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. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

    Pyrate BWC MZR
    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2015
    Likes Received:
    2,594
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    near Munich, Germany
    Generally it used to be so that you could manually search for an album available in MQA and find both an MQA and CD version in Tidal. Only the MQA version was listed when viewing an artist's albums.

    However this no longer seems to be the case with many MQA albums, so I'm a bit worried myself. For the CD albums that seem to be gone now - did they simply successfully merge them or did they throw them out? Shouldn't be too hard to find out - I might have some of the ones which are now gone. If the Tidal Hifi variant is noticeably different from a 16/44.1 file it's probably gone for good.
     
  2. bobboxbody

    bobboxbody Friend

    Pyrate BWC Contributor
    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,465
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    GR, MI
    I'm just going to stick with another $80 year of Tidal hifi, maybe Spotify will come out with their lossless option by this time next year and maybe it will suck less, not going to use iTunes. I recently cleaned my phone's storage of downloaded Tidal albums, which would have been great for a comparison, but I don't like to buy a new phone until the old one is truly dead, so have to optimize.
     
  3. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

    Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2020
    Likes Received:
    885
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Ann Arbor Mi
    to these old ears on my rig, Qobuz sounds much better, more air, detail and tonality then both Tidal or Spotify. I agree that Spotify has a deeper catalogue and I do not feel any lack of new and interesting music on Qobuz. Qobuz has some problems at times streaming and they are in process for adding radio. I use there software for streaming and it sounds the best compared to J River or Audirvana to me. I found Tidal to not be very good sonically, flatter presentation with little air or space. Maybe its my rig or my ears and for sure my personnel preferences.
     
  4. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2020
    Likes Received:
    12,239
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    Home Page:

    I recently was listening to an album on Tidal and switched to Qobuz and thought it sounded better too. Pretty subtle, but more natural, more spacious, more clarity. But not worth it if they don't have 80% of the music I want to hear.
     
  5. Metro

    Metro Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,590
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    San Francisco
    It is the record label's choice what they want to publish on Tidal. Some labels that publish MQA versions (Warner, Sony and others) have been removing their original CD version.

    I've seen a post by a producer on an independent label who said that for new releases, Tidal now only allows you to publish one version (CD or MQA), not both.
     

Share This Page