Tidal versus Qobuz

Tidal works with Roon, Qobuz does not, and you may need to use some UPnP server to make Qobuz works with Naim streamers.

Tidal Master sounds good for me, although some do not like it, they think it's a hype.

Qobuz implementation of Chromecast is not the best, so have a good play with it and decide for yourself if it is any good. I did a free trial of it a few months ago, and it was poor, but they may have improved things since then. I don't remember the exact details, but there were problems with connections dropping out, poor volume control, etc. I have also found Qobuz customer service very bad indeed. 

Other than that, you may prefer Qobuz, in which case I can think of no reason to subscribe to more than one service. It would be interesting to hear if you prefer one over the other on sound quality?

m.paul taylor posted:

I have bought an ND555. I had Tidal top spec on my NDS and the contract extended it to the 555. I have subscribed to Qobuz sublime so at present have both. I am thinking of ending the Tidal contract unless it serves a purpose not provided for by Qobuz. Can anyone tell me of a good reason to keep Tidal?

Hard to see how anyone other than you can determine what may be a good reason: if one or other gives the full range of music you like, at adequate sound quality and acceptable cost, that’s the one for you. If neither cover everything, with each doing things you want to listen to that the other doesn’t , then maybe you ‘need’ both.

An alternative is to buy music and keep in your own store, thus not having to pay acsubscription, nor being at the mercy of internet connection with its potential for causing dropouts, nor being reliant upon the whim and business success of online services to always be there and stock your desired choice of music, and with at least as good sound quality as the best of the online, potentially better...

Thank you all. The volume control point is well made - I have already noticed that it is cranky. Sound quality seems fine and it is easier to see the level of resolution than Tidal (I have not found it easy to see Master quality in Tidal). The Roon point is useful as I am thinking of subscribing and its incompatibility with Qobuz is relevant. Perhaps the most interesting point for me is the comparative coverage - I listen mainly to classical (mainly chamber) some rock and some jazz. Is one better than the other?

As you have access to both Tidal and Qobuz I don’t quite understand why you need to ask others for answers to a question you can resolve for yourself. Surely all you need to do is search for the music you like and decide which platform has the best selection?

I use Qobuz via Bubble upnp loaded on my Qnap and controlled by Linn Kazoo and the sound quality is way better than the Tidal input. Things may be different with new platform streamers though. 

Asyou subscribe to both, why not search their libraries - I am u der the impression Qobuz may be better for classical, but that is from only the briefest glance at Tidal, and only using Qobuz for downloading. It will probably depend on your specific likes ane desires, indluding whether you want availability of a large number of different recordings of the same work.

hungryhalibut posted:

As you have access to both Tidal and Qobuz I don’t quite understand why you need to ask others for answers to a question you can resolve for yourself. Surely all you need to do is search for the music you like and decide which platform has the best selection?

I use Qobuz via Bubble upnp loaded on my Qnap and controlled by Linn Kazoo and the sound quality is way better than the Tidal input. Things may be different with new platform streamers though. 

I agree with a Nigel, do compare for yourself. I use Qobuz via a UPnPproxy... which I also use to transcode to WAV for that extra 0.1%. I have retired my Tidal membership. I find  the Qobuz discovery playlists more to my liking.. and Qobuz seems more balanced in selections when away from the main stream, where as Tidal feels a bit US centric..

Finally I found more variable quality masters with Tidal.. I could sometimes  hear artefacts etc, especially on decaying of notes and fade outs, as well as some tracks appeared like they had been poorly normalised.. never (yet)  experienced that with Qobuz.in fact using the proxy, Qobuz and home streaming sound often (but not always) essentially the same... and I have found myself now mostly only buying CDs for material not available by internet streaming, or where there is a specific release or label I want.

Simple answer - if other people have already had experience of both it makes sense to seek their views as well as finding out for myself

Qobuz does allow you store a considerable quantity of music offline, so you aren’t so dependent on internet connectivity as you might be with Tidal. Qobuz Sublime+ supports streaming at up to 24/192, whereas Tidal offers MQA which is of dubious fidelity to the master and even then relies on a small range of DACs to deliver the final (probably wrong) bits. Tidal is integrated into roon, and Qobuz isn’t yet, but there are strong hints from roon online that they are working on integration.

Integration with Naim and Roon is superior with Tidal but if Qobuz could achieve the same I would switch - Roon integration is the deal breaker for me. 

Regarding the choice of music, Tidal does publicise a lot of crap but nearly all the stuff I need seems to be available as it was when I used to use Qobuz. Certainly both have more music I enjoy available than I have life expectancy!

likesmusic posted:

Qobuz does allow you store a considerable quantity of music offline, so you aren’t so dependent on internet connectivity as you might be with Tidal.

To be fair, Tidal also offer offline storage on mobile devices. In fact, I think all the streaming subscription services do.

likesmusic posted:

Tidal is integrated into roon, and Qobuz isn’t yet, but there are strong hints from roon online that they are working on integration.

It is my understanding that Qobuz has been explicit about not having any intention to integrate into Roon. 

Timo posted:

likesmusic posted:

Tidal is integrated into roon, and Qobuz isn’t yet, but there are strong hints from roon online that they are working on integration.

It is my understanding that Qobuz has been explicit about not having any intention to integrate into Roon. 

