How To Cope If Tidal Does Go Under?

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25 minutes ago, crenca said:

That's the thing, for streaming to be viable in the long term, we will probably have to pay at least double this, maybe even triple. 

 

+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.

 

Speaking of the "refreshing eclecticism" that "stands Qobuz apart from its more mainstream rivals" (What Hi-Fi?) I spend more time listening to the Radio Paradise FLAC stream than I devote to any of the big streaming services. SomaFM too.

 

I could live without Tidal. Nature abhors a vacuum, and something will take its place.

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I recently cancelled my Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. Wasn't using it, and only remembered when Amazon raised the price of the main Prime service.

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Just now, speavler said:

 

well i do think the only way streaming continues long term is for more consolidation of the services.  i guess the real hope we should have is that Tidal can grow their subscriber base enough that they'll be a more attractive acquisition for an aapl or amzn. 

 

Right now I'd bet more money on Sprint buying the rest of the company. And then running it into the ground.

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2 minutes ago, mav52 said:

 

I would bet not as right now Sprint is more worried about getting their merger with T-Mobile through the courts and approval from the regulators, than streaming music.  If that merger does happen,  T-Mobile CEO John Legere, will head the merged company, and he might feel a little different about supporting a losing streaming company,

 

Good point. And the big T has its own streaming partnerships: https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/free-music-streaming

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1 minute ago, loop7 said:

What would Amazon gain from purchasing TIDAL?

 

A headache.

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17 minutes ago, ddetaey said:

Youtube Music announced by Google!

 

 

So it has. "A free tier called YouTube Music and a $10-per-month tier dubbed YouTube Music Premium, and it’s scheduled to debut on May 22 in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and South Korea."

 

Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s global head of music says: “There’s a lot more people in our funnel that we can frustrate and seduce to become subscribers.”

 

https://gizmodo.com/is-youtube-music-already-doomed-1826103455

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2 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

Both tiers are lossy it appears.

 

And pixelated, I'm sure.

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1 hour ago, TubeLover said:

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

 

Past wishful-thinking-out-loud aside, I only know of one official announcement of a US market entry plan, and that was issued at this years' CES when they said they'd be entering the market later this year. Certainly that was only announcement made since new the ownership, and the new strategy for becoming cash positive featuring new pricing tiers.

More broadly, I'm actually impressed with their cautious approach to expansion, in an industry where everyone else has been simply "chasing ears" at a loss the same way the dot-coms used to burn though money chasing eyeballs.

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9 hours ago, TubeLover said:

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

 

They'll probably launch officially in the US by the fall. Meanwhile, you can do this:

 

If you've been to their website before, first clear your browser cookies and cache. Then VPN to a UK server, go to https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription (scroll down to see the pricing tiers), sign up using PayPal (to avoid forex fees or entering an address), download the desktop app (unless you'll be only mobile), then log off VPN.

 

Now you can use the app from anywhere. You download iOS and Android apps directly from the respective stores. Speaking of which, both Tidal and Qobuz are well integrated into USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP) for Android.

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11 hours ago, sdolezalek said:

It surprises me that Tidal has done so little with variable pricing.

<snip>

There are a lot of ways hi-res streaming can be priced more creatively than it has been. 

<snip>

 

Like this?  https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription

 

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Just for the record, I subscribe to both Tidal and Qobuz for now.

The rest of my family is on Apple Music and Spotify, and couldn't care less.

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35 minutes ago, Brinkman Ship said:

This situation really reminds me of when I was growing up I had friends who did not purchase much music because it was the glory days of FM radio and they had one or two favorite stations that played what they liked 24/7. As usual, there were stations that were bought out, and shifted direction and these guys were left without any source of music...they started buying records and tapes....

 

Ah yes, I can still hear Alison Steele, the Nightbird, flying until dawn on WNEW-FM. These days, for all my tinkering with Tidal and Qobuz on LMS, UAPP, and other initials, I mostly listen to (and support!) the Radio Paradise internet radio stream, and sometimes SomaFM. Also the KCSM stream. If we lost all the big streaming services, I'd probably do more of that before buying music.

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Just now, Boy Howdy said:

I got into Quobuz a few years ago which involved contacting them and letting them set things up from their side. Selection was pretty good although not even close to what Tidal is doing.  Quobuz had lots of streaming issues and after a few months of really unresponsive customer service and ineffective technical support, they just cut me off and stopped responding at all.  I had just paid them for the next month of service, too.  They just went deaf and dumb.  

 

Gotta say I’m not very excited about doing business with them again...

Mike

 

Was that before the new ownership and reorg? I've had not a single problem with their streaming, in marked contrast to my experience with Tidal. I haven't purchased downloads from them, so can't comment on that.

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The Qobuz Hi-Res tier certainly eats more into the health insurance budget for sure. But that price structure is also what may be allowing them to project being cash-positive in just a few years. 

 

Actually I think their biggest challenge in the USA will be getting people to spell the dang name right. It's Qobuz, peeps. :-)

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6 minutes ago, sdolezalek said:

 

That's the easy and obvious part. So yes, BUT...  How about also offering me subscriptions to different genres.  I might only want Jazz and Classical and be willing to pay 75% of what I pay for everything just for those two categories.  How much is Tidal paying others by giving me access to the whole catalog when I only use a bit of it?  How about charging me for the total number of files I have "favorited" so they show up in Roon?  Why should someone with 2,000 files pay the same as someone with 500 files? 

