Apple Music vs Tidal for SQ

My experience is all the services make it harder than it needs to be figure out which recording you are listening too. Start with the same recording, ensure you are bit perfect, no volume control in the app or automatic controls, and Apple, Qoboz, Amazon HD will sound the same. Tried Tidal. Sometimes it sounded exactly the same. Sometimes it did not. I assume that was whatever processing they are doing.

@oldschool1948 

So you are saying the ripped versions sound better? What difference do you hear? Just curious. 

Tidal is good without paying for MQA and I couldn’t really tell the difference any way.

Can anyone clarify the difference between Tidal Master and MQA?

I did trial Qobuz but really didn’t put much effort into the trial before it ran out but this thread has prompted me to have another go.

I don’t hear much about Deezer on AG, nor do I know much about it. Any opinions?

My ripped CDs sound better than Qobuz or Tidal CD quality music. Qobuz HiRes and Tidal MQA sound a bit better than my ripped CDs. Quboz HiRes sounds better than Tidal MQA. DSD128 songs played via the Zenith beats them all.

I play Qobuz through a Zenith MK2 to Matrix-X to PS Audio DSD DAC via i2s.  I play Tidal through the DSD DAC’s Bridge II card.  When playing via the Zenith, I use the Innous Sense app.  I play Tidal via Roon. Sense sounds much better than Roon.

So got my new Sony Signature dac/pre/headphone amp unboxed and hooked up today. It sounded amazing right out of the box and has a ton of filters. I found the the DSD remastering was best for my taste. So I hook up my Onkyo DP-X1 DAP which has a USB out that I haven’t used, use it more with headphones. Worked great. It also has a feature to upmix files to DSD but only with ripped files, not streaming. The Sony DSD remastering works with everything. The good news is I can listen to everything I can rip in DSD after going through this conversion process. The bad news is now streaming, while still good, will be less satisfying than playing ripped tracks. I can purchase CD quality downloads, replay at the remastered DSD format. Thank you Sony and Onkyo! Marantz also has a DSD remastering feature on their higher end SACD players. I never gravitated to DSD much because a lot of the music I like isn’t available and what is starts at $25 a pop and goes up from there.

https://www.themasterswitch.com/review-sony-ta-zh1es