Comparing Qobuz and Tidal, what are your experiences?

Kuoppis

Kuoppis

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Some time ago I found out that I somehow like the sound of the Qobuz streaming service. So, I decided to switch from Tidal to Qobuz after nearly a decade with the former.

A couple of other things also suit my preferences with the Qobuz business model. One thing was that there are genuine high-res versions of lots of albums I listen to. Another thing is that with a Sublime annual subscription I have the option to buy DL versions of albums at a reduced price. This is indeed what I regularly do if I particularly like something.

So, for some time I ran both services in parallel, but then recently decided to discontinue using Tidal altogether. Doing this I transferred my library from Tidal to Qobuz, and also culled albums I had put in the library but never come back to. There were a couple of interesting things I found out:

1) Not all material is equally available on both services. Switching from Tidal to Qobuz there were 5-10 albums out of >6K I did not find on the latter. I bought (or already had) CDs or DL versions of those. But I presume it would have been the same the other way around.

2) I also found that there is significantly more true high-res material on Qobuz than Tidal
- a lots of classic jazz albums are available in 192K in Qobuz, while the pendant in Tidal is only 44.1K
- in terms of high-res, often the Tidal version is 44.1/16 MQA, while in Qobuz there is at least a 44.1/24 version available, or even an 88K, 96K or 192K alternative
- if there is a ‘high-res’ version in Tidal, it typically is a MQA variant of what’s available in FLAC from Qobuz, e.g. MQA 96K vs. 96K FLAC
- I also noticed that a significant amount of albums I have added in Tidal over the years were downgraded to AAC - I have never personally added any AAC album to my library

Any similar observations by others?


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2c. Tidal only has MQA for Hi-Res. It does not offer non-MQA Hi-Res.
2d. If you still have a Tidal subscription, try seaching for the album name again and re-add it.
 
wklie said:
2c. Tidal only has MQA for Hi-Res. It does not offer non-MQA Hi-Res.
2d. If you still have a Tidal subscription, try seaching for the album name again and re-add it.
Click to expand...

Yes, that’s what I figured, i.e. Tidal only does MQA files for hi-res. Not the regular FLAC hi-res format.

I did indeed not re-search for the same files in Tidal when replacing them with Qobuz files. It is possible that there might be other Tidal versions as well. I just found it interesting that versions in my library had changed after adding them.


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I went through a Tidal to Qobuz switch about a year ago.
I used Soundiiz to transfer from one to the other. My experience in terms of number of albums that transferred properly was not as good as yours. I ended up adding many albums manually.

In the past week and in anticipation of Spotify starting to provide CD quality albums, I have transferred my Qobuz library to Spotify. In this case, there were a lot of albums (almost all classical) that did not transfer automatically. I was able to add them manually though.

One lesson that I learned: if you are a Roon user, playlists created within Roon cannot be automatically transferred outside of Roon. Therefore, you are better off creating your playlists within your preferred music service (Qobuz or Tidal if a Roon user) and access those playlists using Roon. I personally decided to make Spotify my go-to service to create all my playlists. That’s because I believe that Spotify will be around for a very long time but I cannot be certain of how Qobuz will fare now that the big players will be offering CD-quality music.
 
I've been with Tidal ever since it became available, up unit a month ago when I finally had enough of their BS and ditched them. They force their MQA garbage on you no matter what. Even their new "non-MQA" tier STILL has MQA in it, just down-sampled. So as usual, they are lying to you left and right like they always have been.

I have also been with Qobuz ever since they became available. After getting Qobuz and comparing it directly to Tidal, it was crystal clear that Qobuz sounds better than Tidal. Better sound in all aspects, but especially in the upper registers, where Qobuz is ultra clean and refined sounding, Tidal has an etched, gritty top end by comparison. And these results have been confirmed on several different systems as well as my headphone rig.

Not to mention Qobuz is less expensive that Tidal.

Do yourself a favor and forget about Tidal and their forceful BS and go with Qobuz. Heck, you're better off with even Amazon, Apple and/or Spotify when they come out with lossless than wasting money on Tidal.
 
