CORRECTION: Qobuz and Tidal now can change sample rate automatically on MacOS. You do not need to manually adjust sample rate. (however this is frustratingly still the case for Apple Music)
I know we are a small userbase, but I would be really interested in knowing which of the apps are able to play lossless on a Linux based desktop. Thanks for all the hard work so far ☺️
When did that happen? The latest update? You may want to list the OS version that MacOS implemented this. I'm guessing 14.2.1 based on the timing of your correction, but.. that's only a guess.
I don't know about Quobuz but Tidal has had exclusive mode on both Mac and Windows for as long as I can remember, which is like six years at this point.
You have to select the DAC in your sound settings and also in Qobuz. The later is something you will have to do every time you start the app. You can have your system sounds go through your Mac pc witch is a convenient thing to do.
@krazyfrog exclusive mode and asio support are often associated with one another, but they're not really the same thing. Exclusive mode just blocks other processes in the OS, so only the app(in this case qobuz or tidal) is actually delivering audio to your dac. So you won't hear systems sounds and stuff. Asio/wasapi is what provides the bitperfect playback and matches your sample rate to the track that is playing. For example, Amazon music has exclusive mode, but not bit perfect playback.
For any Linux users watching this: PulseAudio will resample all your audio, Pipewire can be set to adjust the sample rate to whatever is playing but ALSA will always act like 'Exclusive Mode' and play bit-perfect. Both Qobuz and Tidal can be played through an app like Strawberry (a fork of Clementine) with an API key setup. Roon doesn't have a UI app on Linux, only the back end, so there aren't many other choices.
The whole mqa debacle turned me off to tidal permanently. I could listen 20 hours per day and never be bored with the choices available, qobuz is heaven for me!
They are switching everything to FLAC now. MQA is dead. The company that bought them is changing the name to something else and going to try selling it for other applications.
You are incorrect about direct connect to your DAC for Qobuz on Mac OS. Qobuz is allowed a direct connection to a USB DAC (I am using the Qobuz app, not just the website) and when you select your DAC within the Qobuz app, it controlls the sample rate of the DAC changing it effectively instantaniously to the sample rate and bit depth of the audio file with no third-party application required. This has been true for several years. It sounds much better than Tidal did back in the MQA days. I had no idea Tidal dropped MQA -- thank you for that excellent news!
I had Tidal for a while but it kept presenting me with Hip Hop and Rap, both of which I don't listen to, so I went to Qobuz. I really like to own my own music files and if you get the costlier service, you often get very good discounts on your purchases. PS: The Hig Res library in Tidal is a very small percentage of the 100 million plus songs they advertise
Great video. One useful addition to this rating system and one that's important to me is who pays the artist more. Something to think about and maybe worth a video.
@@BleepBlop-rh9lm per my last review Qobuz actually paid more though that may have changed. Most of the articles reviewing artist payment don't even consider Qobuz a major streaming service and is not considered and that's usually when Tidal is rated as the most.
Easy choice. Qobuz costs 12.50€ and Tidal 20€ per month for HighRes in Germany. I tried both and Qobuz sounded a tiny little better than Tidal; not too significant. I use it over Roon and all that downsampling through the OS doesn't matter, neither does any recommendation algorithm from the services. Roon is a must-have anyway, I love it.
Dammit, prices in Switzerland are almost double of neighboring Germany, even though those streaming services do not maintain any infrastructure in so-called „expensive“ Switzerland and VAT in Germany is more than double than the Swiss one. SCAM!
Tidal has better selection, but I’ve run into situations where I heard distortion on tracks that wasn’t present on Qobuz. Some issue with compression I guess, but it was enough to make me wary of ever using Tidal again. Also, for me personally, as someone who listens to a lot of classical music, Qobuz is better in how it displays classical tracks and groups them (not perfect, but it at least tries to group movements of a single work together and it's usually successful. Tidal just winds up with the super long names of tracks that you see on Spotify and most other services that make navigating classical albums a pain. Qobuz makes an extra effort with classical, like Apple Music's dedicated classical app).
@@BleepBlop-rh9lmnot necessarily. First of all, there's no way of knowing that every track has officially been changed to flac from mqa. Or even worse, converting it back to flac. You should only ever convert from a lossless file format, never the other way around. Tidal could be being dishonest. Not to mention there are many anomalies that can happen in the stream itself, which is why CD is still the very best solution for Sq.
Just to clarify, the most recent example I was thinking of was not an MQA track, but just a standard CD quality FLAC track. It's Track 7 of Simon Preston's recording of Handel's Organ Concertos. I don't have a Tidal subscription anymore, so I can no longer test this, but when I compared the track on Qobuz vs. Tidal, I heard distortion in the high organ notes, the kind of distortion you'd hear in Spotify's free tier. It really just felt like the track was encoded wrong. It's possible it's fixed now. But no, I'm not lying. I wanted to use Tidal. Qobuz has pros, but the smaller selection really sucks sometimes, especially for indie music. Since I listen through Roon, Qobuz vs. Tidal's interface doesn't matter as much to me as sound quality. It should be the same, but this was an example where I found it to be different.@@gutsie2373
@@ninja_boyI believe you and tbh I never trusted Tidal. I'm guessing they did what I said they did, convert to flac as opposed to replacing the file with an original flac from wav conversion. In the MQA Era they were even applying EQ to the music, boosting the bass. I did many comparisons, tho maybe they stopped doing that. At the end of the day tho, qobuz is really the only service I trust. They're the only service that avoids gimmicks like the plague and they don't even let you do stupid shit like audio normilzation(destroying dynamic range). But even so, a stream is a stream. And even if it's close to CD, it isn't the same as these files pass through many computers with noisy components before reaching your device. Digitial audio is not truly digital, which is why things like ground loop isolators work. For the very best listening experience, CDs are still the way to go. That or downloads. But qobuz is pretty good.
I love Qobuz because of the editorial stuff and how it’s more album focused. New way to explore music, I enjoy browsing and discovering new artists like that. Algorithm is good for mindless listening, parties, etc. But I still need to retain Spotify for the amazing recommendation algorithm when I do need that use case, and Apple Music for Spatial and the DJ mixes. Not sure what Tidal offers differently.
What a great explanation and comparison between those two! Been using Tidal on Windows never thought changing the exclusive mode and deselected normalize volume would change so much on the streaming quality
In regards to Qobuz getting confused when multiple artists share the same name; Tidal also has that issue, though, granted, that typically is only a problem when the artists are generally more underground.
So happy that Tidal dropped/are dropping MQA, felt like I had to use Qobuz's "just because". Even though, if I'm being totally honest, I wasn't able to hear any difference between MQA and lossless. Will still probably activate Qobuz every now and again because it's sort of fun with variation. Thanks GS!
I started streaming through Qobuz, for 1 year. Then I turned to Tidal for 2 years. Due to recommendations from several audio reviewers I considered going back to Qobuz. I managed to compare them for one week, just before the date of prolonging Tidal of quitting was there. And there it was. Qobuz sounded better. Not a whole lot, but defnitely anyway. A singer whether male or female came one or two steps too close to the microphone it seemed when using Tidal. Qobuz sounded less immediate, but better balanced and a bit more relaxed. That was when I quit Tidal. I do use roon, by the way.
Same here with upnp. I think ironically tidal’s unique selling point that is objectively superior to Qobuz is harnessing an mqa certified dac where the rendering is therefore done in the dac with using the tidal connect which I know sounds better than Qobuz connect (which I think uses chromecast)
As a lifelong music lover and audio enthusiast, I really enjoy both Tidal and Qobuz through Roon. I use a Eversolo A6 connected to a Gustard R26 and am very pleased with the results.
The only downsides of Qobuz, for me, are the search functionality, the sometimes lacking library size and the lack of a ‘connect’ function. Still think it sounds the best so despite the lacking features I’m choosing Qobuz over Tidal! :)
@@Angel-AbC9 Anything is better than Spotify and Tidal currently has the best music quality on the market, along with Qobuz. But Tidal is better than Qobuz in terms of UI and content.
