Tidal pricing

Graham Clarke posted:

I've you've got an example track where you think Tidal shows off its true quality I'd love to know what it is so I can take a listen.

To be honest most albums, but I am streaming the 44.1/16 SPDIF to an off board DAC (Hugo)  from my NDX which might help. Really is minimal difference although I can often detect a slight difference from the same master.. It doesn't get in the way of SQ enjoyment any more.. also very few of my streams are AAC, so perhaps I'm lucky there.. Several of my Tracks that best Show PRaT recommendations are from Tidal on 44.1/16 FLAC

Simon

Just in case this was missed you can get Tidal for $19.99 if you pay by paypal, that's about £12.99 per month.

Tidal for £12.99  (link)

SJB

I've just started my 3 month trial. My plan was to use Tidal to listen to possible CD purchases to avoid me buying stuff I didn't like, but £20/month equates to 3-4 CD purchases, and I probably won't actually find time to listen to 3-4 CDs per month on Tidal.  Tidal content can be downloaded to listen to offline (whilst you still have a valid subscription), so perhaps I can do this to make the best use of time in the car! 

My son asked me whether there was a student pricing scheme; he suggested Spotify was available for £1/month for students.

£13 is more palatable (assuming I could switch to Paypal, as I added my CC details).

My suspicion is that I won't use it enough and will cancel the subscription.

Sloop John B posted:

Just in case this was missed you can get Tidal for $19.99 if you pay by paypal, that's about £12.99 per month.

 

Tidal for £12.99  (link)

 

 

SJB

That would be great if I can switch SJB, but Im blown if I can work out how to do it!

Think I might have to unsubscribe and then try and resubscribe to see if that does it to allow me to pay via Paypal in US$.

Just wondering if its because of your location you get this gig....

I too have given my CC details to Tidal. I wonder if they would allow me to switch to PayPal? For me, it would be a no-brainier at £12.99. 

I find the sound quality acceptable most of the time (certainly better than Spotify Premium), and I love the ability to stream directly to my Android smart phone when away from home, so I no longer have to carry my really old (and maxed out long ago) iPod with me.

I'm really enjoying the service at the moment.

ChrisH posted:

Sloop John B posted:

Just in case this was missed you can get Tidal for $19.99 if you pay by paypal, that's about £12.99 per month.

 

Tidal for £12.99  (link)

 

 

SJB

That would be great if I can switch SJB, but Im blown if I can work out how to do it!

Think I might have to unsubscribe and then try and resubscribe to see if that does it to allow me to pay via Paypal in US$.

Just wondering if its because of your location you get this gig....

Undoubtedly you'd have to start a new subscription, I don't think you can change horses in mid-stream.

I'm in Ireland, simply used the tidal.com website and selected paypal and hey presto they were looking for dollars!

SJB

Just cancelled mine also....the streaming problems primarily but also the cost

Going back to the Fishy One's comment some way back, I've repeatedly stated a preference for Qobuz over Tidal because of its greater classical choice ( and provision of booklets). BUT it's a gross exaggeration to say that there's hardly any classical on Tidal - there are tens of thousands of albums and I can find what I want a good deal more often than not. It's good, just not as good as it could be.

ive just listened to 'Abbey Road' for the first time in decades via Tidal, and I have to say it sounds pretty darned good.

I have to say I think 20 pounds it a bit too much. Especially as we are paying for CD quality and no higher. 20 quid buys me a lot of second hand CDs :-) 

Look, it's hard to argue with the specific argument that UK users are being ripped off relative to others (and I'm afraid that even though I'm using PayPal, I'm still going to be stung for £19.99 next week) - but what that money won't buy you is almost unlimited dibs at brand new releases. That matters to me.

If you go into Tidal web player then Settings>Subscription>Update Your Subscription, it should show a page where there is an option to change your payment method, from where you can add Paypal as your payment method. I'm not sure if this would amend the monthly fee for those living in the UK.

I'm pretty lucky living in Singapore as the price here for Tidal HiFi is SGD19.99 (around gbp9.50). That being said, I'm not sure if I'll keep it after the free trial. Although the sound quality is markedly better than Spotify, I far prefer Spotify's discovery and shared playlist functions.