Since I don't have an MQA DAC and no intentions of buying one soon I am Qobuz all the way.

George
 
nicoff said:
I went through a Tidal to Qobuz switch about a year ago.
I used Soundiiz to transfer from one to the other. My experience in terms of number of albums that transferred properly was not as good as yours. I ended up adding many albums manually.

In the past week and in anticipation of Spotify starting to provide CD quality albums, I have transferred my Qobuz library to Spotify. In this case, there were a lot of albums (almost all classical) that did not transfer automatically. I was able to add them manually though.

One lesson that I learned: if you are a Roon user, playlists created within Roon cannot be automatically transferred outside of Roon. Therefore, you are better off creating your playlists within your preferred music service (Qobuz or Tidal if a Roon user) and access those playlists using Roon. I personally decided to make Spotify my go-to service to create all my playlists. That’s because I believe that Spotify will be around for a very long time but I cannot be certain of how Qobuz will fare now that the big players will be offering CD-quality music.
Click to expand...

I’m happy to stay with one of smaller guys to begin with, as there already is too much consolidation in the industry. Also, Qobuz has a very nice high-res offering.


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chops said:
I've been with Tidal ever since it became available, up unit a month ago when I finally had enough of their BS and ditched them. They force their MQA garbage on you no matter what. Even their new "non-MQA" tier STILL has MQA in it, just down-sampled. So as usual, they are lying to you left and right like they always have been.

I have also been with Qobuz ever since they became available. After getting Qobuz and comparing it directly to Tidal, it was crystal clear that Qobuz sounds better than Tidal. Better sound in all aspects, but especially in the upper registers, where Qobuz is ultra clean and refined sounding, Tidal has an etched, gritty top end by comparison. And these results have been confirmed on several different systems as well as my headphone rig.

Not to mention Qobuz is less expensive that Tidal.

Do yourself a favor and forget about Tidal and their forceful BS and go with Qobuz. Heck, you're better off with even Amazon, Apple and/or Spotify when they come out with lossless than wasting money on Tidal.
Click to expand...

While I do not have very strong views about the topic, I agree that Qobuz high frequencies sound nicer.


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gadawg said:
Since I don't have an MQA DAC and no intentions of buying one soon I am Qobuz all the way.

George
Click to expand...

I do have an MQA capable DAC, but I switched nevertheless [emoji3].


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Kuoppis said:
I’m happy to stay with one of smaller guys to begin with, as there already is too much consolidation in the industry. Also, Qobuz has a very nice high-res offering.


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Click to expand...

For now, I am keeping both Qobuz and Spotify.
I use Roon so I want a music service that works well with Roon and for that is Qobuz.
I use Spotify to explore new music and to share music with friends. For sharing music, nothing beats Spotify IMO.
 
I have both Qobuz and Tidal, but I’m not sure why anymore. I almost always listen to Qobuz. Only thing holding me back is Tidal’s library is a bit more extensive and I occasionally run into music that is not in Qobuz’s library.
 
MPW said:
I have both Qobuz and Tidal, but I’m not sure why anymore. I almost always listen to Qobuz. Only thing holding me back is Tidal’s library is a bit more extensive and I occasionally run into music that is not in Qobuz’s library.
Click to expand...

Similar observation. Have heard though, that Qobuz classical catalogue is more extensive.

But I’m pretty much a rock, pop, jazz guy, so that does not help much [emoji3].


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Kuoppis said:
Similar observation. Have heard though, that Qobuz classical catalogue is more extensive.

But I’m pretty much a rock, pop, jazz guy, so that does not help much [emoji3].


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Click to expand...

Qobuz's jazz catalogue is also more robust from what I have seen. One of the nicest things about Qobuz, it ISN"T plagued with rap and hip-hop every week like Tidal.
 
Sound-wise, I found little difference but I prefer the genuine hi-res that Qobuz offers over Tidal's MQA offering and of course MQA is only available if you have compatible equipment.

I preferfed Tidal's Search results in that "Albums" are genuine albums whereas Qobuz will offer single or 2 track recordings as albums - which they clearly aren't!

