Value offered by these two service (Tidal & Qobuz)

Audio Gear Talk Music Services
1

This topic looks like a good place to do a little comparison of the value offered by these two services. My impression is that Tidal:

  • is still way behind Qobuz when it comes to HiRes content
  • still offers lossy content (AAC 22KHz) here and there where Qobuz doesn’t
  • pays artists less than Qobuz
  • …?

…On the other hand:

  • Tidal including HiRes content has now become a bit cheaper than Qobuz
  • The catalog is a little bit bigger (just a few % though by my numbers)
  • …?

Feel free to add to this list or argue any of my points above.

2

Tidal has a gapless connect feature, Qobuz does not.
Qobuz, in an interview article I read last year I think, claimed to not process the audio at all.

I’ve convinced myself that listening between the native apps that Qobuz sounds smoother in some cases, that’s just an opinion, I’ve not done a blind test and don’t intend to.

For Roon I subscribe to both, I use Qobuz primarily and then tidal hifi to fill the gaps in the Qobuz library.
I will continue to use both after April 10.

3

Qobuz - with all its faults - seems to have a much greater selection of Classical music than Tidal; and a marginally better way (not a particularly good way for Classical, though) to find what you want.

4

To be honest sound/quality wise I don’t hear any differences at all between the two. Sometimes it appears that Tidal can be a bit louder than Qobuz when listening to the same track from both services.

Roon-wise I use both but primarily Qobuz although I think the native Tidal app is better than the Qobuz one esp for playlists.

Anyway it’s great to have both in combination with Roon, it’s the ultimate world Hi-Res library.

5

Yes agreed, about £22 a month for Qobuz and Tidal hi-fi at the moment, from April 10th Tidal will include hi-res too, the wealth of choice is incredible.