Really hope there is a follow up adding Amazon Music and deezer into the mix - would be interesting to see how they stack to more "established" services
Amazon on the windows app has exclusive mode enebling bit perfect playback, given that you keep choosing the right sampling rate on the dac settings window@@Nordi1_0745
Fantastic timing! I recently splurged on some hifi gear and have been comparing AM, Spotify, Qobuz, and Tidal. While I really enjoy the UI and sound quality of AM, the fact that I can’t stream lossless on my windows computer and not at all on my android TV is a huge bummer. Spotify is by far the easiest to use across all platforms. I’ve found Tidal to be the superior service in terms of sound quality and finding music. It still has some drawbacks compared to Spotify. I was lucky to find out Tidal offers first responder discounts so I may be continuing to use both that and Spotify. Thank you all for the great work and I’ll continue to watch!
Not to mention that if you want the same audio quality on Tidal as Qobuz, you need to spend $20/month, as opposed to $10.83/month. If you spend the same on Tidal as you would Qobuz, you get only 44.1 khz, as opposed to 192khz. Idk about anyone else, but I'm not spending twice the monthly cost for the same audio quality just cause there's a *couple* songs still missing on Qobuz.
Nice job. Perfect description of Roon and what it adds in not much space. I'm doing a streaming service showdown event for the Arizona Audio Video Club later this year. I'll reference this video and share some of your points.
Id love this! I've had roon for literally years and am only just starting to appreciate how powerful and useful it is! You don't know what you're missing if you dont know enough about what things are capable of...
Agree 100%, Roon is amazing. I use Qobuz. I love the sound quality. I still have issues with Tidal. I don't listen to Hip-Hop yet it keeps trying to shove it down my throat. So, I'll stick to the sweet sweet quality sound that comes out of Qobuz, even if it is a bit more clunky.
Great video. I feel that you forgot a basic thing for most users, pricing. Here in Spain, Tidal is significantly more expensive than Qobuz. Also, apart from that, most of the music that I stream, seems to have a higher bitrate on Qobuz than Tidal. Not like you are going to notice that, but still something to consider.
I have an Android phone and had Tidal for a couple of years and it was great. Then i wanted to try other apps: Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer and Qobuz but they all felt different than my experience with Tidal. I think the bypassing of the Android resampling explains it all. I'm now convinced to swich back to Tidal and they lower their prices, in Mexico at least. Even better.
These videos don't make any mention of how much artists get paid by the service per stream. For me that's a pretty big consideration and why I ended up subscribing to TIDAL. TIDAL is also compatible with Serato DJ, which is actually a pretty clutch feature.
Absolutely excellent and important point. Sadly, few people consider that when choosing. I know a lot of musicians whose incomes have taken a huge hit from streaming. Most artists are not household names and their tracks do not get streamed 10 million times. They used to make enough money selling records and touring that they didn't need a "day job." That changed with streaming. I'm happy to pay a few dollars extra for TIDAL to better support these artists, so they will keep making records we enjoy. Other things we can do is buy their music directly from their own website, or Bandcamp if that's where they sell their stuff. Or better yet, buy their music from the merch tables at their shows. If you buy an artist's CD from Amazon, the artist gets relatively little, though still more than streaming in most cases. Thanks for raising this issue.
Been with Tidal for a couple of years now but only recently upgraded to their top package as I have only just started getting into hi-res audio. Havent been disappointed so far, really enjoy their hi-res service.....sounds fantastic.
@@BleepBlop-rh9lm Already done mate, bloody love it ! Discovered a LOT of music similar to what I normally like that I would never have found otherwise. Cheers man :-)
On Qobuz for MacOS you do not need to change or force the quality in the OS. This application uses API from CoreAudio to manage audio output settings, so the application will automatically set the audio device according to the quality of the track. Open the Audio Device setting on Mac and play tracks from Qobuz with different quality, you will see that the frequency will automatically change.
Great job ! I’d like to add that Qobuz is available in a smaller number of countries than Tidal (there are workarounds). I personally use both, since Qobuz has a really great Europe-centric recommendation service that is well curated and unique.
At 5:58, he mentions the need to have volume at max on iOS devices to achieve lossless playback. Why is that so? I don't understand. If I reduce the volume to 85% on my iPhone even when I have an external USB-C DAC connected to it, am I no longer getting lossless playback? And when I increase the volume to 100%, I start to get 'lossless' playback? WTF? I never thought volume had anything to do with lossless playback. I always thought it was more things like resampling of audio, bit rate, sampling freqeuncy, etc. that mattered...
Great video as always! Is MQA completely gone on Tidal now? I gave up on it a few months back. I saw that they were rolling out FLAC as a replacement, but then also heard that brand new releases were still being added in MQA and that the rollout was generally quite patchy and had potentially stalled. What sort of percentage of the library is actually available in FLAC? I’d be interested to try Tidal again if most of the library has now switched over. Always enjoyed the UI, recommendations etc.
Ive only seen like 2 or 3 new releases in the past few months that came out in MQA, everything else is flac. A lot of old stuff is constantly getting updated to Flac, too, but there are still some older tracks that haven't been updated from MQA.
@@skyrimgod1218 nice! That sounds hopeful. I guess for the older releases it’s really down to the label bothering to send in the file for a second time in a different format. I suppose there’s only so much Tidal can do in that case. I was concerned when I heard about the new MQA releases - obviously the original master file would be tampered with before uploading in this instance. Seems strange to do so after announcing the switch to FLAC. By the sounds of it, they’re for the most part uploading the files exactly as they receive them, so a massive step in the right direction. Thanks for the reply!
Roon has still not been updated to play Tidal Max, so you get MQA from Tidal on Roon. It's supposed to be imminent but last I checked was still not updated.
Was very happy when Qobuz recently came to Canada, but was immediately disappointed to find out that many of the hi res albums I want to buy simply aren't available to Canadians through their service.
Using Qobuz I can download booklets. Ok, not for all albums. But for me (maybe I´m oldfashioned) that is a big plus and imortant feature. So I stay with Qobuz.
I've used both. Tidal seems to work better for me. RUclips music is my go to because they have music that's very obscure and regional although the quality can be suspicious.
I moved from Tidal to Qobuz last year. Qobuz is cheaper, their catalog is largely identical to Tidal, and they have a more flexible/open API. The one real thing I miss from tidal is their daily auto-curated playlists and track recommendations. Qobuz recommended tracks are just awful.
Agree - I get some very odd recommendations on the Discover playlist. Songs I just immediately skip. Their algorithms seems far inferior to eg. Spotify.
Also, on windows you don't need to use wasapi exclusive mode on qobuz. You can go into your audio settings, choose your output device and change the bit rate. For example, I don't have anything that's higher than 192kHz so I have my k9 pro output set to "32 bit, 192000 Hz (Studio Qualtiy)" as the format.
I currently have just subbed to Qobuz having previously had Spotify for a couple of years and am halfway through a trial with Tidal. Why did I go with Qobuz? Sound really, and, one of the most important things you didn't mention: Gapless playback - not to be confused with the 'Gapless' feature offered by Spotify that takes out a gap between 'songs'. I'm talking about playing a work (opera is a good example...and the often mentioned Dark Side of the Moon) that is recorded continuously and then has tracks as access points. Spotify won't play gapless consistently, Qobuz does via it's own app. and via Playfi streamer on all the 'difficult' albums I have (try Beethoven Live, 32 variations, Kissin...some of the 33 tracks are as little as 11 secs long!).Tidal is a mixed picture - ok via it's own app. but dodgy via Playfi and HEOS. So it's Qobuz. One thing that both Tidal and Qobuz do extremely badly for classical is track info. On albums featuring more than one composer we are never told which track or work is written by which composer! This simply is not good enough.
Not sure about everywhere else but in my region (Switzerland) one month of Qobuz costs 15 CHF and Tidal 25 CHF, same high quality level. Huge difference honestly. Cost is also an important decision factor. Thanks for the video
I'd be interested to see a video on high res audio in general and when (or if) it makes sense. I read an article by Chris Montgomery aka xiphmont (of ogg vorbis fame) who wrote an article "24/192 Music Downloads ...and why they make no sense" which argues that higher bitrate is useless and higher sample rate can actually be detrimental. The original article on the xiph site isn't accessible any longer, but it seems to have been reuploaded, or you can use the way back machine.