 

Put differently, if Tidal was $100 per month and these "lesser" choices were available for $50, $25 or $15/month, wouldn't you want that choice?  To my mind, the streaming companies are leaving revenue on the table because, so far, their investors haven't forced them to be profitable.  They are pursuing the early Amazon model: control the market, be willing to lose on every sale. Then, when you have them hooked and the competition is gone, increase prices slowly to become profitable...

 

They're having the same conversation in cable TV world: if things went "a la carte", would that improve or endanger prospects for channels with smaller audiences? In the music world would this mean a windfall for hip hop, while jazz takes temporary refuge in endangered nonprofit internet radio streams? 

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@bobbmd there's a way to download your playlists as xml files. I'm sure someone here can point you to the instructions.

 

And yes, they are still with us...

 

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13 hours ago, rn701 said:

Interested in checking out Quobuz. Remind me again, when are they coming to the US?

 

Qobuz.  "Mid-2018", per the English part of this press release.
https://static.qobuz.com/uploads/cms/files/presse/20180108-CP-Qobuz-CES-France.pdf
Usually hardware announced at CES ships by October. I'm not sure about services.

 

13 hours ago, rn701 said:

Maybe Google or Amazon will get into the hifi streaming business? Or maybe not.

 

Most likely not, IMHO. Too small for them. Qobuz charges a small number of customers a lot of money for Sublime and Sublime+ tiers. But for Google and Amazon, whether you count the customers or the money, we're just rounding errors to them.

 

13 hours ago, rn701 said:

So one might conclude that the hifi streaming business is DOA. CDs will soon be gone. Hifi/hirez downloads could soon follow. What's left for the mass market? 

 

The mass market — Deezer and Spotify — is slowly following Tidal into CD-quality FLAC at least. But Hi-Res? For now and maybe forever we're not the mass market, we're a niche market. I'm fine with that. But given ever-expanding storage and bandwidth, hey it could happen.

 

For now there's Qobuz as we said. I already subscribe to the UK service and am perpetually "roaming" in the US. HDtracks has been talking for a couple years about doing an MQA streaming service called HDmusicStream. But so far they are just integrating the Hi-Res HDtracks download service into high-end streaming products like Bluesound, and I'm sure there's more profit per sale in that.

 

Others like Pandora and Napster have been looking at Hi-Res streaming as a possible lifeline. They are in sad shape.

 

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3 minutes ago, psjug said:

 

Have you heard something about Spotify planning to do more than 320kbps?

 

They've been offering a FLAC service to some users for at least a few months now. As far as I know it's still in a testing phase and you have to be invited.

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19 minutes ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Spotify has been testing the market for CD quality streaming. There is a lot of price resistance. Even at $15 per month people won't buy in. And I must point out that Tidal is showing us there isn't a market for CD quality streaming. 

 

Go figure. That's the price of one CD a month. Or one plate of avocado toast. ?

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On 5/22/2018 at 5:00 PM, rn701 said:

 Interested in checking out Quobuz. Remind me again, when are they coming to the US?

 

On 5/23/2018 at 6:45 AM, left channel said:

 

Qobuz.  "Mid-2018", per the English part of this press release.
https://static.qobuz.com/uploads/cms/files/presse/20180108-CP-Qobuz-CES-France.pdf
Usually hardware announced at CES ships by October. I'm not sure about services.

 

They are making progress!  @Musicophile has discovered a relevant job post:

I still think their biggest business challenge will be getting us Mericans to just spell the dang name right. ?

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49 minutes ago, Snowmonkey said:

Qobuz has Metallica.

Has anyone in the US tried opening a streaming account with Qobuz using a VPN?  Once the account exists, they don't geolocate. (I know from experience).

 

Yes I have. Clear your browser cache in case you've been to their website before, VPN to the UK, sign up with Qobuz UK using PayPal (no address, no forex), download the desktop app, and log off. No VPN needed after that. Or just wait for them to launch in the US.

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3 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

In my opinion, streaming will not be financially viable without paying substantially more for it.  May not be what some want to hear, but I think it is the way it has to be for streaming to continue.

 

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

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Just now, Snowmonkey said:

 

Though you can stream CD quality music for the equivalent of $US 23.42 per month.

 

Yes. I wonder if they make enough money on that tier though.

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7 hours ago, Snowmonkey said:

As to the different hi-res streaming format, that probably explains the critic who felt Tidal hi-res streaming sounded better - he is probably one of those who prefers the sound of MQA.

 

When comparing different formats and resolutions It is usually impossible to know if you're actually comparing music made from the same master. The differences you hear may be the result of other factors.

 

The provenance of Hi-Res albums is notoriously murky, and MQA is making the problem a thousand times worse by providing no documentation in their rush to MQA-ify everything. DSD is usually much better documented, but you pay even more for it and not everyone likes the sound of that format either.

 

Thanks for offering a pricing breakdown. I have a Sublime+ plus subscription, and the sound is indeed sublime. Plus.

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4 hours ago, Jud said:

According to What Hi-Fi, Qobuz, not one of the larger services, has (in England) 70,000 hi res albums and "40 million CD quality FLACs" (I am supposing these are tracks).

 

They now claim "130,000 albums (about 2 million tracks) in high resolution". Last year it was 1 million Hi-Res tracks. The 40 million figure for CD-quality tracks is still current. https://www.soundandvision.com/content/qobuz-coming-america

 

Last time I checked, Tidal also offered about 40 million tracks in CD-quality, but only a bit over 100,000 "Masters" tracks.