Tidal vs Spotify Premium

My view would be that catalogue and music curation is superior on Spotify but sound quality on tidal is substantially better even like for like on 320. Obviously tidal FLAC hifi is vastly superior to Spotify 320 but you’re right re original source quality and many things on tidal hifi sound poor due to the original source. My suggestion would be to avail of Tidal’s free trial, 3 months I think it is, and you can compare for yourself, you’ll get hifi for free but it’ll also allow you to change to 320 and compare directly with Spotify. What are you running it on?

Hi David. I’m a Tidal subscriber. I find the catalog pretty good and sound quality has improved lately I felt. I have tried Spotify but found it didn’t sound as good as Tidal HIFI. They offer the usual trial period at HIFI quality so it’s well work signing up and comparing yourself. 

Thanks [@mention:73652630748744533] and [@mention:51970829741422995], I do have 3 months free Tidal to play with to work this out. Just a little busy at the moment with work so I don't want to waste it right now if I can't properly sit down and compare them. I am playing on Nova but my home internet is pretty crappy at about 6Mbps. It dropped from 30Mbps+ to 6Mbps since I moved house.

You should be fine with 6mps as long as it’s stable at that, Tidal will integrate nicely on the Nova,  I use it on an Atom and it’s a nice user experience particularly if you have an ipad 

Hi [@mention:73652630748744533], yep, I am sticking purely to the apple ecosystem so using iPhone, iPad and all that. Has been good so far.  

Tidal is reliable for me with a 4.5MB connection, as long as nobody else in the house is using it too much. If you have kids using the internet for online gaming, streaming TV etc. it will be a problem. Latency is more of a problem than bandwidth for many, but the new Naim streamers have improved buffering which should help you. 

I couldn’t get on with the sound quality of Spotify, which is a shame, as I found it to have the best UI, but Tidal is a bit better than it used to be in that respect. 

I find tidal sound quality really impressive

The hi-fi streaming is excellent as a service if a little expensive 

I use both, Spotify has the better catalogue, customised playlists and discover features for new music. Tidal is better for serious listening sessions due to the lossless flac although not their entire catalogue. Both services have their strengths and weaknesses and some material sounds ok and some doesn't across both platforms.

I'm sitting here listening to Spotify stream from my iMac to my Dave DAC and into my 272,  and I've got to say that it actually sounds pretty good.  It's certainly not unlistenable.  The only thing  I notice is that the bass is a little heavy, but that's probably because I don't have my JL subwoofer set up correctly.  That's an easy fix.  Of course, Tidal sounds better. However, I much prefer the playlists available with Spotify.

Tidal is better SQ wise.

However, If Spotify went higher res they’d smash Tidal out of the park imo.

Trouble is, as the default choice for millions, they don’t have to.

Which is a shame.

I subscribe to Tidal but I have to scratch the surface to find stuff I want to listen too. The new music and playlists they push on you is just a load of rapping and effing which does my head in. 

Yep Tidal is very much geared to Mobo and streaming charts which suits some but not all. Spotify spreads itself wider I feel.

However, I’m now listening to Tidal’s Indie Circus playlist which is nice.

Maybe with their recent flotation they’ll up the game with a high res stream, they were beta testing it a while back but it never came to anything, I suspect it’s just a matter of time before all the main streaming services are offering at least cd quality in the same way that 4K will become the norm

Thank you all for your advice and opinions. Very much appreciate them all! While I haven't really listened to Tidal, I have been finding 320kbps Spotify pretty decent. I have ripped some of my CDs to flac and have not found the same material on Spotify much worst. That's why I am skeptical.

Have to admit I am very late to the streaming game so I am like a little kid on his first trip to Disneyland at the moment. In fact, I am loving some of the older, more acoustic work compared with more modern manufactured recordings. Listening to Julie London and Peggy Lee this weekend and continue to discover work I know nothing about. This is precisely the reason I bought the Nova - versatile and absolutely awesome SQ! 

Does anyone use something other than Spotify and Tidal? Perhaps Roon or Amazon or Google? How do you find them? Apart from lesser quality, do they have any merits? Thanks again. 

I haven’t used either Spotify Premium or Tidal - however I find Spotify’s free service quite adequate for finding/checking out music new to me, or even the odd thing I can’t be bothered to add to my collection.  Yes, it doesn’t sound as good as CD quality or better, but it is perfectly listenable,  though if doing for a prolonged period I have to mute the periodic adverts, but their range of mypusic is pretty good - and it costs nothing!

David N posted: 

Does anyone use something other than Spotify and Tidal? Perhaps Roon or Amazon or Google? How do you find them? Apart from lesser quality, do they have any merits? Thanks again. 

I have tried Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, Qobuz and Apple Music. I thought Spotify was the best service in all respects, except for sound quality, where Tidal lossless (at double the price) was better. If you use Roon, you will need a Tidal account as well if you want it to access web streaming services.