You are very wrong about Tidal on macOS. It does indeed support AUTOMATIC output sample rate switching. If you select the exclusive option for the output device in the Tidal app, (you can access this by clicking on the speaker icon on the playing pane on the bottom of the screen and select 'more settings' beside the output device) then output sample rate is automatically adjusted, no fiddling with the Audio Midi Setup required. In fact, if you have the Audio Midi Setup utility open you can see the sample rate being automatically changed. PS I'm being told that Qobuz does similarly so it seems you're wrong on both counts.
There is one key point to add, when comparing streaming services: It's not just about the library size, it's also about the quality of recording masters and a great editorial service that introduces great albums.
Tidal on Mac has exclusive mode in the settings that will auto-change bit and sample when on. Careful with volume though. Make sure to lower the volume in the app itself.
I want a video where you compare Tida vs Qobuz vs etc VS music on files with the higher quality. We already know the Spotify or Amazon Music streaming service have very little quality. But how about Tidal streaming vs a song that you puchate and download with high quality? Is it better? Same? Doesn't matter at all?
@7:42 wow strange, I've been running Qobuz with automatic bit/samplerate switching within the system to my DAC for quite some time. I am running Toslink out though (it's an older mac). Double checked to make sure im not going mad, so yea it auto changes samplerate but not bitrate... so I guess it's resampling it then if running a 16bit track through 24bit to DAC? Good to know MQA is gone, when I tested Tidal & Qobuz in the past Qobuz just sounded better to me, must go back for another comparion then so...
Max kudos for using the RODE NT1 4th gen, it is such a gem microphone. Too bad it is discontinued now due to the 5th gen. I actually bought a NT1 4th gen with the Rycote shockmount openbox on eBay just last week, it's quite the vintage at this point.
Still one big downside to Qobuz is the lack of a Connect service to seemlessly stream to eg. a Bluesound Node. The community has wanted this for years and there was at some point rumours that they were working on it…
The only thing that it's wrong in this video it's that Qobuz can do the same thing that Tidal makes to avoid the Android compression. Even can be seen in my DAC, when a file it's bigger than 48khz the light turn green, and it does that on my phone too
As someone who has recently tried switching from Tidal to Qobuz in the new year, I think this is a pretty spot on comparison and I completely agree that Tidal is the best option. Tidal has a much more extensive and relevant library to me - when trying to port some of my playlists across, Qobuz was ending up missing out massive portions of playlists and and one case Qobus only had two songs for a particular artist while Tidal had pretty much the entire back catalogue. I also found the lack of loudness equalisation on Qobus to be a bit strange - fair enough if people want to hear their music exactly as it is but it's been very jarring having track volumes switch so drastically. I much prefer the overall usability of Tidal too - I can organise my music much better there, their apps/programmes are better and discovering new music has been much easier there too. Tidal definitely isn't perfect but it's definitely getting better with time and I think it's the service which fits my own needs best by a pretty substantial margin.
I like Tidal for all the reasons you mentioned. UNFORTUNATELY tidal connect is a NIGHTMARE when streaming to any good DACs. Tidal is constantly crashing or distorting my music when streaming to My Axxess Forte 1. My friends have same problem, and my Hifi Dealer also have many disgruntled Tidal users with similar issues. Therefore we all use Qobuz. No streaming issues what so ever.
In the past I compared tracks between Tidal in hifi quality without mqa files with Qobuz in cd quality. Shouldn't sound the same? NOP. Tidal for me consistently offered a more coherent sound from top to bottom. Qobuz orherwise offered a cleaner perspective with a little bit punchier highs but a bit less strong bass. Which is truer to the cd source? I don't know. I think from the start both platforms have a policy of adjusting the sound to a profile, call it "app sound identity" if you like
So I just tried transferring my 4157 favourite (i.e. "liked") tracks from Spotify to both of these services; Tidal found 95% of them whereas Qobuz 77%. I guess that means Tidal is a much better match for me. I'm not too concerned price-wise either as I doubt I'll be able to get the most out of hi-res audio anyway so even Tidal's cheaper tier will be sufficient for me.
About 5 years ago I compared Tidal and Qobuz and found Qobuz to sound better even when playing CD quality on both services. Perhaps they now sound equal but so far, I’ve kept both streaming services because each has parts better than the other.
For US military Tidal is the clear winner. The military discount it offers for it's highest tier is around $10-$12/mo. I've also never had trouble using it in other countries. Qobuz wouldn't even let me sign up in South Korea.
Tidal still publishes MQA even today. I've seen no sign that they are phasing MQA out. As late as last week they uploaded both FLAC and MQA to their service. MQA may not be doing what they say, but I can't hear a difference. Running the Lina DAC with Tidal through Roon, you can just pick what you want to hear. Works for me.
Nice video i liked that it was really clear and technical at the same time. I was wondering though. Do you know if android also resamples if I stream tidal audio through a DAP, the sony wm1am2 to be specific?
Well done. Can you please consoder adding a follow-up video with the usability of those streaming services insidie hi-fi streamers/receivers? I want to add a streamer in my hi-fi sistem but most of them seem not to work with Apple Music lossless. Thanks
I've used Tidal for a bit, they are missing some songs from smaller international artists. And they are real artist with millions of streams on other platforms, not that small.
I keep a subscription to Apple Music just for this reason. If Tidal got around to expanding its catalog so prominent foreign artists (not just idol groups with huge label backing) would not have a huge chunk of their discographies missing or not exist on the platform at all, I wouldn't need to keep Apple Music as an Android user.
Thank you for this video! I was a Tidal user for years. The video you made on MQA prompted me to move to Qobuz. This video prompted me to rejoin Tidal. I’ve used audio player pro with Qobuz with my Android phone. No offline content was a bummer. Tidal being able to by-pass USB limitations directly from app is cool! When I do that and run music directly to my Cayin RU7 dongle. Hi-res music only shows as 384KHZ, nothing else. Why? Can you shed light on this?
Very recently, I wanted to stay with QoBuz … but I was paying for both QoBuz & Tidal (&other services). Otherwise loved QoBuz … but I can’t ride with any streaming service that doesn’t provide the library depth to play many of my historic playlists’ songs. So … reluctantly I cancelled QoBuz.🤷🏼♂️
On my iMac, if I use the Qobuz desktop app and select the DAC (RME ADI-2 DAC fs in my case) in the audio output (Speaker icon, bottom right of the desktop app) the DAC displays the same sample rate as the streaming app without doing anything in the MIDI settings. I've listened to songs that have 16/44.1 and Hi Res (say 24/96) versions and there is an audible difference between the two. The Qobuz app seems to be bypassing the iOS sound controls if you chose the DAC rather than "Built-in Output" in audio output in the app. I have no other way of measuring the output other than my DAC but the DAC displays the same bit/sample rate as the app.. Am I missing something?
I dropped Qobuz in favor of Tidal based on the issue I had with Qobuz on desktop (Mac) and mobile. Both Qobuz apps were playing EQed sound with the extensive drop in the mid range. That made vocals and brass sound silly.
Left Qobuz with Roon because the service missed loads of songs/Albums on a Shazam click, over to Apple Music, got an Apple TV 4K new gen and Apple Music over 5.1/Atmos bonus is awesome
Correction: qobuz can stream lossless on mac, and takes priority over the selected device, automatically changing the output sample rate of the dac. Tested using my qudelix t71, which displays sample rate info
but what about using hi-ress wireless? Is there any difference in streaming quality between tidal and qobuz regarding Android and windows? I plan on buying an LDAC headphone, so that's my concern
Yeah i just recently bought the Bowers & Wilkins headphones as a nice treat for myself. I noticed that it supports up Hi Res audio so i looked for a Hi Res streaming service as i was kinda getting bored of using Spotify. So far i have been blown away when i started using Qobuz. On spotify all i ever seen was the daily mixes of the genres i listen to but was getting bored of that as it began to feel dull, but my experience using so far is really good. I know i will in the future get a sound system to match the HiRes sound as well but now now. I'm just half way through my free sub to Qobuz. Do think that i should still try Tidal? Plus another thing i do like about Qobuz it takes me out of my comfort zone with new music that i would never listen to on spotify because it may not be in any of the playlists their. I guess what im trying to say is that im enjoying my experience so far. Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated. Plus the price for Hi Res audio Qobuz seams to a slightly better choice
This video came at the perfect moment in my life! I'm missing Tidal (spotify only nowdays) mostly for the other audio quality options, but i had some issues with the app on Windows. This hole situation got me thinking: should i give Qobuz a second try? Well, hope this video help with that 😅
Tidal’s made quite a few quality of life improvements in their desktop app over the last couple months. It still has a few hiccups here and there but to me, it’s a small price to pay. I wish Spotify would hurry up and release their lossless subscription tier.
