See below, I got the flac, and then I made a 320kbps MP3 transcode (this is the highest quality on spotify - well actually I don’t know exactly what encoder they use etc, but this should be close enough).
Found this software for doing this process. I load the two files, then start the shootout. The tracks are shuffled and I do not know which one is which. I can switch back and forth as much as I like.
Nice that you did a comparison!
Close enough but still not the same
I know about placebo and also did an A/B testing with both apps running at the same time so i could seemlesly switch during the song.
I tried it with an older android version where it worked seemlesly from the drop down menue… Now it kinda sucks
Will do a blind test with my girlfriend.
But whatever comes out this time… I really like TIDAL better now, I love that you have the song radio in the main playback screen and not hidden somewhere behind the 3 dot menue
Only thing that sucks is sending music to friends because most of them use Spotify
I do agree that the Tidal UI is good. In some case I prefer it to Spotify and I would prefer both strongly to all other of the major services. I think the ubiquity of Spotify is an advantage. Curated playlists are often compiled on Spotify.
I found Amazon / Youtube / Apple all to be inadequate.
Tidal is more expensive than Spotify though, and there is also some inertia on my part, we have the family plan, my wife and son also use it, so to switch to some other service would inconvenience them. So unless I have a compelling reason to change, it would make no sense.
In your case i would probably also stick with spotify then
I am happy to be in a TIDAL family established through a german Hi-Fi Forum and i only pay 5€ per month for the full experience and spotify i got for free…lucky me
Amazon HD / Youtube / Apple / Tidal / Spotify / Deezer / Qobuz…I’ve not tried all of them but I put a library that suits me above all else, the ones I’ve tried all sounded ‘good’ (how much better than each other I don’t know as I don’t have a £10+k HP set up or a £100k speaker system)…user interface, music discovery and Dolby Atmos etc are of no real interest to me…settled on and have been happy with Amazon HD for 18+ months with no regrets
Same here. AMHD just works for me. Period. No MQA scam, no bullshit - just great music. My Brother, who is a musician - just goes with Spotify. He loves it and won’t change to anything else. And that works for him. Whatever gets it done for ya.
This is my issue, I currently use YouTube Music, but if I switch to Tidal, we will still be paying for the YouTube family plan, because it is also what makes YouTube Video commercial free for my wife and I, plus our grandkids ( they are on our family plan ).
Any upgrade isn’t a marginal cost to me as a result. None of my family would care about it, so it wouldn’t be worth getting the family plan, which is a pretty good deal.
after my 30day free trail with qobuz, i did not renew. I could not get around the sluggish and just so much worse user interface compared to spotify. Sound quality was better, and for most part the selection of music was just as good as spotify for what i listen to.
Now i’m thinking of trying out Tidal, but i know i will be quite busy for a while, with less time for enjoying music, so i will probably wait a bit before lay down my hard earned money for a second music streaming service
This is a pretty good point, and definitely an advantage for Youtube music. If you watch a lot of Youtube (I watch a fair amount), the ads get fairly annoying. I think they’re limited to 256kps, which is probably fine, but I don’t really understand why they would limit themselves to what is essentially the lowest bitrate on offer. It’s not a big difference to get to a parity situation with Spotify.
Then again, I suspect if I blind tested, I likely wouldn’t reliably discern a difference.
I use Spotify. I can’t tell the difference between that and anything supposedly better. I also think that Spotify gives me the best user experience, so I’ll stick to it for the time being
It’s frankly bizarre. Apple, one of the biggest tech companies in the world, and supposedly deeply concerned with user experience is content with this steaming pile of &*%$.
All Tidal for now. After the recent polarizing Spotify issue, with the misinfo podcasts and the huge huballa about all that, I made my choice and switched 100% to Tidal. If Tidal follows suit and allows unethical content because unethical content is popular, Ill do the same for Tidal. I have an extensive personal collection that I can always use.
As far as the sound quality, Tidal is clearly better quality audio on my hifi devices. (Marantz model30, sacd 30n combo, portable DACs and android devices, IEMs) Tidal seems to generate higher sound pressure on all my devices, as well, and this is with volume normalization OFF. (off on both Spotify and Tidal). The Tidal Masters are also somewhat nice, and my wife really loves a lot of the classis rock masters. We canceled our 12 year-old Spotify family plan and washed our hands of them. Im from the old school and I can fall back to all local content if I need to.
As I read through this thread, I kinda marvel at how we have this ability to enjoy such high-quality music streamed over the Internet. I mean, it’s pretty amazing! Using my stinking laptop, admittedly not the best source, I have built this system that produces no noise. No hum, no hiss, not a pop! - Just great music. So no matter what or how yer streamin - it’s pretty cool shit. I never thought I would do it, I like my CD’s and all - but I’m in now, man!
This’s not a complaint and it makes a change not blaming Covid or a Russian invasion for a price increase…but what new features? and the contents good anyway
1 dollar a month doesn’t bother me too much, as long as I see some kind of improvement moving forward. For instance, I would like the PC desktop app to look and feel more like the mobile app. There are many more features the mobile app has that the desktop app does not. Make that a goal and expand your catalog, and I’m OK with a dollar more a month.
But we all know how that goes, right? We may or may not see any improvement at all. So at that point it becomes a matter of do I feel the service still offers value to me? If yes, then fine, I’ll continue. But if I don’t see any improvement and then another raise comes… we start shopping.
Absolutely yes…would’ve been happy with “getting this shit to you is now costing us more so we’ve passed that on to you” job done no need for fancy blah, blah’s
Apple music is probably my go to if I can even get it working with my Windows PC. The lossless is great with my AMP/DAC connected to my Android 12 phone. High res lossles is still broken unfortunately.
Tidal and Deezer HiFi both sound great but Tidal probably has the edge slightly. I didn’t really like tidal due to the price and the MQA stuff but it sounds fine.
Spotify just lacks that magic sparkle for me, even on 320kbps. It works great when I turn on AAC with my cheap Sony WH-CH400 tho, but on PC with my Hifiman HE400i 2020 with Zen DAC it lacks that magic.
For now I use Youtube as I like it just fine and I don’t feel like spending (free regular youtube, not youtube music), somehow I really like the AAC sound. The staging is to my liking.
It would be nice to have downloaded 96khz+ FLAC files but god they are expensive if you buy like alot of songs.
