How To Cope If Tidal Does Go Under?

[TubeLover]

If you combine this article https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/16/tidal-reportedly-months-behind-on-royalty-payments/ with other recently concerning reports, it truly looks like the end is really near for Tidal. I cannot tell you how much I wish those words had never emanated from me, but it is what it is. 

 

I have been with Tidal since near the beginning. It literally has changed a major part of how I listen to music. If they do, in fact, fail and disappear, at least 50% of my music listening enjoyment will be lost, which is personally crushing. At present, I am not aware of any available replacement, at least not here in the United States. And honestly, if I had seen this article about the failure to be able to pay the royalties, sooner, it "might" even have made me at least reconsider buying the new speakers that I did yesterday. That is how much losing Tidal would affect me. To even attempt to recover just what I've already experienced musically on Tidal (and is important to me) would cost me many thousands. And not only that, it would only catch me up to where I am at this point in time. There would be no means of continuing forward in the same way. 

 

It has always been thought, and commented on here, that there would be alternatives to Tidal if they one day went away. I'm not aware of any! Am I wrong? And I would not even throw Qbuzz out there as a possibility. From my perspective, they can't be trusted, and may not even know what they are doing. They have repeatedly said they would be available in the US, and have not only been unable to meet those projected timeframes, but have also been able to offer no explanation as to why. Now they are saying "in 2018", well, I will believe it when I see it. It is also much more expensive than Tidal,  and does not sound as good as Tidal (read here in a recent review)

 

https://www.whathifi.com/qobuz/review

 

And then there is the fact that no service remotely offers the total availability of music selections that Tidal does, at least to my knowledge. And, especially in my case, and that of friends and others, are likely to offer far, far less of  the genre's and and vintages of music that we would be listening to on Tidal. 

 

Any offers of hope, of another service coming to the rescue, or anything else positive in this space would be greatly appreciated and possibly hold me off from turning to massive drug use, leaving society as a whole, or devoting myself solely to breeding prize winning hedgehogs! 

 

JC

[TubeLover]

11 hours ago, left channel said:

 

 

+1. I feel I'm paying a fair price for Qobuz Sublime+ and getting a Hi-Res catalog ten times the size of Tidal Masters. I don't hear a difference between the two, and prefer the Qobuz catalog and presentation.

 

 

The fact that Qubuzz has repeatedly been unable to provide its service to the United States makes me think they have either technical issues that a well managed company would not have, or they are incompetent. Once you have already marketed a working, viable product, failure to offer it to other markets indicates either a lack of initiative to do so, or the inability to do so, meaning poor planning, management, and incompetence.

 

JC

[TubeLover]

8 hours ago, Brinkman Ship said:

I watch movies once..why in the world would I want to own it?

The plight of the ADHD generation.

[TubeLover]

16 hours ago, PeterG said:

I hope they do go under.  The music streaming businesses (Tidal, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, etc) have used the low cost of capital created by internet euphoria to deliver music at prices which are too low to sustain their businesses, and they have used their market power to drive down the price people are willing to pay for music in general.  It's been rational for many of them to do so because they are rewarded with huge stock prices and/or internet traffic that generates profit in other ways, such as Amazon Prime Memberships or Google ads.

 

The problem with all of this is that it sucks the profit out of the music industry in the same way that the internet sucked the profit out of the newspaper industry, bookstores, etc....

 

So what to do?  Make a list of the stuff you're enjoying on Tidal, and then buy the CDs from Amazon or downloads from HD Tracks.  Basically, pay an actual market-based price for the music you enjoy

I buy at least 6-8 cd's a month based on what I hear on Tidal. In other circumstances, when listening to Tidal, I might choose to hear the entire catalog from, say, Van Morrison, or all the live releases from someone else. No one owns everything and all they might want to hear.  I have over 3,500 cd's that I've bought and paid for, not a single copy. 

 

To replace the total music I listen to on Tidal would cost me a fortune. Apparently you are wealthy enough to do so, to make such pronouncements. I suspect few of the rest of us are. 

 

JC

[TubeLover]

Just for reference, and a plan B, given that people have brought up Deezer and especially Qbuzz. What is the sound quality of Deezer like, and how large is their music catalog? 

 

I seem to recall a number of CA members here in the US finding ways to access Qbuzz. How can one make that work?

 

JC

[TubeLover]

Of course, Tidal going under would make my, perfectly good,  $2,500.00 network/streaming player useless for anything except accessing my digital library. It only supports Tidal.

 

JC

 

 

[TubeLover]

On 5/19/2018 at 10:26 AM, exdmd said:

Why obsess about a potential problem that may not occur? There is always Deezer and Quobuz.

There are no guarantees for either. 

 

JC

[TubeLover]

On 5/22/2018 at 6:55 PM, speavler said:

yeah, this streaming thing prolly just a fad.

One could wish.........at least as far as video streaming, which is gradually destroying high quality video, and any access to it.

 

JC

[TubeLover]

On 5/25/2018 at 1:15 AM, left channel said:

 

Hence the Qobuz Sublime and Sublime+ tiers. They are indeed substantially more.

How much do those tiers run, and what exactly do they offer?

