Qobuz.

My Qobuz trial was up tomorrow, decided to "take the plunge" and sign up for a year of the hi-res streaming plan.  I find that they have a better selection of classical music and the search for that is a little better than Tidal.  I'll be keeping Tidal, using it and Qobuz with my Roon subscription.

I was a Tidal subscriber, and am now using the Qobuz trial.

I find the sound quality on Qobuz to be superior to Tidal.  However, >50% of the time, I'm not able to find titles (jazz, electronic) that I find on other services.

So for me, I'll probably not renew Qobuz for the time being.  I'm assuming (hoping) that the catalog will only grow (it is offered as beta), so I expect to check-in again.

I haven't yet directly compared SQ of Tidal MQA against 24 bit Qobuz but I did prefer 24 bit files on my drive to Tidal MQA using Roon to do the first unfold. I am quite certain I do not want, much less need, MQA. Pretty sure I will cancel Tidal and pay for Qobuz subscription.

 

The only thing that gives me pause is the ~30 titles in my library on Tidal but not Qobuz. Some are obscrure artists but others are more mainstream (eg, John Prine, Josh Ritter). I am hoping Qobuz will get many of these titles as they move out of beta. But I think I will just buy many of these files rather than keep paying Tidal.

I too was as hopeful as the rest for Qobuz USA. And then I tried the beta trial.

For me the subjective improvement in sound quality isn’t enough to overcome the objective shortfalls: the native app UX & function, the web app UX & function, their catalog gaps, the metadata misses, the weirdo curation, etc. All of that and for +$5/mo. more than the kinda-comparable Tidal "HiFi" plan. Tidal has its issues for sure - like I said in a earlier post it ain’t quite a race to the bottom, but it’s close. It’s just that for now, Qobuz wins that race.

I’ll stay with Tidal. Maybe later, after Qobuz sorts ’le merde’.

I just got connected to the TOTL Qobuz trails and got it talking to my Ayre Codex.  I frankly don't know that my aging ears hear a demonstrable SQ improvement over the Tidal Hifi, but I do think their jazz catalogue is perhaps deeper than Tidal's and the selections much more accessible.  For an extra $5.00 a month compared to Tidal Hifi, I am pretty sure I will be staying with Qobuz. Frankly, even with 5 TB of jazz on my HD, I still stream music half my listen time. After going to Axpona last month and hearing all the high end TT's, I feel like I am missing nothing with streaming music.