Anyone not switching from Tidal to Qobuz?

[ajay556]

I am planning to switch to Qobuz. I feel Tidal is to commercial and focuses more on Rap. I have nothing against Rap but i would not use 'Music' as the word  to describe jazz & classic genre and Rap genre. I think they both are very different and we need another word in english dictionary to differentiate between songs that primary cater to visual entertainment and songs that are strictly for listening.

 

 

[jhwalker]

I've had both for some time.  Frankly, there is about a 90% overlap in their catalogs for my areas of interest, but for that 10%, I'm not willing to miss out.  I'm going to wind up keeping both.

 

[ajay556]

Hmmm... seems like my Astel and kern says Quboz is not available in my area. Anyone have the same restriction?

[dmormerod]

Not unless Qobuz can match my $5 price for the Tidal family plan!

[Taz777]

I did the Qobuz trial in January and stuck with Tidal. Qobuz cost 25% more and I could live with that. However, missing 40% of the songs in my Tidal playlists was a deal breaker for me.

[mav52]

I'm going to hold on to both until June and do some comparisons before I dump one. 

[Samuel T Cogley]

If someone has information on the prevalence of UMG audible watermarking on Qobuz vs. Tidal (i.e., Qobuz has less or none), I'll drop my Tidal subscription right now.  Otherwise, what's the point?  The material will sound just as awful on Qobuz.

[Paul R]

13 hours ago, ajay556 said:

I am planning to switch to Qobuz. I feel Tidal is to commercial and focuses more on Rap. I have nothing against Rap but i would not use 'Music' as the word  to describe jazz & classic genre and Rap genre. I think they both are very different and we need another word in english dictionary to differentiate between songs that primary cater to visual entertainment and songs that are strictly for listening.

 

 

 

Music vs C-Rap? 

[Sonicularity]

I went ahead and signed up for Qobuz Studio for a year at USD $249.99.  I get Tidal for $11.99 with my military discount.  I generally stream all of my music and rip CDs or purchase music to fill in any gaps.   Roon sends a lossless signal via USB to my RME ADI-2 DAC (with an Intona USB isolator between).  This setup can only play MQA at "24/96".

 

I think the integration with Roon is fantastic, though with some kinks that need to be ironed out.  I prefer Qobuz to Tidal when using Roon, but I mostly stream music and only have a small library of CDs that have been ripped and added to my library to fill in any gaps missing from my catalog of favorites.   This means that the majority of my library is from Tidal with a growing number now coming from Qobuz. 

 

 I've been slowly going through my library by artist, pulling up each album in my library and selecting the best version available using the following ranking system to determine the primary:

 

1. Qobuz HiRes
2. Tidal MQA
3. Qobuz 16/44.1
4. Tidal 16/44.1

If I add Qobuz and Roon makes this the primary, an identical Tidal version is hidden by default.  This is fine with me and I move on.  If I am replacing a Tidal MQA with a Qobuz HiRes, Roon will see these as two different versions in my library.  In this case, I go through the laborious effort to delete the Tidal album completely.  There are roughly 2500 albums I will eventually need to update in this manner, and the laptop I use as my core is not set up in a place that is convenient to make these types of updates on a large scale.  I use a touchscreen laptop and cast the "now playing" screen to a large monitor across the room.   I'll be at this for some time.

 

At some point, after I get everything organized the way I want, I will filter my library by Tidal albums that are the primary.  This should be what is left over that is not available on Qobuz.  If the number is not too significant and the selections are not impossible to find on CD or online, I may drop Tidal completely and import these missing albums from CD or online purchases.   Though I enjoy having both Tidal and Qobuz available, so I'll probably keep them both.

 

 

[ronfint]

I’ll probably be accused of having tin ears, but Tidal via Roon sounds great in my setup. I’m sticking with Tidal because it carries most of the Bandcamp catalogue, and much of the jazz that I listen to is on Bandcamp. I’m not bothered by the fact that the Tidal catalogue includes music that I don’t care for. It does carry a lot of music that I do like. 

[Boy Howdy]

I'm sticking with Tidal.  It has performed very well for me.  Several years ago I had a subscription to Qobuz, which was having some serious technical issues maintaining a connection.  After a couple of interactions trying to get them to address my connection issues, Qobuz just dropped me even though I had just paid my month's subscription fee.  So without any technical support for their on-again-off-again streaming service, Qobuz just went silent, ignoring me and keeping the money.  I was not happy...  I can tolerate start-up technical kinks but not terrible customer support.  

 

Just sayin...

Mike

[Emm]

I don’t know anyone who had tried Qobuz after Tidal and hasn’t changed.

personally for me there was no way back although many albums are still not available in Qobuz.

[beetlemania]

Quote

I've been slowly going through my library by artist, pulling up each album in my library

 

I just signed up for the Qobuz trial. Like what I hear so far. I am hoping there is some automagic way for Roon to grab the same or higher rez Qobuz version from alums I currently have in Tidal. Am I just dreaming?

[Sonicularity]

31 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

 

I just signed up for the Qobuz trial. Like what I hear so far. I am hoping there is some automagic way for Roon to grab the same or higher rez Qobuz version from alums I currently have in Tidal. Am I just dreaming?

