a year or two before. You do have to use TIDAL for it to learn your preferences though…
I tried Amazon Music and found the app less tailored than TIDAL. You get a similar top banner of “featured” albums based on popular tastes and a few tailored playlists.
Qobuz has probably the most genre variety in their “intro” home page and you can easily select the genre of choice and browse new content, playlists, etc. However, it lacks the recommendation features you will find in TIDAL, Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
Thanks, Erich. I will give the app a try to see how it starts customizing. I went in and added many albums but didn’t play very much so I’m glad that they have been working on this.
Unfortunately, not a lot of driving now given the Covid-19 issues but I’ll work on it.