Spotify Lossless

Too late to the party for me.  I had Spotify from its very early free days and changed because I wanted lossless streaming and Spotify didn't appear to be interested in offering it despite many many requests from its paying users.  I'm very happy with Tidal which sounds superb and I can't imagine changing back now

Yep, this is a thing. Spotify is planning to offer lossless streaming at a higher price, around $15-$20 a month. Spotify's far greater reach and audience will fundamentally threaten Tidal and Qobuz, providing Spotify can get it right - meaning gapless playback, FLAC, etc, plus, of course, actually sounding good.

Yep, agree with all above. I changed to Tidal just several months ago and am happy with their service so far, particularly through Audirvana. However, it looks like CD quality streaming is going to be mainstream soon.

In all other respects, Spotify beats Tidal hands down in my books. If their HiRes offers decent sound quality, I would definitely jump ship. 

I just finished the 90 day Tidal trial, it was a good service. However as my daughter is at 6th form she gets 50% discount on Spotify premium, so at £4.99 it's a no brainer. Students join UNiDAYS thru their college and many companies give discounts inc Apple thru which I bought my Muso.

ChrisSU posted:

In all other respects, Spotify beats Tidal hands down in my books. If their HiRes offers decent sound quality, I would definitely jump ship. 

Agreed.

Looking forward to this.

+ Tidal is not cd quality streaming. Same recording from cd, or ripped to the NAS is audibly better.

+1

I can't wait for Spotify lossless to become available, as Tidal's classical music catalogue looks like a Swiss cheese... 

I would definitely consider Spotify HIFI if Audirvana supports it.

Just curious if anyone has been granted access to the lossless tier yet and tried it with a Naim streamer implementation (Spotify Connect)?  I would be willing to give it a shot, if I knew they would grant me access.  Tidal has been nothing but dropouts on my SU for the last few months so I eventually just gave it up.  Still waiting on Naim's updated FW...

This is all subjective of course but I've found Apple Music to have the best connectivity and stability over wi-fi and over an entire year only one glitch, purely related to when adding tracks from CD rips to the library.  In regards to 'Lossless streaming' it may now be inevitable to see Apple ALAC version of their music streaming as CD-level streaming becomes the norm.  Also there was the suggestion that Tidal would be acquired by Apple Music at some point along the way.  Good for the hi-fidelity enthusiast since it pushes the boundary ever further upwards and making super high-res streaming a new possibility.

Though I have had Tidal Hifi subscription for a long time, I did not terminate Spotify Premium membership on the grounds that Spotify has better curated playlists as well as classical catalogue. For sure Tidal Hifi sounds so much better compared to Spotify's 320 o/vorbis on my UQ2-NAP 100 combo. But it is strange that from time to time I find Tidal sounds well off the mark..

I understand they are at the testing stage before a possible general roll out for Hifi subscription. Is there anyone whose Spotify app prompted upgrade to "lossless"?

I already posted a new thread about this, being so excited about the news (now deleted). This is really great news. Spotify is far ahead of Tidal on every other area except sound quality. Now Spotify Hi-Fi will close that final gap and I can happily stay Spotify customer. Discover weekly -feature alone is worth the monthly cost. 

Disposable hero posted:

 Also there was the suggestion that Tidal would be acquired by Apple Music at some point along the way.  Good for the hi-fidelity enthusiast since it pushes the boundary ever further upwards and making super high-res streaming a new possibility.

Earlier this year Sprint took a 1/3 stake in Tidal (around the time of the Apple rumors).  It is now highly unlikely that Apple would take any stake now with Sprint taking a major ownership position.  And, in reality, what does Tidal bring to Apple that it doesn't already have or could quite easily develop?

If I could use Spotify connect to stream CD quality to my SU, I'd definitely be interested.  Qobuz is best for classical but a bit of a pain to use with with Naim streamers.

MarkMcK79 posted:

Disposable hero posted:

 Also there was the suggestion that Tidal would be acquired by Apple Music at some point along the way.  Good for the hi-fidelity enthusiast since it pushes the boundary ever further upwards and making super high-res streaming a new possibility.

Earlier this year Sprint took a 1/3 stake in Tidal (around the time of the Apple rumors).  It is now highly unlikely that Apple would take any stake now with Sprint taking a major ownership position.  And, in reality, what does Tidal bring to Apple that it doesn't already have or could quite easily develop?

In general Tidal doesn't have much to offer Apple with the possible exceptions of Tidal's exclusive offerings and key personnel.

Exclusives have been an important part of Apple's strategy to get paying subscribers. It's also possible there are key people at Tidal that Apple would consider valuable. It's worth keeping in mind that Apple bought Beats for Iovine and his key people. Apple belieived in Iovine's vision of the future of music consumption. The fact it came with a profitable accessory business was a pleasant coincidence. 

Both Deezer and Spotify have bigger catalogues and better apps. If the rumours ae correct they will also offer MQA. With the exception of the previously mentioned exclusives, it's hard to see how Tidal can compete. Whatever Apple plans to do in this space isn't likely to help Tidal.

The pricing discussion is interesting. It looks like Spotify plan to undercut Tidal and Deezer. A couple of years ago Tidal suggested that lossless streaming would fall in price and hi-res would cost the same as lossless today.

The only reason I continue to use Tidal is Roon, and the only reason I don't have a life time Roon subscription is Tidal. It seems unlikely but I really hope Spotify or Deezer open up their catalogues to Roon.

Tidal must have expected this, and I guess that's why they've moved up to hi-res streaming - to continue to offer something unique. Although maybe even that's only a question of time. If it sounds ok, I'll get Spotify lossless.

As for Roon, I just don't get it. I did a free trial and found it ok, although of relatively low interest. Then I looked at the prices and assumed they'd forgotten to put in a decimal point. Honestly, I wouldn't pay a tenth of that.

GregW posted:

The fact it came with a profitable accessory business was a pleasant coincidence. 

I can assure you this was no "happy coincidence."  Especially in light that no streaming business has yet to turn a profit.  The accessories market is massive, especially as it relates to iPhones, fashion headphones, etc.  In any valuation exercise between Apple & Beats I'm sure that this "happy coincidence" was the lion's share of any future returns used in valuing the acquisition.  The contribution of the Beats streaming service was likely a small fraction of the total valuation, especially if you look at the values Jay-Z paid around the same time for Tidal and other funding rounds seen for Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, etc.  That, or Apple massively overpaid by many multiples (which I highly doubt as they are very skilled at acquisitions).

Outside of Spotify, which has still not been profitable, all the streaming services are sinking ships.  All are bleeding cash.  However, they're in the middle of a land grab, which has provided some services the life support they need to keep going.  The two leaders, Apple & Spotify, are the ones to keep an eye on.  With Spotify offering a lossless tier Apple likely won't be far behind.  

It has been rumored that it is actually Apple that owns the largest library of master-grade files, as they ask the labels and independents to submit the highest resolution 24-bit files possible.  These are sitting in an Apple server farm somewhere.  Apple already has the ALAC codec it developed, so no licensing fees to others (which if you know anything of Apple's history, they will develop something internally [or acquire it] before paying someone else), so very likely no MQA from Apple. Spotify has shown that they don't even want to license MP3, using Ogg Vorbis instead.  They don't want to pay MQA, either.

In Naim's shoes, I would be concentrating on keeping the streamers most prepared and up-to-date with Spotify & Apple's services.  Tidal, MQA, Roon, etc should be an afterthought.