Spotify - Tidal - How do you get your Music?

Music Talk
41

Spotify premium is my go to for background music and OTG, or anytime I need to connect via Bluetooth. I’ve found Spotify’s library to be second-to-none among streaming services, and it’s high quality option sounds pretty good. I had Tidal Hifi for a year or so. The UI was clunky but for critical listening it did/does sound slightly better than Spotify. Their use of MQA irked me though. It’s not that MQA sounds bad, it’s the proprietary part of it and the fact it requires special - and usually more expensive - hardware. I got in on the North American beta of Qobuz and have stuck with it. There are interface bugs and a few holes in their library, but both of those things have noticeably improved in just the 3 months they’ve been live in the US. Also, I think they sound better than Tidal in apples-to-apples comparisons (Redbook-to-Redbook for example, yes I know each could have different masters but the difference is consistent).

Long story short, Spotify for background and OTG, Qobuz or local FLAC (for the few holes in Qobuz library) to kick back and get lost in the music.

Also, can I add how amazing it is to live in an age where the world’s music is just a few finger taps away? If you had told 12 year old me that would be possible I wouldn’t have believed it.

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42

We lived through a time where we can get 12 CDs for $0.01. How else do you fill a 64 CD binder of Michael Bolton jams.

43

Tidal sounds better for sure … BUT
Spotify has way larger catalogue of artists and it also has “Spotify connect” witch is very convenient if you want to control playback from your tablet while listening from the renderer in your main system…
I use Spotify premium for many years and the only “HiRez” service I will consider in the future is Qobuz if it will be available in my country!

44

I do admit to using nefarious private sites to obtain some of the music I have, but I also have a Deezer account for that convenient lossless streaming when i’m on my mobile device. The albums that I really enjoy, I would buy the CD or Vinyl for them so I don’t feel too bad about it.

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45

I also have both Spotify Premium and Tidal HiFi. I really prefer Tidal, to me Tidal is more about suggesting or finding whole albums or artist. Where Spotify suggests almost exclusively generated playlist. I prefer to browes and listen to full ablums and it seems easier on Tidal. I think I’m in the minority but I like Tidal UI more the Spotify UI.
To my ear Tidal HiFi sounds better then Spotify premium. I enjoy the MQA (use it on my phone and desktop app), but geuss the quality is debatable, to me MQA adds a small amount of detail and a bigger sound stage with more separation.
I guess I’m lucky that Tidal covers my music taste well, even in there “Masters” library.
The only reason I actually have Spotify is dew to the fact that it integrates with my google home and my car head unit, dont know why Tidal doesnt support those types of devices.

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46

What do you play on? Couldn’t notice a difference between them honestly. I thought I could notice one at first but not after a blind a/b test.

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47

play on? not sure what you’re referring to lol

48

wow…only one mention of Deezer.

i started with Tidal when it first launched but due to small catalogue switched to Spotify Premium and been there for the last 4 years.

however I find it interesting that so many say Tidal has a small catalogue still as if you check, Tidal n Deezer report their almost twice the number of tracks compared to Spotify now.

what are some good sources to purchase quality FLAC from? not fake upsampled disappointments…

50

Tidal mostly but they need to up their library…we pay so come on Tidal no more Bentley’s and third homes?

51

Thanks for giving your review on it and I found one tool which will make your things easy while transfer the music from one app to another. The tool name is MasConv, it is easy to use and time saving process.

53

What’s the quality like on those rips?

54

I miss those clubs. Even with the random ‘Shot I forgot to cancel the featured CD this month.’

55

Check out The Hans Beekhuyzen Channel. He really explains it well on a technical level (and is just a really good channel in overall).

On a practical level, I purchased the Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital for full MQA unfolding. It was worth it and I did hear a slight sound quality improvement that made me happy…until I discovered Roon.

Now I just let Roon do the first MQA unfolding and then upsample to DSD. The Pre-Box can handle it and it sounds great, but technically because of this solution, I really don’t need an MQA DAC.

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56

Roon is probably the best music management and playback software out there, definitely has everything I want

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57

For me using the Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital, I do hear a small sound quality difference when I let the MQA DAC do the full unfolding. When I’m in the mood or there’s a really good MQA song I’m into, I’ll switch my settings in Roon to let the Pre Box do it’s thing. That novelty wore off when I discovered Roon. Now I just let Roon do the first unfold and upsample everything.

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58

It really is. If I had known about Roon sooner, I likely wouldn’t have bought the Pro-Ject Pre Box for $350. I get a better experience across my collection now using upsampling in Roon. Highly recommended.

59

I was a long time user of Google Play Music. Didn’t think about sound quality. I switched to Spotify and noticed distinctly lower quality which got me thinking about it and eventually lead me to Tidal. I don’t think anyone really loves Tidal’s layout, but the sound quality is there. I purchased a one year license to Roon and I’ve found I really like the interface. So much so that I’m finding myself impatient when I use anything else. I like that I can mix my Tidal subscription (you can do others like Qobuz too) along with my downloaded Flac. Really good solution.

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60

I’ve used Spotify, iTunes, Tidal, Amazon and YouTube.

YouTube
I’m a big YouTuber so, so getting their music service was a no brainer for me. Unfortunately it fell short on my expectations. The sound quality not up to par, idk maybe it’s gotten better? I also didn’t care for the platform’s layout. Not sure why, but there’s no YouTube music app on AppleTV. I hope they get it right some day because I’ll definitely go back to it.

Amazon
As of right now, I’m using Amazon’s service. I wasn’t expecting the sound quality to be good for some reason, but turned out to be very good. The downside was the platform’s layout. With that said; I can’t see myself using the service anymore, once this month ends. Oh…; Almost forgot, Apple has no Amazon music app for download on AppleTV.

ITunes
I like there service quite a bit. I mean…; come on, it’s “Apple” I’m not being biased, but they pioneered digital music. Although, I do understand they fell behind when the world of “streaming music services”. I have/had no problem with their streaming service other than, (and maybe it’s just me) the sound quality isn’t as good as I would expect it to be, especially coming from Apple? Don’t get me wrong; it still sounds good, just saying/asking is all.

Tidal
Tidal’s sound quality is better than all of them to which it should be because It’s on every one of there advertisements. I really like the layout of their platform also. The down side for me is, does the better sound justify spending 50% to 70% more a month compared to the others? The answer for me is; no, I don’t find that it is worth it. Maybe when I update/upgrade my system I might. I could see spending $15.00 on Tidal, but not $20.00.

Spotify
The last one I’ll mention is Spotify. This was my first experience with a music streaming service. I can’t think of Any downsides other than AppleTV not having a Spotify app. I think sound quality, layout, content and price are the most important features of a streaming service. If I had to pick a service based on of those features , Spotify would rank the highest on my list.

If I had to rank them in order of best to worst, it would be:

  1. Spotify
  2. iTunes
  3. Tidal
  4. Amazon
  5. YouTube
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61

I usually use tidal. They pay their artists more than Spotify and I like the streaming quality. The interface could be better but it’s growing on me. The only issue is sometimes albums are removed and re-added on their service so I end up with duplicates occasionally.

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62

If you know some ffmpeg magic, converting FLAC to ALAC is not hard at all.

ffmpeg -i input.flac -acodec alac output.m4a