 

JC

[TubeLover]

Doc, and Jud,

 

I feel a bit better after both of your inputs on this. I would be thrilled if Qobuz does offer better sound than Tidal. However, I have to say, that in "my specific system" using an Aurender N100H with it's Tidal implementation, through a near world class DAC, and the outstanding Mutec MC3+USB,  (and not listening to MQA versions) Tidal has sounded "almost" indistinguishable  from my NAS Flac files. A good audiophile friend who lives nearby has had the same experience and I've noted it when listening to his system. Now, to be fair, I have heard systems (and very decent ones) playing Tidal that did sound distinctly lacking, but I have no idea what the secret of maximal Tidal playback quality is. I can also add that I've been to two very high end brick and mortar stores that used Tidal feeds to audition some pretty pricey gear. They thought it was adequate for that purpose.

 

Lastly, my biggest concern about Qobuz has been (at least based on what I've been told) that their library is so heavily classical oriented (which I care almost nothing about), and jazz, and euro music oriented. My listening involves a lot of 60's rock, 70's rock, folk, ambient, prog rock, singer songwriter, and even occasionally things like Arvo Part or even  a bit of Gregorian Chants late at night. As you can see, I use Tidal to listen to a very eclectic music palette.

 

As an example, earlier tonight, I spent a good four hours in serious listening. I started with early Joan Baez and Judy Collins, moved through Van Morrison, to pieces of several live Yes concerts, to Kate Bush and Steven Wilson, and finished up with a duet album by Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell and finally, two albums by at least somewhat obscure American female singer songwriters. All via Tidal. Everything I hear tells me that lineup wouldnt be remotely possible with Qobuz's library? Am I wrong?

 

JC

 

 

[TubeLover]

8 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

@TubeLover I am also doing my listening with an Aurender device using both TIDAL and Qobuz and I find Qobuz to sound better than TIDAL. The same is true on my iMac to my McIntosh receiver as well.

 

Give me artists to check and I will be happy to see if I can find them.

Thanks Doc, very kind of you to offer. Why don't you start with the list of music recordings I mentioned listening to last night, and see which, if any, of those can be found on Qobuz:

 

Joan Baez In Concert part 1 - 1962

Joan Baez In Concert part 2 - 1963

Judy Collins - Wildflowers - 1967

Judy Collins - Who Knows Where The Time Goes - 1968

Van Morrison  - Astral Weeks 1968

Yes - Progeny - Close To The Edge [I. The Solid Time Of Change, II. Total Mass Retain, III. I Get Up I Get Down, IV.

Yes - Progeny -  Roundabout (Live at Ottawa Civic Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada November 1, 1972)

Yes - Progeny - I've Seen All Good People: Your Move / All Good People (Live at University Of Georgia - Athens, Georgia

Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow

Kate Bush - Before The Dawn

Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell - The Traveling Kind

Joan Shelley  - Electric Ursa

Jonatha Brooke Live

 

 

JC

[TubeLover]

On 9/12/2018 at 2:02 AM, rando said:

Both Baez - Yes

Both Judy Collins - Yes

Van Morrison - Yes

Yes -   ?

Kate Bush - Yes

Steven Wilson - Yes

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell - Yes

Joan Shelley - Yes

Jonatha Brooke - Site maintenance/inconclusive

 

Where I think you overrate the lack of qobuz catalog depth is 50's to 80's popular music.  The hit machine lacked streams of distribution in those days.  Thus extensive proliferation.  Compare that to the octillions of kids on bandcamp and minor labels on through the one hit wonders and daily digital releases by larger stars.  That is Tidal and their ever shifting waves of music. 

 

I have the sincerest of doubts you explored far below the surface with your example playlist on either site.  

Thanks very much for looking into that Rando. And I wasn't really trying to make the list as far reaching as I might have. Simply noting what I had just recently played to get an idea of things. I feel quite a bit better about Qobuz now. 

 

JC

[TubeLover]

14 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

I won't repeat what Rando did, but I don't think they have Jonatha Brooke, the picture they have doesn't look like the Jonatha I know.

 

She will be here at The Dakota Jazz Club though.  Drive that R8 on out here!

 

 

Doc, I would love to see Jonatha again live. I immediately pondered firing up the R8 for the trip, and pulled up her tour schedule to see when she would be in you're neck of the woods and discovered its literally only a week away.  I'm just not sure I can pull things together that quickly with some of whats happening at the moment. An already difficult, and serious family matter with an aging parent has suddenly worsened and then, I was told today that my overly demanding insurance company is suddenly threatening to cancel insurance on both of my cars by the 21'st if I don't meet some ridiculous conditions.

 

Otherwise the idea of catching the  amazing Jonatha live, trying out a Juicy Lucy, and doing a tour of the good driving roads in your area in the company of you and the Porsche along with my R8 sounds would seem like a brilliant idea.   I realize Jonatha  won't likely be back for some time, but for the chance to see an area I've never seen and experienced  before, and always wanted to, and do some spirited driving together, I would definitely like a rain check!

 

JC

[TubeLover]

18 hours ago, Jud said:

 

The Netflix model currently consists of making a lot of their own content fairly cheaply to go along with streaming rights to movies, and many of the latter aren't big budget affairs.

Jud,

 

Agreed that many of the movies Netflix offers aren't exactly high budget gems, but it's my understanding that quite a few of the more significant series they have developed on their own, are done with virtually full blown Hollywood budgets (House of Cards, The Crown, Narcos, etc.)

 

Amazon Prime has also shown signs of producing quite high end entertainment with shows like the recent Jack Ryan, Mozart In The Jungle, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, etc.. 

 

JC