That was another great video! I sadly cannot play qobuz as it isn't available in my country. But i did buy few albums from qobuz it was a great way of supporting the artist. As someone who has a good jpop library (modern Japanese music) and some Japanese folk songs. Apple music/Spotify actually comes out on top in terms of library size. But the quality is a lot better in apple music than Spotify. I don't know if it matters to anyone just thought of mentioning it. One big reason could be apple being very popular in Japan. Also Qobuz launched in Japan this year with the help of collaboration between phillie web so I guess the jpop and jfolk library might get better as the time goes by.
@GoldenSound Given your proclivity for thorough and balanced reviews, would you ever consider doing a vid on the difference between sound and music, and where they diverge, especially for an audiophile? It probably exists multiple places elsewhere on the Net, but your opinions would be particularly valuable to me due to your wide-ranging experience with high-end gear and a variety of sources. It's more of a philosophical debate, but I'm afraid the audiophile hobby will always be at risk for chasing sound over music. Thank you for your efforts and consideration!
Fantastic review as usual. Thank you! As Roon user, from an absolutely pure sound quality perspective. I am not sure I understood if there is an advantage to Tidal or Qobuz when using Roon. I watched the video three times but I’m not sure I got the answer to that. The only thing I could assume at the end is that the overall functionality and songs recommendations edge went to Tidal but from the pure, pure sound quality perspective using Roon, are they equal? Can only assume it is?
I've heard a lot of people say qobuz is slightly better with audio quality and I agree it has a more natural sound to it and sounds cleaner but only by a little bit nothing crazy.
i may be late, but I've tried spotify, tidal, Amazon music. and while for just casual music listening, i found Spotify and Amazon music was fine. but i love listening to instrument heavy genre such as classical,, jazz/blues, and classic rock and tidal is my home. that said, i do believe that to take advantage of tidal, gpu really need to be using headphones or iems that can handle lossless.
I took a Qobuz subscription a few years back since they were the only service offering consistent Hires quality, with Tidal as the only competitor lagging behind due to their decision to use MQA. I stick with it now since a) I anyway have an extensive own music library in Roon that I can stream anywhere using Roon ARC and use streaming as an add-on and b) because it is 45% cheaper than Tidal where I live (169 CHF for a yearly plan vs 300 CHF per year for Tidal). One thing I was missing in this video btw was a true audio quality comparison. I did some comparisons myself a few years back and found Qobuz consistently superior in that regard, but that is probably because Tidal still was using MQA at the time. Finally, would be interesting to see which tracks you were missing in Qobuz so I can check if Qobuz has the license here locally. I have found their library indeed lacking a bit: for example, I cannot find most albums by American postrock band Tortoise in their library.
I'm a bit torn. Objectively Tidal and Qobuz are better than spotify, but.... And be honest. Do you hear a noticeable difference? Because multiple people that did blind tests with hifi equipment couldn't tell one from the other.
I have a afford myself a higher-tier DAC which shows me the fancy MQA symbol along with the blue and green dot... also I use Tidal for the exclusive mode so I notice when a highres track is played in 192 khz over the DAC display. Do I hear a noticeable difference to non highres FLAC? In all honesty no... but it's nice to have Tidal or Qobuz along with other fancy equipment. When I don't think of highres I could even be happy with lossy stuff from Spotify but hey in this emotional driven hobby (as soon as u become an enthusiast) you don't need to think about rational aspects rather go for the best you can get because in the end you just want it for desire and pure satisfaction
Really really wanted to keep Tidal because of Tidal Connect and phasing out of MQA but found many songs still in MQA and some even in Low resolution. I’m sticking with Qobuz for now. I’ll try again next year.- unless Qobuz Connect comes out.
I was so surprised that Goldensound said that Tidal does not use MQA anymore. I am currently subscribed to Tidal HiFi Plus and I can clearly see the blue MQA dot on my Mytek DAC when I stream songs. I did not agree with his assessment on MQA a few years back. To my ears, comparing a standard flac and its MQA counterpart, the MQA experience is a lot better. I don't believe the whole bit perfect argument either, I think this should all be about enjoyment and not about how 'pure' the sound is. There .. I finally got it off my chest 😂
Glad to hear your comments on Tidals Dolby Atmos Music . Qobuz lack of Android apps selected devices only. and should you not do a vid on Roon by itself as I cannot get my head round why I would pay a subscription for roon ,maybe you can put me straight. Thanks for the vid
I subscribe to Apple Music for mobile/whole home/family (included in my Apple One Family package) & Qobuz. I was a Tidal subscriber but Qobuz is almost half the price compared to Tidal HiFi Plus here in Canada.
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
CORRECTION: Qobuz and Tidal now can change sample rate automatically on MacOS. You do not need to manually adjust sample rate. (however this is frustratingly still the case for Apple Music)
I know we are a small userbase, but I would be really interested in knowing which of the apps are able to play lossless on a Linux based desktop. Thanks for all the hard work so far ☺️
When did that happen? The latest update? You may want to list the OS version that MacOS implemented this. I'm guessing 14.2.1 based on the timing of your correction, but.. that's only a guess.
I don't know about Quobuz but Tidal has had exclusive mode on both Mac and Windows for as long as I can remember, which is like six years at this point.
You have to select the DAC in your sound settings and also in Qobuz. The later is something you will have to do every time you start the app. You can have your system sounds go through your Mac pc witch is a convenient thing to do.
@krazyfrog exclusive mode and asio support are often associated with one another, but they're not really the same thing. Exclusive mode just blocks other processes in the OS, so only the app(in this case qobuz or tidal) is actually delivering audio to your dac. So you won't hear systems sounds and stuff. Asio/wasapi is what provides the bitperfect playback and matches your sample rate to the track that is playing. For example, Amazon music has exclusive mode, but not bit perfect playback.
For any Linux users watching this: PulseAudio will resample all your audio, Pipewire can be set to adjust the sample rate to whatever is playing but ALSA will always act like 'Exclusive Mode' and play bit-perfect. Both Qobuz and Tidal can be played through an app like Strawberry (a fork of Clementine) with an API key setup. Roon doesn't have a UI app on Linux, only the back end, so there aren't many other choices.
That's is good to know thank you
Appreciate you!
Perhaps the best streaming service is the one we made along the way
Basically, our own flac library?
@@jayros Yes
@@maxmed7505it's true 😅
Well... I love to explore new Music.
Every single of our pirated cds
The whole mqa debacle turned me off to tidal permanently. I could listen 20 hours per day and never be bored with the choices available, qobuz is heaven for me!
They are switching everything to FLAC now. MQA is dead. The company that bought them is changing the name to something else and going to try selling it for other applications.
You are incorrect about direct connect to your DAC for Qobuz on Mac OS. Qobuz is allowed a direct connection to a USB DAC (I am using the Qobuz app, not just the website) and when you select your DAC within the Qobuz app, it controlls the sample rate of the DAC changing it effectively instantaniously to the sample rate and bit depth of the audio file with no third-party application required. This has been true for several years. It sounds much better than Tidal did back in the MQA days. I had no idea Tidal dropped MQA -- thank you for that excellent news!
That's correct
Yep. It includes an ASIO output option. Works well for me.
I use qobuz with android and is not bit perfect unless I use UAPP.
I had Tidal for a while but it kept presenting me with Hip Hop and Rap, both of which I don't listen to, so I went to Qobuz. I really like to own my own music files and if you get the costlier service, you often get very good discounts on your purchases.
PS: The Hig Res library in Tidal is a very small percentage of the 100 million plus songs they advertise
I watched your Qobuz summary a year or so ago. Best ever coverage. Your Tidal MQA experiment was outstanding, too. Genius.
