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.                                    

kennymacc

+1 Qobuz for SQ. However I get occasional drops and spinning circle of death w Qobuz.  Never on Amazon HiRes, but Qobuz superior SQ. Amazon has better algorithm suggestions. Never tried Tidal.

Qobuz as a platform is stuck in the 1990's  Does anyone have any intel on when the long promised Qobuz connect may be launched?

 

Thanks for a straight forward comparison of the two top products. I tend to agree with everything. However some tracks on Tidal and the some of the Videos have an otherworldly sound. Objectively I can’t say better or worse. But the experience is amazing. Unfortunately there are more ‘poor’ files on T. Nearly everything on Q is solid. So I need both. And right now it’s affordable. Especially compared to buying vinyl. We all know there are a thousand variables that make your system different from mine. There are much fewer when we speak of a streaming file. If you listen to a Ahmad Jamal’s Awakenings file on Q or T it’s the same one I listen to. GDP can fill everyone in on the best way to achieve this. Thanks again for the review, good to know others hear similar things.

I have a subscription to both Deezer and Qobuz.  I've never had a subscription to Tidal.

With that said, Deezer hands-down!  I find Deezer is so, so much more user friendly!  Qobuz is cumbersome.  The only reason I have it is my streamer doesn't support Deezer.  Too bad.