If you hunt around you will find more recent posts from room that now drop strong hints that there will be integration. I can’t post links to other forums here, but here for example is an answer from qobuz to a question on another forum asking for  roon integration.

“By the time we launch, you will be very happy. I wish I could say more right now, but have been sworn to secrecy... You may be able to read between the lines, but for now, all I can say is that I totally agree.”

likesmusic posted:

Timo posted:

likesmusic posted:

Tidal is integrated into roon, and Qobuz isn’t yet, but there are strong hints from roon online that they are working on integration.

It is my understanding that Qobuz has been explicit about not having any intention to integrate into Roon. 

If you hunt around you will find more recent posts from room that now drop strong hints that there will be integration. I can’t post links to other forums here, but here for example is an answer from qobuz to a question on another forum asking for  roon integration.

“By the time we launch, you will be very happy. I wish I could say more right now, but have been sworn to secrecy... You may be able to read between the lines, but for now, all I can say is that I totally agree.”

 

 

Marvellous -- good news that Qobuz has changed its mind. Maybe they figured out that they couldn't develop a software to become like Roon... 

If you are a classical music lover I’m interested whether you’d care that neither Qobuz nor Tidal will stream gapless to newer naim devices, nor work reliably with BubbleUPnP or audivarna? At least From my own experience and what I’ve read from others here. I’m talking about the new Unitis. It would be interesting if the ND555 was any different. 

MatthewP posted:

If you are a classical music lover I’m interested whether you’d care that neither Qobuz nor Tidal will stream gapless to newer naim devices, nor work reliably with BubbleUPnP or audivarna? At least From my own experience and what I’ve read from others here. I’m talking about the new Unitis. It would be interesting if the ND555 was any different. 

I’m certainly a classical music lover, there’s no way I could live without gapless playback, whether from my own rips or from a streaming service. I either use Qobuz from a small, fanless laptop via USB, or through a squeezebox Touch via toslink both of which play gaplessly perfectly. 

A curious thing...

I’ve been cheerfully streaming Qobuz via BubbleUPnP server through Kazoo to my NDX for two years. Since yesterday neither Kazoo nor Lumin on iPad see my favourites, though both see my purchases and all other Qobuz sourced lists. I also have the Kazoo app on my PC and that’s the same.

Anyone else experiencing this? I suspect something at the Qobuz end and have asked them about it, but am happy to be proved an idiot.

Same here, found this on facebook:

???? We are currently fixing technical issues on Qobuz. Don't worry, all your Favorites will come back soon, we are on it.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

The Qobuz team.

We are all at the same point. Your favorites are still listed in your account and accessible on the Qobuz website. The will fix app’s accesses very soon. ????

Chag -

Yay! So I’m not an idiot! 

Probably...

likesmusic posted:

MatthewP posted:

If you are a classical music lover I’m interested whether you’d care that neither Qobuz nor Tidal will stream gapless to newer naim devices, nor work reliably with BubbleUPnP or audivarna? At least From my own experience and what I’ve read from others here. I’m talking about the new Unitis. It would be interesting if the ND555 was any different. 

I’m certainly a classical music lover, there’s no way I could live without gapless playback, whether from my own rips or from a streaming service. I either use Qobuz from a small, fanless laptop via USB, or through a squeezebox Touch via toslink both of which play gaplessly perfectly. 

I keep hearing of people having problems with gapless playback, but fortunately have never experienced it on the streaming devices I have used, ND5XS and now Audirvana (but not online streaming) - it would be a real killer for many classical and prog rock music. 

The missing gapless playback with new unitis (and the price) kept my from buying such. Instead I have upgraded from a uniti1 (with streaming hardware upgrade) to a Superuniti. And I am very happy with this.

And it is good reading about the qobuz favorite issues here. This problem is why I have opened this thread hoping to find an info about this

Innocent Bystander posted:

likesmusic posted:

MatthewP posted:

If you are a classical music lover I’m interested whether you’d care that neither Qobuz nor Tidal will stream gapless to newer naim devices, nor work reliably with BubbleUPnP or audivarna? At least From my own experience and what I’ve read from others here. I’m talking about the new Unitis. It would be interesting if the ND555 was any different. 

I keep hearing of people having problems with gapless playback, but fortunately have never experienced it on the streaming devices I have used, ND5XS and now Audirvana (but not online streaming) - it would be a real killer for many classical and prog rock music. 

Gapless is only a problem with direct streaming from online services with the new uniti range, as far as I understand. So NDS, old Uniti and even Muso work fine with audivarna, BubbleUPnP, etc but the new Uniti range doesn’t. Of course, you can use a separate box like raspberry pi or auralic, etc. 

I use an auralic aires mini into my Uniti Nova through a coaxial digital connection (having given up on getting any direct online streaming option to work) and for me the SQ from Qobuz was clearly superior to Tidal when using the sublime+ hires streams. I also thought the selection for classical music was much, much better on Qobuz (like finding 15 versions of a piece on Qobuz to choose from, and only 3 on Tidal), but that may have been partly down to the searching and browsing of classical music on Tidal being so bad.

Yes I had a little panic when I saw my favourites gone.. glad the bug is known and they are on the case

All fixed and Favorites back in the App. Thank you Ms. Qobuz. ????

Chag -