Great video. One useful addition to this rating system and one that's important to me is who pays the artist more. Something to think about and maybe worth a video.
Tidal pays the most.
@@BleepBlop-rh9lm per my last review Qobuz actually paid more though that may have changed. Most of the articles reviewing artist payment don't even consider Qobuz a major streaming service and is not considered and that's usually when Tidal is rated as the most.
I got rid of tidal due to the MQA garbage.
Who cares if millionaires are getting paid? Let me guess, you work for one of them "artist" and want to get paid?
@@BumpNrun69No, it's just simple way to give respect (imo) because you are consuming their work.
Easy choice. Qobuz costs 12.50€ and Tidal 20€ per month for HighRes in Germany. I tried both and Qobuz sounded a tiny little better than Tidal; not too significant. I use it over Roon and all that downsampling through the OS doesn't matter, neither does any recommendation algorithm from the services. Roon is a must-have anyway, I love it.
Bingo - the cost difference is enormous
Get a vpn and put it for Argentine. You only need the vpn to sign up and I pay 0.80€ a month for 4 years now.
Dammit, prices in Switzerland are almost double of neighboring Germany, even though those streaming services do not maintain any infrastructure in so-called „expensive“ Switzerland and VAT in Germany is more than double than the Swiss one. SCAM!
Roon is great but not cheap. Advantageous if you have already a considerable library of ripped CDs or downloads..
@@En_Joshi-GodrezAs far as I know, this doesn't really work any more
Tidal has better selection, but I’ve run into situations where I heard distortion on tracks that wasn’t present on Qobuz. Some issue with compression I guess, but it was enough to make me wary of ever using Tidal again. Also, for me personally, as someone who listens to a lot of classical music, Qobuz is better in how it displays classical tracks and groups them (not perfect, but it at least tries to group movements of a single work together and it's usually successful. Tidal just winds up with the super long names of tracks that you see on Spotify and most other services that make navigating classical albums a pain. Qobuz makes an extra effort with classical, like Apple Music's dedicated classical app).
lies LOL
@@BleepBlop-rh9lmnot necessarily. First of all, there's no way of knowing that every track has officially been changed to flac from mqa. Or even worse, converting it back to flac. You should only ever convert from a lossless file format, never the other way around. Tidal could be being dishonest. Not to mention there are many anomalies that can happen in the stream itself, which is why CD is still the very best solution for Sq.
Just to clarify, the most recent example I was thinking of was not an MQA track, but just a standard CD quality FLAC track. It's Track 7 of Simon Preston's recording of Handel's Organ Concertos. I don't have a Tidal subscription anymore, so I can no longer test this, but when I compared the track on Qobuz vs. Tidal, I heard distortion in the high organ notes, the kind of distortion you'd hear in Spotify's free tier. It really just felt like the track was encoded wrong. It's possible it's fixed now. But no, I'm not lying. I wanted to use Tidal. Qobuz has pros, but the smaller selection really sucks sometimes, especially for indie music. Since I listen through Roon, Qobuz vs. Tidal's interface doesn't matter as much to me as sound quality. It should be the same, but this was an example where I found it to be different.@@gutsie2373
@@ninja_boyI believe you and tbh I never trusted Tidal. I'm guessing they did what I said they did, convert to flac as opposed to replacing the file with an original flac from wav conversion. In the MQA Era they were even applying EQ to the music, boosting the bass. I did many comparisons, tho maybe they stopped doing that. At the end of the day tho, qobuz is really the only service I trust. They're the only service that avoids gimmicks like the plague and they don't even let you do stupid shit like audio normilzation(destroying dynamic range). But even so, a stream is a stream. And even if it's close to CD, it isn't the same as these files pass through many computers with noisy components before reaching your device. Digitial audio is not truly digital, which is why things like ground loop isolators work. For the very best listening experience, CDs are still the way to go. That or downloads. But qobuz is pretty good.
@@ninja_boy Since you're not talking about the present, and this video was talking about the present when published, your comment has zero value.
I love Qobuz because of the editorial stuff and how it’s more album focused. New way to explore music, I enjoy browsing and discovering new artists like that. Algorithm is good for mindless listening, parties, etc. But I still need to retain Spotify for the amazing recommendation algorithm when I do need that use case, and Apple Music for Spatial and the DJ mixes. Not sure what Tidal offers differently.
What a great explanation and comparison between those two! Been using Tidal on Windows never thought changing the exclusive mode and deselected normalize volume would change so much on the streaming quality
In regards to Qobuz getting confused when multiple artists share the same name; Tidal also has that issue, though, granted, that typically is only a problem when the artists are generally more underground.
It used to be like that, but from my experience Tidal also improved that. I couldn't find any mispoints for a while now.
@@echowoods4869got one for you.. Queen D
A good example on Tidal is Frank Marino, Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush, and a German pop singer named Frank Marino.
Another good example is Dawnbreaker. It's broken on both platforms, while AM and Spot don't have the issue
An electronic music artist called asteria is also messed up on Tidal, his discography is mixed with some random rock songs
So happy that Tidal dropped/are dropping MQA, felt like I had to use Qobuz's "just because". Even though, if I'm being totally honest, I wasn't able to hear any difference between MQA and lossless. Will still probably activate Qobuz every now and again because it's sort of fun with variation. Thanks GS!
I started streaming through Qobuz, for 1 year. Then I turned to Tidal for 2 years. Due to recommendations from several audio reviewers I considered going back to Qobuz. I managed to compare them for one week, just before the date of prolonging Tidal of quitting was there. And there it was. Qobuz sounded better. Not a whole lot, but defnitely anyway. A singer whether male or female came one or two steps too close to the microphone it seemed when using Tidal. Qobuz sounded less immediate, but better balanced and a bit more relaxed. That was when I quit Tidal. I do use roon, by the way.
Same here with upnp. I think ironically tidal’s unique selling point that is objectively superior to Qobuz is harnessing an mqa certified dac where the rendering is therefore done in the dac with using the tidal connect which I know sounds better than Qobuz connect (which I think uses chromecast)
As a lifelong music lover and audio enthusiast, I really enjoy both Tidal and Qobuz through Roon. I use a Eversolo A6 connected to a Gustard R26 and am very pleased with the results.
Personally subbed to Qobuz sublime. The discounts it gives for purchases is excellent and I still get to support my favorite artists.
The only downsides of Qobuz, for me, are the search functionality, the sometimes lacking library size and the lack of a ‘connect’ function. Still think it sounds the best so despite the lacking features I’m choosing Qobuz over Tidal! :)
Tidal is killing it. Suggested tracks on Tidal is crazy good lately. I'm loving all the suggested tracks.
To dam expensive for music , tidal need to adjust because they are not way better than the rest in sound quality
@@Angel-AbC9 Anything is better than Spotify and Tidal currently has the best music quality on the market, along with Qobuz. But Tidal is better than Qobuz in terms of UI and content.
@@Angel-AbC9same price as spotify now
yeah they getting better i subbed
Really hope there is a follow up adding Amazon Music and deezer into the mix - would be interesting to see how they stack to more "established" services
Both services you mention have not Bit Perfect so no competition against Tidal/Qobuz. Thats why is not included in the video i guess
Amazon on the windows app has exclusive mode enebling bit perfect playback, given that you keep choosing the right sampling rate on the dac settings window@@Nordi1_0745
@@Nordi1_0745 True, but i was wondering how the full package comparison compared to the others
@@Nordi1_0745Not true - Amazon has option to switch control of the sound card to "exclusive" mode. I use it on my PC
Fantastic timing! I recently splurged on some hifi gear and have been comparing AM, Spotify, Qobuz, and Tidal.
While I really enjoy the UI and sound quality of AM, the fact that I can’t stream lossless on my windows computer and not at all on my android TV is a huge bummer. Spotify is by far the easiest to use across all platforms. I’ve found Tidal to be the superior service in terms of sound quality and finding music. It still has some drawbacks compared to Spotify.
I was lucky to find out Tidal offers first responder discounts so I may be continuing to use both that and Spotify.
Thank you all for the great work and I’ll continue to watch!
I agree with you about Tidal's recommendations, especially with the Daily Discovery playlist created each day.
