Tidal Music Streaming Services worth it?

Good4it

Good4it

Audioholic Chief
Double what most other streaming costs. How does it achieve that and is it that much better? Will I notice/

Note: Tidal is a subscription-based music streaming service that offers lossless audio via a proprietary compression scheme known as MQA.
 
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Good4it

Good4it

Audioholic Chief
Haven’t got that far yet. just wanted to Know if the music was that much better sounding. Is it?
 
everettT

everettT

Audioholic Spartan
Haven’t got that far yet. just wanted to Know if the music was that much better sounding. Is it?
I'd look at that first as it may be a non issue. As for quality, I'd personally prefer the best possible, but a poor recording is a poor recording regardless of bitrate
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
The music itself is more important to me than the quality at the end of the day. Some old recordings just aren't going to get any better in terms of quality, but that won't make me not listen to them. If I have a choice, quality absolutely matters to me, otherwise I'd just listen on earbuds. Sign up for a trial period if they offer it and see how it goes.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Yep, I'd sign up for Tidal Hifi trial as well as Spotify Premium trials and compare (and that would be basically a cd bitrate vs a 320kbps bitrate respectively). When I did try the Tidal trial I didn't keep it due poor user interface and many selections that it didn't have that I already had on Spotify, but the quality difference was minute. I'm not critically listening to a streaming service, I use it more as a way to find what I want to buy on optical disc and add to my collection. Supposedly Spotify is now testing a lossless (cd quality) service with selected beta testers....whether it makes it to market who knows.
 
Good4it

Good4it

Audioholic Chief
Thanks. You are the only one who answered my listening question.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
I use Amazon Unlimited. 256K and on earbuds it is good enough at work. For critical listening, I am not sure I'd be willing to pay for a service that really had the quality that I'd consider good enough for that. I'll get the media if available.
 
Good4it

Good4it

Audioholic Chief
Went for the trial subscription on TIDEL.(not title) and the jury is still out. Different songs,same artists and a LITTLE better sound I think. 28 days to go on my free period. I also use Pandora and Amazon Unlimited.
 
Bucknekked

Bucknekked

Audioholic Samurai
Went for the trial subscription on TIDEL.(not title) and the jury is still out. Different songs,same artists and a LITTLE better sound I think. 28 days to go on my free period. I also use Pandora and Amazon Unlimited.
lovinthehd said it already, but doing the free trial subscription on Tidal and comparing it to something you know is a good way to tell if its worth it to you. I can tell you all day its worth it to me, or not, but what matters is if you can hear a difference that's worth paying for.

I did the 30 day free Tidal trial and ran it against Spotify premium in my music room for 2.1 listening. There are differences between the catalogs on the two services and differences in the apps/features. But, the critical area is the listening and the sound. Did the Tidal claims hold up? Worth the difference?

After 30 days I turned off the Tidal. It got to the point I couldn't tell which was playing, Spotify or Tidal. No difference to me at all. Except, Tidal was 2x the cost.

YMMV. Caveat, Caveat, Caveat.
 
S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
I rejected TIDAL. Here's why: I have an iTunes Library, containing mostly AAC files. These are the sort of files which audiophools claim sound harsh and unmusical. In experiments comparing and contrasting these AAC files to music downloaded in 24/192 ALAC, and played via an OPPO UDP-205's usbDAC up sampling at 24/192, I can not distinguish the ALAC files from the AAC files. It all sounds awesome. And, since it all sounds awesome, I does not appear to me that I have a need to spend more to get awesomeness. This is why I've stayed with iTunes and Apple Music.
 
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S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
I actually prefer Qobuz. Tidal is nice, and they have a lot more albums, but Qobuz has one big feature that Tidal doesn't which lets me better explore music: Qobuz can search and list by recording label. If you like looking for new music in genres, this is such a better search feature than just going along with the recommendations. If you want to find interesting and obscure stuff, that is how you do it. Tidal will just bury that stuff unless you know exactly what to look for. The shame of it is that Tidal has so much more music, but it doesn't matter if you can't find it.
 

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