I find myself wishing that Spotify would introduce a Flac-level tier at 50% more than the current premium price, I would be happy to pay that. More than 50% uplift and it would feel to me like either Spotify or the record companies/artists are having unreasonable expectations.

I'm fine with the SQ, but price is a factor. At £20 I'm not sure. If I listen to five Tidal songs per day over 30 days that's 13p per listen. Seems a bit steep, and in truth I don't listen to that many. For half that price I would probably be ok with it, but ideally less. I'm sure it's just a question of time to get to that - look at Netflix - but in the meantime I'll give it another couple of months just to see if I use it more.

+1

I think Tidal is great but also believe 19,99€ is too much. I may keep it for another month or return to Spotify I'm not sure yet. I still prefer streaming from my NAS. If they would lower their price with 5 or 7€ or so I would stay for sure. 

It mounts up to 239,88 Euro per year for listening to a huge catalogue of cd quality music. I can buy about 16 high res albums for that money in the same year.

It isn't cheap. I recognize the streaming company needs to have a large infrastructure, they have to pay the artists and they need to make money themselves. 5 or 7 Euros per month is just not feasible. € 9,99 is closer to what I'm willing to pay for, but I don't know if they can break even with that kind of monthly fees.

All in all, I found I am using Tidal a lot and I keep it for now. I have stopped using Spotify pretty quickly after they came available on the Naim streamers. That has to do both with the Spotify app and with the sound quality offered. Spotify is great on your phone while traveling, but Tidal is just as good.

Hi,

I've been considering, like many others on here, whether to continue with Tidal after my three month's freebie runs out early next month. 

I'm very happy with the SQ being delivered, and the access to the huge variety of music out there seems to make the £19.99 monthly subscription worthwhile, set against the cost of the half dozen or so CD's which I had previously been buying each month.

However, if, for example, I were to decide in, say, five years from now, to end my subscription, then whilst my cumulative outlay of roughly £1250.00 would have given me unlimited access, as above, all this music would simply disappear overnight with my cancellation. 

Hmm, strikes me that I ought to become more discerning in my music choices, and revert to buying CD's?

As an aside, I've tried to follow Sloop John B's advice to change my Tidal payment method to PayPal, to see if I can benefit from a reduction in the monthly subscription to $19.99, but so far, whilst I have added PayPal, I am unable to remove the credit card details originally submitted.

Any ideas chaps?

Dave.

I've tried to switch it too Dave, without success. I've even unsubscribed and resubscribed as Mrs H to try and open this opportunity, but haven't been able to manage it.

Best I can do is by subscribing for 6 months in advance, and doing that the rate comes down to £16.95 / month. But it's still £48 more than SJB gets .

Havent quite decided what I'm going to do yet as I'm currently cancelled/ unsubscribed.

Hi CHRISH,

I'll keep looking into things, and report back if I have any success.

I'm being swayed by my second point above, i.e. one becomes locked into paying the subscription for evermore in order to maintain access to the many albums residing in the "my music" tab.

I'm sure I've become much less choosy in my music "purchases" since it all became instantly available with a couple of taps on the tablet, as opposed to reviewing, then deciding whether to buy a particular CD..........or not!

Dave.

I've been generally happy with the sound quality and interface. All the artists I'm interested in seem to be available, although not all their albums. I decided to cancel because €19,99 is just too much. I'd willingly pay €9,99 per month for the HIFI subscription and fed this back to them when I cancelled. I hope they'll reconsider their pricing if enough people cancel.

dave marshall posted:

Hi,

I've been considering, like many others on here, whether to continue with Tidal after my three month's freebie runs out early next month. 

I'm very happy with the SQ being delivered, and the access to the huge variety of music out there seems to make the £19.99 monthly subscription worthwhile, set against the cost of the half dozen or so CD's which I had previously been buying each month.

However, if, for example, I were to decide in, say, five years from now, to end my subscription, then whilst my cumulative outlay of roughly £1250.00 would have given me unlimited access, as above, all this music would simply disappear overnight with my cancellation. 

Hmm, strikes me that I ought to become more discerning in my music choices, and revert to buying CD's?

As an aside, I've tried to follow Sloop John B's advice to change my Tidal payment method to PayPal, to see if I can benefit from a reduction in the monthly subscription to $19.99, but so far, whilst I have added PayPal, I am unable to remove the credit card details originally submitted.