I A/B tested TIDAL vs Amazon HD for three months, and preferred the sound and cost of Amazon HD.
I think it would have been good to mention the Sublime option of Qobuz. Can really save a lot of money if you intend on buying music as well.
Not to mention that if you want the same audio quality on Tidal as Qobuz, you need to spend $20/month, as opposed to $10.83/month. If you spend the same on Tidal as you would Qobuz, you get only 44.1 khz, as opposed to 192khz. Idk about anyone else, but I'm not spending twice the monthly cost for the same audio quality just cause there's a *couple* songs still missing on Qobuz.
Nice job. Perfect description of Roon and what it adds in not much space. I'm doing a streaming service showdown event for the Arizona Audio Video Club later this year. I'll reference this video and share some of your points.
I would really like to see you do a video about how to get the most out of Roon.
Id love this! I've had roon for literally years and am only just starting to appreciate how powerful and useful it is! You don't know what you're missing if you dont know enough about what things are capable of...
Qobuz with a set of IEMs and a decent DAC is a beautiful experience.
Agree 100%, Roon is amazing. I use Qobuz. I love the sound quality. I still have issues with Tidal. I don't listen to Hip-Hop yet it keeps trying to shove it down my throat. So, I'll stick to the sweet sweet quality sound that comes out of Qobuz, even if it is a bit more clunky.
Great video.
I feel that you forgot a basic thing for most users, pricing.
Here in Spain, Tidal is significantly more expensive than Qobuz.
Also, apart from that, most of the music that I stream, seems to have a higher bitrate on Qobuz than Tidal. Not like you are going to notice that, but still something to consider.
I have an Android phone and had Tidal for a couple of years and it was great. Then i wanted to try other apps: Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer and Qobuz but they all felt different than my experience with Tidal. I think the bypassing of the Android resampling explains it all. I'm now convinced to swich back to Tidal and they lower their prices, in Mexico at least. Even better.
big thumbs up for product knowledge and objective opinion
These videos don't make any mention of how much artists get paid by the service per stream. For me that's a pretty big consideration and why I ended up subscribing to TIDAL. TIDAL is also compatible with Serato DJ, which is actually a pretty clutch feature.
Absolutely excellent and important point. Sadly, few people consider that when choosing.
I know a lot of musicians whose incomes have taken a huge hit from streaming. Most artists are not household names and their tracks do not get streamed 10 million times. They used to make enough money selling records and touring that they didn't need a "day job." That changed with streaming.
I'm happy to pay a few dollars extra for TIDAL to better support these artists, so they will keep making records we enjoy.
Other things we can do is buy their music directly from their own website, or Bandcamp if that's where they sell their stuff. Or better yet, buy their music from the merch tables at their shows. If you buy an artist's CD from Amazon, the artist gets relatively little, though still more than streaming in most cases.
Thanks for raising this issue.
Been with Tidal for a couple of years now but only recently upgraded to their top package as I have only just started getting into hi-res audio. Havent been disappointed so far, really enjoy their hi-res service.....sounds fantastic.
One album from my favorite band only has 320k file available and I don't know why 😢.
Which band is that ?@@kaiwenwu8148
suggested tracks are amazing on tidal. Try it.
@@BleepBlop-rh9lm Already done mate, bloody love it ! Discovered a LOT of music similar to what I normally like that I would never have found otherwise. Cheers man :-)
On Qobuz for MacOS you do not need to change or force the quality in the OS. This application uses API from CoreAudio to manage audio output settings, so the application will automatically set the audio device according to the quality of the track. Open the Audio Device setting on Mac and play tracks from Qobuz with different quality, you will see that the frequency will automatically change.
Great job ! I’d like to add that Qobuz is available in a smaller number of countries than Tidal (there are workarounds). I personally use both, since Qobuz has a really great Europe-centric recommendation service that is well curated and unique.
True, but in fact Quobuz has well curated offers anywhere (I use it in Brazil) with great coverage of local music
At 5:58, he mentions the need to have volume at max on iOS devices to achieve lossless playback. Why is that so?
I don't understand. If I reduce the volume to 85% on my iPhone even when I have an external USB-C DAC connected to it, am I no longer getting lossless playback?
And when I increase the volume to 100%, I start to get 'lossless' playback? WTF?
I never thought volume had anything to do with lossless playback.
I always thought it was more things like resampling of audio, bit rate, sampling freqeuncy, etc. that mattered...
Great video as always! Is MQA completely gone on Tidal now? I gave up on it a few months back. I saw that they were rolling out FLAC as a replacement, but then also heard that brand new releases were still being added in MQA and that the rollout was generally quite patchy and had potentially stalled. What sort of percentage of the library is actually available in FLAC? I’d be interested to try Tidal again if most of the library has now switched over. Always enjoyed the UI, recommendations etc.
Ive only seen like 2 or 3 new releases in the past few months that came out in MQA, everything else is flac. A lot of old stuff is constantly getting updated to Flac, too, but there are still some older tracks that haven't been updated from MQA.
@@skyrimgod1218 nice! That sounds hopeful. I guess for the older releases it’s really down to the label bothering to send in the file for a second time in a different format. I suppose there’s only so much Tidal can do in that case. I was concerned when I heard about the new MQA releases - obviously the original master file would be tampered with before uploading in this instance. Seems strange to do so after announcing the switch to FLAC. By the sounds of it, they’re for the most part uploading the files exactly as they receive them, so a massive step in the right direction. Thanks for the reply!
Roon has still not been updated to play Tidal Max, so you get MQA from Tidal on Roon. It's supposed to be imminent but last I checked was still not updated.
Was very happy when Qobuz recently came to Canada, but was immediately disappointed to find out that many of the hi res albums I want to buy simply aren't available to Canadians through their service.
Using Qobuz I can download booklets. Ok, not for all albums. But for me (maybe I´m oldfashioned) that is a big plus and imortant feature. So I stay with Qobuz.
Same name artists are an issue on Tidal too. I had personally requested to fix an artist on Tidal which was fixed.
I've used both. Tidal seems to work better for me. RUclips music is my go to because they have music that's very obscure and regional although the quality can be suspicious.
For very obscure music i try to find flac files on internet,but i agree with that point
RUclips is 256kbit/s have fun
RUclips music. LOL!!!
@@deepee1544 yeah there are great channels here uploading rare lps long forgotten.
I moved from Tidal to Qobuz last year. Qobuz is cheaper, their catalog is largely identical to Tidal, and they have a more flexible/open API.
The one real thing I miss from tidal is their daily auto-curated playlists and track recommendations. Qobuz recommended tracks are just awful.
Suggested tracks on tidal is extremely useful. I have used both for several months. Qobuz's app is just not even close.
Agree - I get some very odd recommendations on the Discover playlist. Songs I just immediately skip. Their algorithms seems far inferior to eg. Spotify.
Makes one wonder how the recommended songs are chosen. Qobuz recs sux arse
The closing line of the comparison: "there really isn't much reason not to go with Tidal." Well.. there's always the fact that it costs more.
It doesn't anymore. From April their premium package will be £10.99/month.
Also, on windows you don't need to use wasapi exclusive mode on qobuz. You can go into your audio settings, choose your output device and change the bit rate. For example, I don't have anything that's higher than 192kHz so I have my k9 pro output set to "32 bit, 192000 Hz (Studio Qualtiy)" as the format.
I currently have just subbed to Qobuz having previously had Spotify for a couple of years and am halfway through a trial with Tidal. Why did I go with Qobuz? Sound really, and, one of the most important things you didn't mention: Gapless playback - not to be confused with the 'Gapless' feature offered by Spotify that takes out a gap between 'songs'. I'm talking about playing a work (opera is a good example...and the often mentioned Dark Side of the Moon) that is recorded continuously and then has tracks as access points. Spotify won't play gapless consistently, Qobuz does via it's own app. and via Playfi streamer on all the 'difficult' albums I have (try Beethoven Live, 32 variations, Kissin...some of the 33 tracks are as little as 11 secs long!).Tidal is a mixed picture - ok via it's own app. but dodgy via Playfi and HEOS. So it's Qobuz.
