Putting Tidal in Perspective

[rodrigaj]

Anecdotal:

My wife comes from a family of 8 siblings with an equally procreative bent as her mother and father. Consequently, once a year we get together with this brood of nieces and nephews. I have over the years asked them if they knew what Tidal was.

 

Not one of them has ever heard of it. They "kind of" heard about JayZ and his music streaming, but nothing about Tidal. LOL -at least two thought JayZ was with Apple music. 

 

They all use Spotify, some have Spotify Premium, but most go with the free tier.

 

FWIW, I unsubscribed to Tidal several months ago after years of subscribership and have signed on with Spotify Premium while waiting for Qobuz in the USA.

[rodrigaj]

 

2 hours ago, Ajax said:

The Spotify Connect, however, is a distant third. 

 

My son (an accomplished musician), my wife, my brother and law and his 3 teenage kids have all shown absolutely no interest in either Tidal or the music stored on the local SSD. They all think the Auralic Mini is brilliant, as they can stream easily from their phones, but only use Spotify Connect because, as far as I can tell, they like - 

1. the interface and ease of use

2. the social aspect - the ability to follow their friends' playlists

3. the playlist feature that offers you "like" songs based on those already in the playlist

4. The huge range of available music 

5. They already have a "great" music streamer/player so why both learning another one and confuse their source of music

 

Therefore my experience with my family has been that "usability" and social interaction is more important to younger people, and those our age not afflicted by an obsessive personality, than sound quality. 

 

I also agree with the previous poster that Spotify was the "first" decent streamer / player and 320kbs is simply "good enough" to the layman.

 

Spotify Connect has been a true eye opener for me. As a classical music lover, it has been a revelation to discover that some of my favorite artists will share their own playlists with me.

 

For new music discovery, this feature alone is worth the 10 bucks per months. The ability to send the music to my uR or my Bridge II makes it a no brainer.

 

If I want HiRes, I simply buy it. I don't miss Tidal at all.

 

In the future, I see myself subscribing to Qobuz while assessing its benefits, but always having a Spotify Premium / Connect account.

[rodrigaj]

@Ajax Do you have a link for the Society of Sound website. A Google search leads to B&W USA which has no references to Society of Sound - although the Google search itself does. Trying a back door approach through the LSO portal prevented access. Curious.

 

 

[rodrigaj]

25 minutes ago, mav52 said:

And your point is,

 

Qobuz still not in the US. 

FWIW, the OP Brinkman Ship has been banned from CA. This is his third time using three different names. 

 

(Just in case you are expecting a reply)

[rodrigaj]

12 minutes ago, mav52 said:

Interesting it doesn't show his users name as Banned

I think Chris is giving him a chance of sorts.

 

 

[rodrigaj]

@Taz777

 

Much of the satisfaction that people derive from Tidal or any streaming service, depends to a large extent on the music that they are most likely to listen to. Also, your listening habits: do you like to listen to complete albums, curate your own playlists, compare artists...etc.

 

My experience with Tidal was that their sound quality was excellent, their connectivity was excellent (Audirvana A+, Lumin App). But... If you are primarily a classical music person you will probably not like Tidal because they truncate track titles on classical albums. It became obvious to me that my musical preferences were not of interest to them. I finally, quit the subscription and began looking elsewhere.

[rodrigaj]

1 minute ago, Doak said:

Find anything to your liking elsewhere?

Yes I did - Idagio. For classical music and only classical music, it can't be beat. I use Spotify Premium / Connect for everything else.

Here is a link to a brief review I just did on Idagio: