HD Streaming Comparison: Amazon, IDAGIO, Qobuz, Spotify Premium, Tidal

[Calvin & Hobbes]

I did a speaker upgrade recently an as part of that process decided also to run some auditions of the major HD streaming services: Amazon, IDAGIO, Qobuz, Spotify Premium, Tidal

 

I had written down my impressions and decided to share my thoughts for what they are worth. Please note that these are my impressions only. Your perceptions may vary.

 

Round 1, Spotify Premium vs Qobuz: I have Spotify Premium with a Family subscription. From a value standpoint, Spotify was my default choice that has the best search as well as working well for my family. From a critical listening perspective in my auditioning sessions, Spotify actually is not bad at conveying detail, pace and presence from music. It sounds musical. Any shortcomings that it has are errors of omission rather than errors of commission. I can listen to Spotify especially in mobile settings and be engaged and immersed in the music. After listening for a longer period of time, Qobuz is clearly better at conveying detail, transparency/clarity, pace and presence, but Spotify doesn't do anything noticeably wrong.

 

Round 2, Qobuz vs Tidal: So far Qobuz is clearly better than Tidal even listening through pretty cheap desktop passive speakers. Tidal sounds very two dimensional and flat in its sound quality but with some harshness in the high frequencies. I'll listen a bit more to Tidal, but so far I'm not impressed at all. Spotify Premium even seems to sound better than Tidal. 

 

Some additional thoughts about Tidal after listening on my home system. I think they have applied some equalization to boost the bass and treble. In the process, I think side effects of doing this is to take out some of the presence of voices and instruments and add an artificial quality to voices and instruments.. Qobuz sounds a LOT better. Spotify Premium also sounds better. To my ears at least. (Disclaimer: Your results may vary). I'm currently listening to a track that is a MQA file on Tidal vs a CD quality file on Qobuz. The CD quality file on Qobuz sounds a LOT fuller and more natural. 

 

Not a big fan of hip hop, but decided to listen to something that is squarely in Tidal's area of focus. I listened to 'The Box' by Roddy Ricch which is a MQA file on Tidal and CD quality on Qobuz. Same results. The Qobuz file sounds fuller and has more presence. Almost sounds like two different recordings when listening on Qobuz vs Tidal.

 

Round 3, Qobuz vs Amazon HD: Winner for me is Qobuz for the following reasons:
Amazon: Sounds more flat. Less drive than Qobuz so that some music sounds like it is plodding along. Sound is less full. Amazon HD doesn't necessarily do anything wrong (as does Tidal), but also clearly not as good as Qobuz to my ears.
Qobuz: Much more presence than Amazon HD. More 3-dimensional. Better pace and drive. Better low-frequency response & definition. More range to conveying the emotion in music: (i.e., calmer for calmer music & more drive & pace for more upbeat music)

 

Round 4, IDAGIO vs Qobuz: Clear winner for me is Qobuz. My impressions are that Qobuz sounds fuller, has more low frequency weight and is able to convey a broader range of expression from greater calm to more drive. Qobuz also seems to have more realistic tonal quality for instruments especially for string instruments.I think this is due to greater clarity and definition from the music as reproduced by Qobuz. I thought that IDAGIO's search design would be compelling to me for listening to classical music, but I'm finding that I actually like Qobuz's search better than that on IDAGIO

 

My impressions of the musicality of the major HD streaming services: 

1. Qobuz

2. Spotify Premium (320 kbps Ogg Vorbis which is not lossless)

3. IDAGIO

4. Amazon HD

5. Tidal

 

Summary: I'm finding Qobuz to sound both more realistic and more engaging on all types of music. Jazz, Rock, Classical, even Rap/hip-hop.

[Calvin & Hobbes]

IDAGIO does have more detail in their search engine. Qobuz's search is a bit frustrating to use. I typically search for the composition and the artist or conductor for specific results. IDAGIO is definitely best for seeing all of the performances for a given composition. For my own use, I do like Spotify's search results which seem more visually oriented in its design.

[Calvin & Hobbes]

Adding Primephonic (a classical-only service) to the list as well:

 

My subjective impressions of the musicality of the major HD streaming services: 

1. Qobuz

2. Primephonic

3. Spotify Premium (320 kbps Ogg Vorbis which is not lossless)

4. IDAGIO

5. Amazon HD

6 Tidal

 

Round 5: Qobuz vs Primephonic: 

 

Sound quality: A Primephonic's sound quality was quite good, but Qobuz' sound quality was still noticeably better. Qobuz provides more presence around instruments and voices while Primephonic, though good, tends to sound more 2-dimensional in its sound quality. The benefit of more presence is that recordings are more engaging because they sound more alive rather than just being reproduced.

 

Amount of Content: Also, Primephonic's lack of music content was an issue. When I did searches, I would often only be able to see one track shown from an album. Qobuz also has this issue, but to a lesser degree. Qobuz has enough gaps in content filled so that this is not so much of an issue.

 

Search Quality: From what I remember, search in Primephonic was difficult to use. For classical music, it is important to me to be able to be able to filter on performer and/or conductor. This seemed to be difficult to do in Primephonic. Spotify's search is best, but I'm finding Qobuz's search to be passably good.

[Calvin & Hobbes]

The Tidal MQA format is also compressed and then decoded for playback.

[Calvin & Hobbes]

8 hours ago, Topk said:

I appreciate that you put Spotify so high in your list. It’s highly counter intuitive to say the least and probably highly controversial since “hey it’s lossy!”, but I find Spotify musical as well, and thicker/darker sounding which can help tame bright systems.
 

And I do agree with Tidal at or near the bottom. Highly controversial again. I find it too bright and thin personally for my taste. And I tried 4-5 times to make sure in different system iterations. 
 

Did you try YouTube Music? Interesting flavor, soundstage wise. 

I haven't tried YouTube Music. Is YouTube Music available via a network streamer instead of just via a computer?

 

I find Spotify's shortcomings are "errors of omission" for which there could be some level of detail, presence or air around instruments and voices missing, but what's there is enjoyable. And, I agree 100% that those qualities may actually be beneficial for systems that sound overly bright.

[Calvin & Hobbes]

1 hour ago, matthias said:

 

I agree,

there are rumours that selected users in the US, the UK and Sweden get Spotify lossless streamed to their devices.

This is not visible on the Spotify app. The listening impressions so far seem to be that it is musically much superior to Spotify Ogg Vorbis. Did you or some audiophile friends notice something in respect to?

Thanks

 

Matt

I've not been notified that I am receiving Spotify Lossless so I don't think my Spotify stream has changed at all. I'd be curious to test it for sure.

 

Even if Spotify Lossless is good, I would probably still continue my Qobuz subscription to support an alternative streaming choice to Spotify. I appreciate the substantial steps that Qobuz has done to improve streaming sound quality. I say this with Tidal in mind. I didn't like how Tidal purported to improve streaming sound quality, but that actually was a front to try to get a scheme in place to be able to extract royalties.