One thing that both Tidal and Qobuz do extremely badly for classical is track info. On albums featuring more than one composer we are never told which track or work is written by which composer! This simply is not good enough.
Wow best video on youtube about this. Thank you.
Not sure about everywhere else but in my region (Switzerland) one month of Qobuz costs 15 CHF and Tidal 25 CHF, same high quality level. Huge difference honestly. Cost is also an important decision factor. Thanks for the video
Use the Argentina VPN trick
Hungary: Tidal Hifi Plus ~ 8 EUR/month, Qobuz: not available :(
Very good , super informative from a guy who really knows his stuff
Thank you 👍
I'd be interested to see a video on high res audio in general and when (or if) it makes sense. I read an article by Chris Montgomery aka xiphmont (of ogg vorbis fame) who wrote an article "24/192 Music Downloads ...and why they make no sense" which argues that higher bitrate is useless and higher sample rate can actually be detrimental. The original article on the xiph site isn't accessible any longer, but it seems to have been reuploaded, or you can use the way back machine.
You are very wrong about Tidal on macOS. It does indeed support AUTOMATIC output sample rate switching. If you select the exclusive option for the output device in the Tidal app, (you can access this by clicking on the speaker icon on the playing pane on the bottom of the screen and select 'more settings' beside the output device) then output sample rate is automatically adjusted, no fiddling with the Audio Midi Setup required. In fact, if you have the Audio Midi Setup utility open you can see the sample rate being automatically changed. PS I'm being told that Qobuz does similarly so it seems you're wrong on both counts.
There is one key point to add, when comparing streaming services: It's not just about the library size, it's also about the quality of recording masters and a great editorial service that introduces great albums.
Tidal on Mac has exclusive mode in the settings that will auto-change bit and sample when on.
Careful with volume though.
Make sure to lower the volume in the app itself.
So does Qobuz. They both will play bit-perfect through their respective apps.
really? Where is that?
I want a video where you compare Tida vs Qobuz vs etc VS music on files with the higher quality. We already know the Spotify or Amazon Music streaming service have very little quality. But how about Tidal streaming vs a song that you puchate and download with high quality? Is it better? Same? Doesn't matter at all?
I love Qobuz for classical music in particular.
@7:42 wow strange, I've been running Qobuz with automatic bit/samplerate switching within the system to my DAC for quite some time. I am running Toslink out though (it's an older mac). Double checked to make sure im not going mad, so yea it auto changes samplerate but not bitrate... so I guess it's resampling it then if running a 16bit track through 24bit to DAC?
Good to know MQA is gone, when I tested Tidal & Qobuz in the past Qobuz just sounded better to me, must go back for another comparion then so...
Max kudos for using the RODE NT1 4th gen, it is such a gem microphone. Too bad it is discontinued now due to the 5th gen. I actually bought a NT1 4th gen with the Rycote shockmount openbox on eBay just last week, it's quite the vintage at this point.
Still one big downside to Qobuz is the lack of a Connect service to seemlessly stream to eg. a Bluesound Node. The community has wanted this for years and there was at some point rumours that they were working on it…
Great video I didn't even know about the exclusive mode in Tidal.
Bitperfect output should be supported even if it's irrelevant to many due to practicality like volume control, eq, multiple sound sources,...
The only thing that it's wrong in this video it's that Qobuz can do the same thing that Tidal makes to avoid the Android compression. Even can be seen in my DAC, when a file it's bigger than 48khz the light turn green, and it does that on my phone too
As someone who has recently tried switching from Tidal to Qobuz in the new year, I think this is a pretty spot on comparison and I completely agree that Tidal is the best option.
Tidal has a much more extensive and relevant library to me - when trying to port some of my playlists across, Qobuz was ending up missing out massive portions of playlists and and one case Qobus only had two songs for a particular artist while Tidal had pretty much the entire back catalogue. I also found the lack of loudness equalisation on Qobus to be a bit strange - fair enough if people want to hear their music exactly as it is but it's been very jarring having track volumes switch so drastically. I much prefer the overall usability of Tidal too - I can organise my music much better there, their apps/programmes are better and discovering new music has been much easier there too.
Tidal definitely isn't perfect but it's definitely getting better with time and I think it's the service which fits my own needs best by a pretty substantial margin.
I'd love a video comparing Audirvana and Roon.
I like Tidal for all the reasons you mentioned. UNFORTUNATELY tidal connect is a NIGHTMARE when streaming to any good DACs. Tidal is constantly crashing or distorting my music when streaming to My Axxess Forte 1. My friends have same problem, and my Hifi Dealer also have many disgruntled Tidal users with similar issues.
Therefore we all use Qobuz. No streaming issues what so ever.
In the past I compared tracks between Tidal in hifi quality without mqa files with Qobuz in cd quality. Shouldn't sound the same? NOP. Tidal for me consistently offered a more coherent sound from top to bottom. Qobuz orherwise offered a cleaner perspective with a little bit punchier highs but a bit less strong bass. Which is truer to the cd source? I don't know. I think from the start both platforms have a policy of adjusting the sound to a profile, call it "app sound identity" if you like
So I just tried transferring my 4157 favourite (i.e. "liked") tracks from Spotify to both of these services; Tidal found 95% of them whereas Qobuz 77%. I guess that means Tidal is a much better match for me. I'm not too concerned price-wise either as I doubt I'll be able to get the most out of hi-res audio anyway so even Tidal's cheaper tier will be sufficient for me.
About 5 years ago I compared Tidal and Qobuz and found Qobuz to sound better even when playing CD quality on both services.
Perhaps they now sound equal but so far, I’ve kept both streaming services because each has parts better than the other.
For US military Tidal is the clear winner. The military discount it offers for it's highest tier is around $10-$12/mo. I've also never had trouble using it in other countries. Qobuz wouldn't even let me sign up in South Korea.
I use UAPP and have both Tidal and Qobuz. Then I create my customized playlists in UAPP by picking songs from both platforms. Problem solved.
Tidal still publishes MQA even today. I've seen no sign that they are phasing MQA out. As late as last week they uploaded both FLAC and MQA to their service. MQA may not be doing what they say, but I can't hear a difference. Running the Lina DAC with Tidal through Roon, you can just pick what you want to hear. Works for me.
Nice video i liked that it was really clear and technical at the same time. I was wondering though. Do you know if android also resamples if I stream tidal audio through a DAP, the sony wm1am2 to be specific?
It makes my heart happy that MQA went belly up. Lying as business model shouldn’t be rewarded.
Tidal does offer exclusive mode on MacOS, allowing lossless streaming
Well done. Can you please consoder adding a follow-up video with the usability of those streaming services insidie hi-fi streamers/receivers? I want to add a streamer in my hi-fi sistem but most of them seem not to work with Apple Music lossless. Thanks
I've used Tidal for a bit, they are missing some songs from smaller international artists. And they are real artist with millions of streams on other platforms, not that small.
I keep a subscription to Apple Music just for this reason. If Tidal got around to expanding its catalog so prominent foreign artists (not just idol groups with huge label backing) would not have a huge chunk of their discographies missing or not exist on the platform at all, I wouldn't need to keep Apple Music as an Android user.
Awesome vid to start my Sunday off ❤
Thank you for this video! I was a Tidal user for years. The video you made on MQA prompted me to move to Qobuz. This video prompted me to rejoin Tidal. I’ve used audio player pro with Qobuz with my Android phone. No offline content was a bummer. Tidal being able to by-pass USB limitations directly from app is cool! When I do that and run music directly to my Cayin RU7 dongle. Hi-res music only shows as 384KHZ, nothing else. Why? Can you shed light on this?
"384 KHZ" ? Hmm.. thought Tidals Hifi Plus (which is double the price of Qobuz) only produces 192K?
@@BumpNrun69 that's the problem. The RU7 shows it as 384? Strange.
