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

Thanks for sharing.  I tried all of the streaming services about a year ago and I ended up going with Qobuz too.  It had the best combination of sound quality, selection, ease of use and cost in my experience.  

I also landed on Tidal, as much for the sound quality as their extensive jazz portfolio…and I prefer the Tidal user interface. Between the two, I could tell no difference in SQ. 

I have both and can not tell a difference between the two.  I’ve compared many times using the same track on the same recording.

Many different experiences here, but I started with Tidal, found MQA intolerable, learned about Qobuz, made the switch; difference was clear immediately and I never looked back. Not that Qobuz is perfect. Often an artist's definitive recording will be missing from the catalog, with only inferior, poorly recorded, loosey-goosey live performances, even ghastly "sing-along" versions, to choose from. Also, Conductor's algorithm doesn't exactly track my personal analog-wired logical process. But then nothing is perfect, and Qobuz boasts the best streaming SQ I have found.

I had both dropped Qobuz got so sick of them promising the connect feature is coming soon and never does .