Comparing Qobuz and Tidal, what are your experiences?

[wklie]

I believe AAC in post #19 refers to the AAC in post #1. It is generally better than MP3 at the same bitrate. A form of AAC is actually used in digital TV broadcast in some countries. Its use is not restricted to Apple. (Unlike ALAC, I do not see a good reason to use it outside Apple ecosystem.)

AAC is indeed available from Tidal under one of the following conditions:
1. You (accidentally) got a lossy (Premium) instead of the lossless (HiFi) subscription from Tidal. I have seen this a few times. I blame this on marketing. "Premium" actually means "worst".
2. You set Tidal quality to something below HiFi
3. The album you chose is really not available in lossless quality. However, Tidal often has duplicate versions of the same album. You should try them all, to reiterate my point 2d in post #2.

 

[Kuoppis]

I believe AAC in post #19 refers to the AAC in post #1. It is generally better than MP3 at the same bitrate. A form of AAC is actually used in digital TV broadcast in some countries. Its use is not restricted to Apple. (Unlike ALAC, I do not see a good reason to use it outside Apple ecosystem.)

AAC is indeed available from Tidal under one of the following conditions:
1. You (accidentally) got a lossy (Premium) instead of the lossless (HiFi) subscription from Tidal. I have seen this a few times. I blame this on marketing. "Premium" actually means "worst".
2. You set Tidal quality to something below HiFi
3. The album you chose is really not available in lossless quality. However, Tidal often has duplicate versions of the same album. You should try them all, to reiterate my point 2d in post #2.

Peter, I do not any issue with Tidal per se, just happened to switch to Qobuz because I like it better.

What I find interesting though:
- I never added any AAC albums into my catalogue
- I have always had a Hifi subscription, never anything else
- when making the switch, I noticed that some albums I had added as FLAC afterwards were changed to AAC


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[eziggy]

Thanks Peter, missed that part of the first post. Now that it is has been mentioned, I did notice it on a few AAC and low resolution tracks on Tidal a while ago but didn't think much of it at the time.

Kuoppis, I have noticed most of what you have mentioned. I find Qobuz just has the benefits you mentioned over Tidal, I will most likely do the same by phasing out Tidal at some point myself.

On a side note, I am not sure if people have noticed, but running Tidal on AppleTV has been a hit or miss (mostly miss). One of the biggest issues I have is when I open up the app to play music for my kids, the first thing you see are album and music video thumbnails that are NOT kid friendly. Our kids are still too young to realize, but I have to eventually phase out that app as well.

 

[wklie]

I'm not surprised that a previously added album had the quality changed by the service. Regional license restrictions change all the time. Anything can happen.

Many people found albums disappearing (can happen on any streaming service), so you may consider to purchase albums really important to you, even if you have a streaming subscription. That's the point of Sublime+.

 

[Jim Smith]

Would I replace David Solomon's musical & audio tastes for those of anyone at Tidal?

Not likely...:doubtful:

I know he's not the top man in charge of Qobuz, but he makes a hugely favorable impact with/on Qobuz.

IMO...

 

[eziggy]

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

I don't see a way to get recommendations on Qobuz's own app. Also their genres miss categories completely. For example, I like listening to almost all types of music. One genre that is missing completely is techno/dance DJ's like Armin Van Buuren and others. You click on new releases, filter by electronic/dance, yet hit only shows electronic. Search for his name, click on Artist, and you see albums release days ago.

Does anyone know if Qobuz offers "Recommended" albums/playlists? I tried an old account I had a while ago. I recall going through the old process of picking the genres I liked and had created numerous playlists with liked songs, yet it shows the same new albums/playlists as a brand new account.

 

[Hear Here]

I don't see a way to get recommendations on Qobuz's own app. Also their genres miss categories completely. For example, I like listening to almost all types of music. One genre that is missing completely is techno/dance DJ's like Armin Van Buuren and others. You click on new releases, filter by electronic/dance, yet hit only shows electronic. Search for his name, click on Artist, and you see albums release days ago.

Does anyone know if Qobuz offers "Recommended" albums/playlists? I tried an old account I had a while ago. I recall going through the old process of picking the genres I liked and had created numerous playlists with liked songs, yet it shows the same new albums/playlists as a brand new account.

This is a capture of part of the Qobuz home screen when chosen through the BluOS app

I've not found much use for these options - I tend to add favourite Artists and Albums to their Favourites folders, or I use Search to find what I want. Sadly I've not yet found an equivalent of Roon's feature where a few of your own chosen tracks can be followed by their choice of what they think you may like based on your own list. This would be useful.

 

[nicoff]

This is a capture of part of the Qobuz home screen when chosen through the BluOS app

I've not found much use for these options - I tend to add favourite Artists and Albums to their Favourites folders, or I use Search to find what I want. Sadly I've not yet found an equivalent of Roon's feature where a few of your own chosen tracks can be followed by their choice of what they think you may like based on your own list. This would be useful.

Are you saying that if playing music in Roon from your local library (as opposed to your Qobuz library) you only get recommendations from your local library?

 

[Hear Here]

Are you saying that if playing music in Roon from your local library (as opposed to your Qobuz library) you only get recommendations from your local library?

No. I thought my description was clear. The screenshot shows (in response to ezzigy's post) what is offered by Qobuz if you use the BluOS app (Bluesound / NAD) instead of Qobuz's own app. Recommendations and New Releases are listed, which is what he was asking about.

I used Roon only for a couple of weeks, but found it over-complicated. I did like (as I mentioned) its ability to offer a continuation of one's own playlist with other tracks it thinks you may like. Sometimes this was good, but on a couple of occasions, the Roon choice included many tracks with offensive language despite my own choices being innocuous. Peter

 

[TheOctopus]

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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In one word..... "Agreed"

I ran Tidal for some years and then added Qobuz as it became available to us. No more Tidal for me...

 

[TIPP]

I can't stand MQA which is proven to be a joke. However, Qobuz just isn't there yet with the selection of some of the local bands I follow. Whether it's Florida bands near me or out of state so I stay with Tidal. I'm really hoping that Qobuz improves then I'll bail on Tidal. Although, the Tidal discount from Best Buy is appealing.