Very recently, I wanted to stay with QoBuz … but I was paying for both QoBuz & Tidal (&other services). Otherwise loved QoBuz … but I can’t ride with any streaming service that doesn’t provide the library depth to play many of my historic playlists’ songs. So … reluctantly I cancelled QoBuz.🤷🏼♂️
On my iMac, if I use the Qobuz desktop app and select the DAC (RME ADI-2 DAC fs in my case) in the audio output (Speaker icon, bottom right of the desktop app) the DAC displays the same sample rate as the streaming app without doing anything in the MIDI settings. I've listened to songs that have 16/44.1 and Hi Res (say 24/96) versions and there is an audible difference between the two. The Qobuz app seems to be bypassing the iOS sound controls if you chose the DAC rather than "Built-in Output" in audio output in the app. I have no other way of measuring the output other than my DAC but the DAC displays the same bit/sample rate as the app.. Am I missing something?
You are right. Qobuz has a built-in ASIO option that works great.
3:00 small correction, Apple Music also compresses your music, but using lossless compression. Still saves bandwidth compared to raw.
I dropped Qobuz in favor of Tidal based on the issue I had with Qobuz on desktop (Mac) and mobile. Both Qobuz apps were playing EQed sound with the extensive drop in the mid range. That made vocals and brass sound silly.
Left Qobuz with Roon because the service missed loads of songs/Albums on a Shazam click, over to Apple Music, got an Apple TV 4K new gen and Apple Music over 5.1/Atmos bonus is awesome
Correction: qobuz can stream lossless on mac, and takes priority over the selected device, automatically changing the output sample rate of the dac. Tested using my qudelix t71, which displays sample rate info
So does Tidal using its exclusive mode. It seems he's not using the Mac.
Thanks for the video. A new one from MQnator (note that i am making a compliment, you are a hero)
but what about using hi-ress wireless? Is there any difference in streaming quality between tidal and qobuz regarding Android and windows? I plan on buying an LDAC headphone, so that's my concern
Yeah i just recently bought the Bowers & Wilkins headphones as a nice treat for myself. I noticed that it supports up Hi Res audio so i looked for a Hi Res streaming service as i was kinda getting bored of using Spotify. So far i have been blown away when i started using Qobuz. On spotify all i ever seen was the daily mixes of the genres i listen to but was getting bored of that as it began to feel dull, but my experience using so far is really good. I know i will in the future get a sound system to match the HiRes sound as well but now now. I'm just half way through my free sub to Qobuz. Do think that i should still try Tidal?
Plus another thing i do like about Qobuz it takes me out of my comfort zone with new music that i would never listen to on spotify because it may not be in any of the playlists their. I guess what im trying to say is that im enjoying my experience so far. Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.
Plus the price for Hi Res audio Qobuz seams to a slightly better choice
This video came at the perfect moment in my life! I'm missing Tidal (spotify only nowdays) mostly for the other audio quality options, but i had some issues with the app on Windows. This hole situation got me thinking: should i give Qobuz a second try? Well, hope this video help with that 😅
Tidal’s made quite a few quality of life improvements in their desktop app over the last couple months. It still has a few hiccups here and there but to me, it’s a small price to pay.
I wish Spotify would hurry up and release their lossless subscription tier.
@@velvetjones8634 I know right! I keep supporting Spotify because it's the best at everything, except sound quality obviously.
That was another great video!
I sadly cannot play qobuz as it isn't available in my country. But i did buy few albums from qobuz it was a great way of supporting the artist.
As someone who has a good jpop library (modern Japanese music) and some Japanese folk songs. Apple music/Spotify actually comes out on top in terms of library size. But the quality is a lot better in apple music than Spotify. I don't know if it matters to anyone just thought of mentioning it. One big reason could be apple being very popular in Japan.
Also Qobuz launched in Japan this year with the help of collaboration between phillie web so I guess the jpop and jfolk library might get better as the time goes by.
@GoldenSound Given your proclivity for thorough and balanced reviews, would you ever consider doing a vid on the difference between sound and music, and where they diverge, especially for an audiophile? It probably exists multiple places elsewhere on the Net, but your opinions would be particularly valuable to me due to your wide-ranging experience with high-end gear and a variety of sources. It's more of a philosophical debate, but I'm afraid the audiophile hobby will always be at risk for chasing sound over music. Thank you for your efforts and consideration!
I love Tidal. Does everything i want it to do. Very happy with the service
Fantastic review as usual. Thank you!
As Roon user, from an absolutely pure sound quality perspective. I am not sure I understood if there is an advantage to Tidal or Qobuz when using Roon. I watched the video three times but I’m not sure I got the answer to that. The only thing I could assume at the end is that the overall functionality and songs recommendations edge went to Tidal but from the pure, pure sound quality perspective using Roon, are they equal? Can only assume it is?
I've heard a lot of people say qobuz is slightly better with audio quality and I agree it has a more natural sound to it and sounds cleaner but only by a little bit nothing crazy.
Would love to know where Amazon music sits in compared to all these streaming services
i may be late, but I've tried spotify, tidal, Amazon music. and while for just casual music listening, i found Spotify and Amazon music was fine. but i love listening to instrument heavy genre such as classical,, jazz/blues, and classic rock and tidal is my home. that said, i do believe that to take advantage of tidal, gpu really need to be using headphones or iems that can handle lossless.
I took a Qobuz subscription a few years back since they were the only service offering consistent Hires quality, with Tidal as the only competitor lagging behind due to their decision to use MQA. I stick with it now since a) I anyway have an extensive own music library in Roon that I can stream anywhere using Roon ARC and use streaming as an add-on and b) because it is 45% cheaper than Tidal where I live (169 CHF for a yearly plan vs 300 CHF per year for Tidal). One thing I was missing in this video btw was a true audio quality comparison. I did some comparisons myself a few years back and found Qobuz consistently superior in that regard, but that is probably because Tidal still was using MQA at the time.
Finally, would be interesting to see which tracks you were missing in Qobuz so I can check if Qobuz has the license here locally. I have found their library indeed lacking a bit: for example, I cannot find most albums by American postrock band Tortoise in their library.
Android DAPs usually have the OS modified to allow bit perfect output.
Excellent comparison video... loved the continuity from the Apple/Spotify video as well.
I'm a bit torn. Objectively Tidal and Qobuz are better than spotify, but.... And be honest. Do you hear a noticeable difference? Because multiple people that did blind tests with hifi equipment couldn't tell one from the other.
I can so there's that lol
I have a afford myself a higher-tier DAC which shows me the fancy MQA symbol along with the blue and green dot... also I use Tidal for the exclusive mode so I notice when a highres track is played in 192 khz over the DAC display. Do I hear a noticeable difference to non highres FLAC? In all honesty no... but it's nice to have Tidal or Qobuz along with other fancy equipment. When I don't think of highres I could even be happy with lossy stuff from Spotify but hey in this emotional driven hobby (as soon as u become an enthusiast) you don't need to think about rational aspects rather go for the best you can get because in the end you just want it for desire and pure satisfaction
Yes, on my $13k system, you can hear an obvious difference. Spotify smaller soundstage and bass not as articulate.
Spotify just sucks compared to Tidal etc. If you don't hear it, your system is prolly crap
Ok boomer then I have just bad ears with my Monarch Mk III @@3rdeye1983
Really really wanted to keep Tidal because of Tidal Connect and phasing out of MQA but found many songs still in MQA and some even in Low resolution. I’m sticking with Qobuz for now. I’ll try again next year.- unless Qobuz Connect comes out.
I was so surprised that Goldensound said that Tidal does not use MQA anymore.
I am currently subscribed to Tidal HiFi Plus and I can clearly see the blue MQA dot on my Mytek DAC when I stream songs.
I did not agree with his assessment on MQA a few years back.
To my ears, comparing a standard flac and its MQA counterpart, the MQA experience is a lot better.
I don't believe the whole bit perfect argument either, I think this should all be about enjoyment and not about how 'pure' the sound is.
There .. I finally got it off my chest 😂
hmm .... I see what your issue is, ... (Mytek DAC). Try listening on a Cord Dave DAC, then get back to us
😅😂😂🤣🤣
Glad to hear your comments on Tidals Dolby Atmos Music . Qobuz lack of Android apps selected devices only. and should you not do a vid on Roon by itself as I cannot get my head round why I would pay a subscription for roon ,maybe you can put me straight. Thanks for the vid
I subscribe to Apple Music for mobile/whole home/family (included in my Apple One Family package) & Qobuz. I was a Tidal subscriber but Qobuz is almost half the price compared to Tidal HiFi Plus here in Canada.