Any ideas chaps?

Dave.

Very good points Dave, however I'd say it's even worse than that.  Yes, if you cancel all of those artists disappear immediately.  However, even when you are subscribed there is no guarantee that an artist won't have a fall out with them and then remove their work (Taylor Swift anyone?) - so again, it just vanishes. 

I doubt anyone would come knocking on your door asking for the CD back if the artist fell out with the record label

CD's rule! ......................or so it would seem. 

I'm still really undecided and have got about two weeks until my trial runs out.  I'd be happy with the cost if the metadata for classical music was better and if CD booklets were included.

I can't see me stopping buying & ripping, CDs though - especially the big box sets coming out these days.  So, it's whether the £19.99 is a worthwhile risk for a considerable amount of extra listening over the 1,500 CDs I already own.

I have only got two or three weeks left of the free subscription to Tidal and I too am undecided but erring on the side of continuing as I have developed a large and often-listened to new library of music in My Music catalog. Tidal is great for discovering new artists which I have really enjoyed. But I take Dave's point in that if you do decide to leave in the future or move platforms that don't support Tidal you lose all you music overnight.

If I could do the PayPal thing for €19.99 per month then that would swing it for me. I too have opened a PayPal account but am not sure if I will be successful. Maybe SJB can give us all a bit more info as to how he managed this instant price reduction.

Just to butt in I have no NAIM these days other than a 150 power amp which works quite happily with my bespoke pre amp/DAC. The DAC is asynchronous USB implemented via I2S so not at all shabby fed via a MAC and Pure Music which allows me up to DSD quality streaming.  

if this is not of interest since no NAIM DAC is involved stop reading here 

I was tempted into trying and have chosen to continue with Apple Music at 9.99€ a month.  Though Apple Music is (shudder!!) only MP3 but at a decent bit rate, and you can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear, it sounds OK through the DAC for the chosen purpose which is to sample music before reaching for silver disc purchases. It also very kindly put all my CD music, from i-tunes, up into iCloud. Apple Music has also now learnt my musical tastes very well and offers me an excellent continuously expanding  array of music in its 'For You' menu in the form of playlists that I enjoy and full albums all downloadable from iCloud. This all also functions perfectly on my i-phone via mobile data and gives me music to walk by when out on decent length rambles. So quite a happy camper.

Then TIDAL reaches my e-mail so I am on the free trial of the so called 'HiFi' version  which for some obscure reason will only permit CD quality streaming through Google Chrome on a computer but sounds quite good. However as others have mentioned it ain't anywhere near as good at serving my musical needs ( Jazz , mainstream female vocal, R&B and Classical) and just does not have the intelligence, flexibility and accessibility of Apple Music.  Alright so it is portrayed as 'hifi' and IS FLAC at 44.1,but at 19.99€ it does not excite I am afraid.

Of course there is the possibility to take an MP3 quality TIDAL subscription at 9.99€ a month but it is not by any standards as comprehensive or user oriented as Apple Music so I am afraid it will be 'bye-bye' at the end of the trial.

Some here may realise i seem to have risen from the grave to appear on here. Don't worry I shall probably sneak back before the full moon rises.

GEOFF

My main interest in Tidal is its (near) CD quality level streaming. I also had Spotify but the SQ was rather average compared to Tidal as you would expect and I have ditched Spotify for this reason.

Yes I use Tidal to discover new artists but it is just about good enough to be an additional source in its own right with a huge catalog to boot. Not bad for £19.99 per month, even better at 19.99 Euros. If a new artist really grabs me then I go and buy the CD from the rain forest in the cloud and rip it but I am now much more choosy about the CDs I buy as I have already a mountain of silver discs I no longer listen to. And CD rips do sound better than the Tidal equivalent stream but not by a huge margin. I agree that Tidal's limited catalog can be a problem for some (particularly certain genres) but I have found pretty much every thing I have searched for but of course there are a few missing.

Overall, now the dropout problem has been erradicated (for me anyway), I have been quite impressed with Tidal. Now if I can get it for 19.99 Euros a month and (if and) when the higher res Tidal appears it will be a no brainer, for me anyway. Until then.....umm....still can't decide.