Apple Music vs Tidal for SQ

Not being impressed by MQA, I've had a "CD-quality" plan from Tidal. I was under the impression that Qobuz was double the $9.95/month I was paying for Tidal, but thanks to @fuzztone I learned that Qobuz is closer to $11/month. Wanting higher quality music, I subscribed to Qobuz this week and was quite impressed. Qobuz's CD-quality content was similar to Tidal's but on many tracks more detail could be heard. The Hi-Rez content was mostly much higher quality... to the point that it inspired a stupid-late 3 hour listening session... exploring familiar favorites to hear the improvement. 

The free Soundiiz online transfer utility worked flawlessly...importing my thousands of tracks, playlists and albums.

Overall it's been a great experience. 

I subscribed to Tidal and Qobuz and appreciate their sound quality. While both are great, I find Qobuz to be more natural and smoother, making it the preferred option for my system. Despite this, even Apple Music and MP3 files sound pretty good on my setup. At the moment, I am utilizing Amazon HD for my music streaming needs, but I have intentions of exploring Tidal in the upcoming year. Although Qobuz sounds better to me, Tidal has a more extensive selection of music that aligns with my personal preferences.

I gave Qobuz the slight nod over Apple in a post above, but Apple is certainly listenable.  Neither of them sounded as good as my CDs either played from a streamer or on a CDP, but we are talking really small degrees of differences here.

I am curious to see if Apple's new Classical derive, to be started on 4/4, will offer any improvement over their current standard sonically

I wouldn’t make a blanket statement that Qobuz is better than Tidal. Here’s why…

• Some albums available on Tidal, missing on Qobuz. 
• Redbook versions of some albums sound better on Tidal

Both Tidal and Qobuz, however, sound better than Apple Music with almost anything I listen to even in the car or in the gym with headphones. 

Interesting takes. I have found Tidal to sound very muddy/flat with levels all over the place, requiring constant adjustments to the volume - not a good listening experience. Especially in regards to streaming an infinite playlist for background music.

not to mention Tidal’s search and app are an abomination. Horrible UX. Not intuitive. Doesn’t allow for queuing while listening in a good way. And their curation is not my taste. Not a fan of their playlists.

tried Qobuz for a minute but it is missing so much music.

Apple Music’s UX and search is by far and away the best. Their curated playlists are fantastic and the algorithm is the right balance of stuff from my library and matching music I haven’t heard. SQ is excellent over Airplay to bluesound node 2i.

not as good as a CD, mind you.

one note. You must go into settings on the phone and turn on LOSSLESS. It is off by default on Apple Music.