 

I think this is something that Roon will need to seriously consider if they plan on implementing any additional music streaming services and satisfying the current library environment for those that subscribe to both Tidal and Qobuz.  Having the ability to select the primary version of an album/song based on streaming service and specific quality attributes is something that would be very useful.

 

It seems like the priority is low on this type of feature, but I would not consider it to be a faraway dream, despite the probable complexities and challenges involved.  I think the Roon developers have much bigger fish to fry, but I'm sure they will try and get to this when priorities shift as projects are completed.

[beetlemania]

Quote

I've been slowly going through my library by artist, pulling up each album in my library

 

Maybe just as well to go thru manually. I’m not halfway thru my library and have found at least 15 albums not on Qobuz including John Prine ffs!

 

It does sound great, however, and I have zero use for MQA.

[mrvco]

I'm in the US beta, but have been out of town for the last week.  So far I haven't found any reason to switch, but most of my time in Qobuz has been browsing their library to see how it compares.  I know when I signed up, they clearly stated that the US library was not complete.  Does anyone know when it will be considered complete?

 

Regardless, I haven't found any reason to switch from Tidal.  The hip-hop emphasis is obfuscated by Roon and when using the mobile Tidal app, I just go directly to 'My Collection' or search for what I want to listen to if it isn't already in my collection.

[jhwalker]

40 minutes ago, mrvco said:

I'm in the US beta, but have been out of town for the last week.  So far I haven't found any reason to switch, but most of my time in Qobuz has been browsing their library to see how it compares.  I know when I signed up, they clearly stated that the US library was not complete.  Does anyone know when it will be considered complete?

 

Regardless, I haven't found any reason to switch from Tidal.  The hip-hop emphasis is obfuscated by Roon and when using the mobile Tidal app, I just go directly to 'My Collection' or search for what I want to listen to if it isn't already in my collection.

 

That's a good point - the hysteria about Tidal's supposed "focus" on rap / hip-hop is completely obscured when you're using it with Roon:  you just go to what you're interested in   I never see the front page of Tidal or any sort of advertising - just go right to the Jazz or Classical (or whatever) sections.

[jabbr]

I’ve been using Qobuz for purchases for some time now ... I initially had to, err, travel to the Netherlands to sign up, because Cécile McLauren Salvant wasn’t, err available, in the USA ... but I’m, err, back in the States and will seriously consider the Ultimate plan, so I can both listen & download ... call me old fashioned but I like to buy albums that I really like. 

[Paul R]

I have to admit, I had not tried comparing Qobuz to Tidal, but tonight I played _Sailing to Philadelphia_ from Tidal and Qobuz, and my little ears heard a difference, with a distinct preference for the track from Qobuz. I really didn't expect that. 

 

Anyone else want to have a listen and see what they hear?  If you do, listen to the two tracks that at 5:53 seconds in length. I believe them to be the same tracks.

 

Just a spur of the moment thing. 

 

 

 

 

 

[arcman]

I have had both for a couple of years (now using both thru ROON). 90% of my listening is thru Qobuz

[crenca]

Interesting feedback.  My plan was to move away from Tidal to Qobuz because of MQA, though having my wife on the family plan was going to make that difficult.  Now that Qobuz is an MQA streaming partner (even if unofficially), I am not sure what I am going to do when Qobuz comes off beta.  I will certainly subscribe for a few months at least for a compare...

[mrvco]

22 hours ago, jabbr said:

I’ve been using Qobuz for purchases for some time now ... I initially had to, err, travel to the Netherlands to sign up, because Cécile McLauren Salvant wasn’t, err available, in the USA ... but I’m, err, back in the States and will seriously consider the Ultimate plan, so I can both listen & download ... call me old fashioned but I like to buy albums that I really like. 

 

I try and buy albums that I really like, or at least maintain a list of them just in case they vanish from a subscription service.

[serendipitydawg]

I currently have no plans to ditch Tidal in favour of Qobuz. I found out about Wimp (the precursor of Tidal) via this forum and have been a happy camper ever since.

 

I did briefly contemplate a Qobuz trial because they claim to have an ASIO driver. Turned out that it wouldn't recognise my DAC & I lost interest at this point.

 

Things may change

[left channel]

23 hours ago, crenca said:

Interesting feedback.  My plan was to move away from Tidal to Qobuz because of MQA, though having my wife on the family plan was going to make that difficult.  Now that Qobuz is an MQA streaming partner (even if unofficially), I am not sure what I am going to do when Qobuz comes off beta.  I will certainly subscribe for a few months at least for a compare...

 

If by "MQA streaming partner (even if unofficially)" you mean they got stuck with some 16/44.1 albums in MQA CD format because 2L won't provide those any other way, then I wouldn't worry about it. The Hi-Res versions of those same 2L albums will show up on Qobuz soon, after some kind of distributor licensing transition is sorted out.

[left channel]

On 2/15/2019 at 9:33 AM, Samuel T Cogley said:

If someone has information on the prevalence of UMG audible watermarking on Qobuz vs. Tidal (i.e., Qobuz has less or none), I'll drop my Tidal subscription right now.  Otherwise, what's the point?  The material will sound just as awful on Qobuz.

 

I've seen reports that UMG albums on Qobuz do not have watermarks.