tidal vs spotify/other streaming services

Discussion in 'Music and Recordings' started by kirayamato, Oct 25, 2015.

?

Does Tidal sound Better than Spotify/other

  1. Better (please explain)

    22 vote(s)
    45.8%
  2. pretty much the same

    25 vote(s)
    52.1%
  3. worse

    1 vote(s)
    2.1%
  1. kirayamato

    kirayamato Friend

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    hi so I have been trying out tidal for awhile now but i don't seem to hear much of a difference

    just wanted to know your guys thoughts do you hear a perceptible difference if so what are the audio cues or so to listen for thanks

    -----

    Edit please add what your talking about what i meant by TIdal was the Lossless Version

    thanks to @velvetx

    Tidal

    Premium: 320kbps
    Hifi: Lossless

    Apple Music

    256kbps

    Spotify

    Standard: 160kbps
    Premium: 320kbps

    Pandora

    Free: 64kbps
    Pandora One: 192kbps
    Bluetooth Devices (in home audio): 128kbps
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2015
  2. velvetx

    velvetx Gear Master West/Vendor Spotlight Moderator

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    Before I cast my vote there are two tidal services. The premium one and the hifi one. Which one do you subscribe to?

    HiFi

    With a TIDAL HiFi subscription, you have have the ability to stream 35 million tracks in lossless quality. Lossless content is CD quality music meaning that the files are not compressed, so that you hear the music the way the artists intended for their music to be heard.

    Premium

    With a TIDAL Premium subscription, you still have access to over 35 million tracks, but you are restricted to only High quality. This means that the maximum quality is AAC 320 kbps.

    I subscribe to the hifi one which for me is $10 a month.
     
  3. kirayamato

    kirayamato Friend

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    yes am talking about the hifi one the one which has the high bitrate Flac versions on it sorry for not pointing that out obviously the other version is pretty much the same quality as spotify i believe
     
  4. velvetx

    velvetx Gear Master West/Vendor Spotlight Moderator

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    Current bit rates for the different services (please be specific on what you have and are comparing when posting please:

    Tidal

    Premium: 320kbps
    Hifi: Lossless

    Apple Music

    256kbps

    Spotify

    Standard: 160kbps
    Premium: 320kbps

    Pandora

    Free: 64kbps
    Pandora One: 192kbps
    Bluetooth Devices (in home audio): 128kbps

    Just wanted to post this so that way everyone talks about the same things. I will post something tomorrow on this as I haven't listened to Spotify premium for some time.
     
  5. wnmnkh

    wnmnkh Friend

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    TIDAL's desktop software is so bad.... almost unusable, even before we talk about the quality of the sound.
     
  6. kirayamato

    kirayamato Friend

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    @wnmnkh haha yes i agree it just gave me a error when i was makign a playlist and it takes quite abit of time to sometimes start a song when spotify is like playing from my computer directly
     
  7. Prydz

    Prydz Friend

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    Just do the Tidal Hifi test. http://test.tidalhifi.com/
    30 day free trail of Tidal hifi. Personally, id say I could hear a difference, like immidiatly I found Tidal to sound more dynamikk and powerful.
    Some say its duo to Tidal playing on higher volumes tho, or that they have boosted some frequencies. Idk
     
  8. kirayamato

    kirayamato Friend

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    oh i didn't know they raised the volumes but yes it is true it does sound louder
     
  9. Insomnium

    Insomnium New

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    To echo Prydz sentiment I also find Tidal to sound more dynamic, powerful and a bit clearer in some albums such as Opeth - Pale Communion or poorly mixed metal albums (Insomnium stuff, sounds like there is a thin veil over everything, more evident with Spotify than Tidal). Tidal on Windows is great so far for me but on Mac it's poo. However, the main reason I stick with Tidal is because I can share the account with my friend, which makes it 10$/month, same price as Spotify so pretty much a no brainer in my case.
     
  10. Luckbad

    Luckbad Traded in a unicorn for a Corolla

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    I currently have Google Play Music and TIDAL.

    Google is way more usable. More songs, better organization, radio, etc.

    TIDAL sounds slightly better, but it's a piece of crap to navigate around and find stuff you want to listen to. I end up just listening to the same 5 or so playlists all the time.

    Needless to say, TIDAL will be expiring.
     
  11. CEE TEE

    CEE TEE MOT: NITSCH

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    With Mac, you need to use the Chrome browser to be able to play the FLAC files with the HiFi setting and you have to go into Settings to set preferences for streaming quality in different situations.

    You can also use Amarra Tidal player which has bad UI but sounds good and offers EQ.