There's one artist I really like who has 2 or 3 albums on Tidal but nothing on Qobuz - Ruelle. A Qobuz search offers 4 results of single tracks where Ruelle features, but none of her albums are found.

I switched to Qobuz when they reduced their sub!

Peter
 
Hear Here said:
and of course MQA is only available if you have compatible equipment.


Peter
Click to expand...

MQA is not "only available" if you have compatible equipment. That's only true for the full unfold. Whether or not you want it or like it, just about everything on Tidal is MQA encoded, which means that everything you listen to is MQA. Granted, without supporting gear, you only get the first unfold of MQA, but you're STILL listening to MQA material regardless.

This has been proven already to hold true for their new Hifi Plus which is supposed to be completely MQA free, which it's not. All they are doing is down-sampling the MQA material, but it's STILL MQA.
 
chops said:
Qobuz's jazz catalogue is also more robust from what I have seen. One of the nicest things about Qobuz, it ISN"T plagued with rap and hip-hop every week like Tidal.
Click to expand...

Tidal is no longer owned by Jay-Z. Investment bankers are the new owners of Tidal. But I expect that the new owners will continue to market to the young folks. That’s where the money is and that means rap and hip-hop. Money talks.
 
nicoff said:
Tidal is no longer owned by Jay-Z. Investment bankers are the new owners of Tidal. But I expect that the new owners will continue to market to the young folks. That’s where the money is and that means rap and hip-hop. Money talks.
Click to expand...

I totally missed this. Looks like Jack Dorsey / Square bought majority ownership in Tidal. JayZ seems to be running it still along with other Square initiatives. Tidal has really been struggling financially. Apple going lossless isn't going to help them much for new users, though Tidal has some well regarded curating content. Seems like there is some synergy since Tidal roots are in hip hop and Square's Cash is heavily using hip hop influencers to drive growth.

Interestingly enough I was listening to both Tidal and Qobuz on my Mac via AirPod Pros (just for a quick listen to block out distractions) and I could hear a pretty big difference. Qobuz is more refined, blacker background, fuller and crisp. Possibly related to having no dedicated hardware MQA decode involved, though I hear similar with my 2ch system with native MQA support. I was surprised it was so easy to hear with the AirPods (at least for me). If I was to find a comparison, it's like adding in a high end power distributor and cables to a system with a noisy power line. Brightness disappears and the instruments/vocals pop out of blacker background. I can see how some people may like Tidal since it does give a bigger sense of sound stage.
 
I need to try Qobuz, I am just a procrastinator. And, I have heard others mention Qobuz lacks some in Rock and other areas of the library that I'd listen to.

I am surprised you found AAC from Tidal, I thought everything was FLAC, any way those tracks may have been converted by your system? AAC is an Apple thing, seems odd Tidal would have that encoded.

What does Qobuz do to make you aware of new releases or help with finding new music?

Tidal shows a hand full of new releases and makes playlists. However, my playlists nd up being mostly stuff I've played or in my favorites and Tidal's new releases seem to be biased, even Jazzz and World music have releases that are Hip Hop influenced. Also, it seems there should be way more new releases in a week than what Tidal shows. Maybe there's a fee for that.
 
Mr Peabody said:
I need to try Qobuz, I am just a procrastinator. And, I have heard others mention Qobuz lacks some in Rock and other areas of the library that I'd listen to.

I am surprised you found AAC from Tidal, I thought everything was FLAC, any way those tracks may have been converted by your system? AAC is an Apple thing, seems odd Tidal would have that encoded.

What does Qobuz do to make you aware of new releases or help with finding new music?

Tidal shows a hand full of new releases and makes playlists. However, my playlists nd up being mostly stuff I've played or in my favorites and Tidal's new releases seem to be biased, even Jazzz and World music have releases that are Hip Hop influenced. Also, it seems there should be way more new releases in a week than what Tidal shows. Maybe there's a fee for that.
Click to expand...

The source is still FLAC, not AAC, though MQA is where they have they have their Master quality.

To be honest, I am still figure out the newer Qobuz interface. I took a break from Qobuz and recently came back to it and things seem to have changed a bit. They have full view based on new releases and you can filter based on genre.
 
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