Tidal vs Qobuz Opinions?
Answered
Hi there,
Been doing side-to-side comparisons of Tidal and Qobuz (us Canadians just got the latter recently), and to my ears, on my system, they seem quite comparable. If anything, Tidal seems to have a bit more "presence," to use guitar terminology.
Would be interested in hearing what you all have experienced.
Thanks!
Current setup: Cambridge CXA-80 integrated, Bluesound Node 2i, Focal Chora 826 floor standers, AQ interconnects & power cords.
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Qobuz HiRes for me now. Had Tidal for 7 years.
NAD M33, Harbeth SHL5 plus
NAD C368, PSB C500
Various Flex's, Pulse 300 and Pulse Mini's
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Always go with lossless over lossy. I'm not a fan of MQA, and actually kind of glad they declared bankruptcy just recently. That format needs to die.
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Not really looking to ignite a flame war over the merits, or not, of MQA. (There's enough of those already.) But I am interested in what people who have compared the different services think, in terms of SQ. I'm hearing very little difference; both sound phenomenal. But there is Tidal Connect, which tips it in Tidal's favour — at least until BluOS 4.0 arrives, if it ever does. The current iteration of BluOS app pales next to using Tidal Connect, but it could tip things in Qobuz's favour when it comes out. (Plus, Qobuz is much less $$$.)
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Brian, what inspired you to make the leap to Qobuz? You obviously did A/B comparisons.
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I was happy with MQA on Tidal and Tidal Connect is great, however I usually use Roon to control my Bluesound devices. Aside from the cost differential I found Qobuz HiRes equivalent to or better than Tidal's offerings. I had a 60 day trial of Qobuz and after 45 days, paid for a 12 month subscription.
I did read somewhere (unconfirmed) that Qobuz is working on a Connect feature similar to Tidal and Spotify.
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Thanks for this, Brian. I’ve been going over the same passages on a few songs I know well, and doing A/B comparisons as best I can — using a decibel meter to make sure volumes are the same. But I haven't done true blind tests, or as close as I can get to a blind test.
There was one tune that did stand out in Qobuz's favour. On Trilogy 2 by Chick Corea, at the nine minute mark of the first cut there’s this crazy, massive fill by drummer Brian Blade. On Tidal it seemed a little smeared, but on Qobuz it was sublime.
Will continue to test, but it’s great we have a choice!
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Sounds like you've done more thorough testing than I did. The Trilogy recordings are great for their dynamics.
Fingerprints from the Trilogy 1 is also a good test though I can only find 44.1/16 on Qobuz, nothing higher resolution.
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