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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
kennymacc OP
473 posts
 

@mgrif104

Thank you. My Roon Nucleus Plus has been replaced by a newer model. I don’t know how much more improved the new model is over the old one. I’m sure they’ve further refined the interface to a certain degree. I know the new model offers more features than the old one. Nonetheless, I so enjoy the Nucleus Plus, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.   Also, I’ll continue using Tidal, as it offers a larger catalog of music in it’s library than Qobuz.  I just feel that when it comes to audiophile caliber music streaming, Qobuz is the ultimate.  All in all, I haven’t been this thrilled with, or had this much fun with my high end audio listening experience in over 30 years in the hobby. Happy listening.

kennymacc OP
473 posts
 

@kerrbh

Although my preference between the two would be Qobuz, as I believe it more consistently digs just a little bit deeper into the music than Tidal does, I still use and thoroughly enjoy Tidal when a particular album isn’t available on Qobuz. Also, I’ve never done a bling listening test, as I do about 95% of my music listening with my eyes open, which I prefer to do when evaluating and comparing. But I get where you’re coming from. Happy listening.

rodar93
24 posts
 

i've using both since last year and i totally disagree about user friendly of tidal.

The thing I hate the most is the dark looking theme and the search engine. Dark theme, ok, no big deal. But, hey, try search ''say you say me'' by Lionel Richie, withoutcoma, you won't get the right one.

That just a simple example. I am a classical music lover, try imagine how i suffering serching the songs, if you want the specific player, that's even worse

And yes, i'll just stay with qobuz

normb's avatar
normb
187 posts
 

@mswale

$5/month?

as a disabled veteran myself, on that point alone I’m going with TIDAL for now.

Thanks.

********* edit

or not. Been all over the site and can’t find a WORD about “veteran” or any discount other than “student.” and the ‘bot /chat has no such reference.

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