Differences in YouTube, Spotify, etc.

Tidal and Amazon HD for me (for now). I find Amazon has a larger selection and Im used to its format.  But tidal sounds better. I have the tidal app on my tv which i just started playing with. Has alot of videos that sound good and are commercial free unlike youtube. 

Tidal does however piss me off because the app on my phone likes to start itself. I can force it stopped and 10 min later its on in the background.  If i get in my wifes car it automatically ques up whatever i was playing last.  I contacted support and they couldnt help.  WTF?? So that being said, a Qobuz trial is in my future. If i like it tidal is gone

I just now received this from Tidal,,,

"Starting April 10, 2024, you will now get access to our music library in full lossless, HiRes FLAC, and Dolby Atmos sound for the same price you pay today.

This is because we’re making it easier for everyone to enjoy best-in-class sound quality by combining our HiFi and HiFi Plus tiers into a single subscription tier called TIDAL."

So now I will have access to hi-res files for the same price I was paying for the lower tier. Excellent.

The files streaming services send out are acquired from record companies or other copyright holders. The hi res services all send the file unaltered. Can someone explain why they think the same file sounds better on one service than another? Once you receive the file, what happens depends on your system. 

Exact same reason @bipod72 for choosing Spotify over others. Have heard Tidal and Qobuz before and they sounded mush better on my system. But they did not have the world music I needed nor some obscure music that I listen to.

I recently searched Deezer and found that it does have a lot of world music that I need, has hifi and it's connect works the same way as Spotify connect to control the desktop app. I will try Deezer after the Spotify Stream On event after checking if Spotify is going to introduce HiFi soon. I have a feeling that Spotify HiFi could be the reason that Tidal dropped their HiFi prices.

Amazon HD. I access via HEOS and stream to a wired Marantz network audio player when I want to listen on my main audio system.  Decent-rez service with a good selection at a low price because we are already Amazon Prime subscribers.

I use mostly to check out music I’ve heard/read about.  If I really like something and want to support the artist I buy a high-rez download for my digital library.