Have both and haven’t been able to convince myself that there is a consistent quality difference. Some master tracks sound better on Tidal vs Hi-Res on Qobuz and others just the opposite. User interface for both are different but equally intuitive. Seemingly unlimited content on both with the exception of classical where I think Qobuz clearly has a greater offering. Spending more time trying to discover new music/artists and so far I think Tidal has an advantage with their recommendations based on users listening patterns. Haven’t pulled the trigger but considering a HiFi Rose 130 to access the video offerings on Tidal which I don’t believe are available on Qobuz. Just another excuse to feed my wine habit! Bottom line, both services are great and fortunately not crazy expensive relative to the endless black holes in this hobby.
Qobuz vs Tidal
Just sharing my recent experience. I'll be brief. I've been a dedicated music streamer for the past 4 years and have enjoyed it immensely. I always had both Tidal and Qobuz at my disposal, but because Tidal had a more extensive music catalog, sound quality comparable to Qobuz, and seemed more user friendly, I decided to make Tidal my Roon default (most all of my music library was Tidal). All was well and sounding great. Yes, I was fully aware of the fact that Qobuz was widely recognized as the "audiophile's" choice over Tidal, but when I occasionally did "brief" comparisons between the two, I thought the differences in sound quality were negligible, so I left things as they were. Well, after all this time, just the other day, while watching high end audio show video footage on youtube, I noticed that all of the exhibitors who were streaming their music were using Qobuz, as opposed to Tidal. This observation prompted me to really want go back, take my time, and see for myself which streaming service really did sound best to my ears. After hours of back and forth comparisons, I have to say, Qobuz came out on top. What I noticed was that Qobuz sounded slightly more focused, more refined, more natural and real-to-life. I was convinced!!! I believe that switching to Qobuz from Tidal actually succeeded in elevating the overall sound quality of my listening experience a notch. I immediately began the process of converting my entire music library from Tidal over to Qobuz. Happy listening.
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- 29 posts total
- 29 posts total