    I find some tracks to sound very nice and others that do not sound like they are lossless (or good, anyway- could be the recording/mastering).

    I like Tidal better than my iPhone player and have had a lot of fun with it as my first streaming subscription but there are definitely issues with categories and being able to really search genres to find known or new things without trying to dig into my memory banks or searching online with a much better music reference site. Also, Hip Hop gets a lot of the focus on Tidal (which shouldn't be a surprise).

    When the next month pops up that I know I will be able to listen to music/streaming services (and not gear), I should try a couple more services head-to-head.

    Anyway- thanks for any comparison reviews posted here as it will be helpful to many, including me. Streaming services are powerful & a real way to listen to tons of music.

    Amazing time for music consumers, tough time for artists...
     
  12. Insomnium

    Insomnium New

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    I can stream HIFI using MAC app just fine :-?
     
  13. Gray

    Gray Friend

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  14. SteelCannon

    SteelCannon Friend

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    Tidal sounds less noisy to my ears but the interface is bad on pc, android and mac. Spotify is way better for music discovery because the search is better. I am also trying to choose between the two and am leaning towards tidal because I have been told that the interface will be improved soon.
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2015
  15. Bigferret

    Bigferret Friend

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    After spending about 6 months with Tidal, I think it does sound slightly better than Spotify, Apple Music, etc. It's definitely clearer, but given the terrible interface and hideous song management, I just couldn't justify the HIFI subscription price. I even tried Tidal with Roon, and while that sounded even better than Tidal alone, the integration of Tidal within Roon was a bit buggy and just not worth the hassle in the end. Right now I pretty much just use Apple Music because it's so convenient to use on all my home and work Macs, my phone and my car. It actually sounds pretty good as well. If I A/B Apple Music against Tidal, the difference just isn't enough for me to justify Tidal. YMMV.
     
  16. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    I've really wanted to go with Tidal many times, but it has so many little problems. On top of it, I'm getting a student discount on Spotify, so Tidal Hifi is 4x the price of my Spotify sub, not 2x, and I can't justify the price hike for the (IMO) very slight increase in sound quality.

    If I had paid for Roon, I probably would pony up for Tidal, because it makes music discovery so easy. But I couldn't justify the cost of Roon for what it did either.

    Virtually the only reason I can think of to pay for Tidal Hifi over another streaming service is if you're a huge Prince fan, since his music is exclusive to that service. Which I am, but I already own all the albums of his I want, and can stream them with iTunes Match.

    I just want to point out here that Apple Music uses 256kbps AAC, whereas Spotify and Tidal premium use 320 kbps MP3 (Ogg Vorbis for Spotify). To my ears, Apple Music actually sounded a little better than Spotify, but the UI is also awful.
     
  17. PoochZag

    PoochZag The Shadow knows - Friend

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    FYI Tidal also has a half price student discount, at least as of last month. I'm in grad school and almost switched after my free trial, but am holding off until software and music discovery features are improved. I did find slightly better sound with Gungnir Multibit Mjolnir2, but not really on mobile with an HA2 and portable headphones
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2016
  18. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    Ah, I didn't know that. That does bring the ratio back to twice the price. I still will stick with Spotify though, as I say, Tidal is full of little issues and generally feels unrefined in the UX.
     
  19. Gray

    Gray Friend

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    Have any of you tried "Amarra for Tidal"? I downloaded their 15 day free trial and am giving it a try. See the press release below, including a description of their upcoming iPhone/iPad remote app:

    "Amarra for TIDAL is Sonic Studio’s music player designed specifically for TIDAL streaming music service and includes their world-class, real-time EQ (or equalization). Amarra for TIDAL gives the user access to powerful tools to custom tailor the sound of TIDAL’s Hifi streaming music. Fourteen factory Sonic EQ presets supplement the response of popular headphone models, while additional presets fine-tune playback for popular music genres. An infinite number of custom presets can also be saved and recalled at any time. Now with iRC Room Correction, Amarra for TIDAL is the best sounding TIDAL player available today. Amarra for TIDAL for Windows provides the same features as the OSX version. with iRC support coming in a following update.

    The Amarra for TIDAL Remote is an iOS application for iPhone and iPad allowing complete remote control of Amarra for TIDAL. The iOS Remote provides access to tracks, albums, artists, genres, now playing, and access to remote playlists with its clean and simple user interface. The integrated EQ window allows control of all settings including, boost, frequency, Q, EQ presets, volume control (meters), and output device control. The Amarra for TIDAL iOS remote is slated for release in November 2015."
     
  20. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    I gave it a try. They somehow managed to make a worse UI than the basic Tidal one.
     

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