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STREAMING - QOBUZ VS TIDAL AND ROON'S PREFERENCES

I am 100% digital using Roon.  I play from my extensive hard drive, Qobuz and Tidal.  I love to find new music using Roon Radio or Roon suggestions.  Here is my issue:  I generally find Qobuz to sound better on my system.  I do not have final unfold of MQA on my Tambaqui DAC; yet ROON always defaults to a Tidal version.

So I will search 'versions' and select the highest resolution of a Qobuz version.

Can Roon be set to default to Qobuz vs defaulting to a Tidal version?

Do others agree that Qobuz sounds better?

fastfreight
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cleeds
5,658 posts
 

moonwatcher

I read a posting on another forum by a guy (a musician) who had uploaded his files to Deezer and then downloaded them and he found they were indeed "bit-perfect" without any mumbo-jumbo changes.  Perhaps Qobuz is the same. 

Yes. Qobuz says its files come from the record companies and that it makes no changes to them.
 

I like Tidal's interface and catalog just fine ... but I've read where the Hi-Fi tier of CD quality often gets you files that had MQA but with it stripped out. They sound OK, but are not "bit-perfect". 

The MQA files aren't "bit perfect" either, right? After all, they're lossy.

hiend2's avatar
hiend2
376 posts
 

I am new to streaming. Have a Good Dac And Music player.

Was using Qobuz sounded Hifi with the treble turned way up, almost gave up on the streamer.

Decided to download Tidal- 100% Better Sounds Like a good audio system.

Not saying anything bad about anything, This boy is enjoying tidal

Bryston DAC Player

ghdprentice
6,437 posts
 

I have had Tidal and Qobuz… with streamers that unfolded MQA and not. To me what this revealed was that the quality of the streamer is of the highest importance. When you have a true audiophile streamer it will produce sound quality equal or better than red book CD and analog… MQA can sound good, red book can sound good… higher resolution and analog can sound good or great. 
 

There is a point with really great equipment that it all sounds pretty great… then one versus the other is splitting the difference between really really good and really good.

oldschool1948's avatar
oldschool1948
488 posts
 
@ghdprentice Very nicely stated and quite true!
curtdr
348 posts
 

@ghdprentice  "

There is a point with really great equipment that it all sounds pretty great… then one versus the other is splitting the difference between really really good and really good.

And it's a point that many audiophiles, as obsessed as we can tend to be, sometimes forget... the point to enjoy the music; the music is the endpoint, not the gear.

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