darth vader Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 $11.99/month V's $23.99/month Spotify 1, Tidal 0 I'm just at the end of a 3 month 99 cent trail of spotify premium, so I thought I'd give tidal a shot. Found an offer for 3 months of tidal hifi for free via a magazine http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/90148, but when I hit the link, Tidal says the offer is revoked to 1 month. Spotify 2, Tidal 0 So anyway, one month free should give an idea of Tidals abilities. So sign up I do, install and get going. Ok, so Tidal displays some superfluous artist info I can find on google, or on iTunes. Spotify gives me enough info on the artist should I wish to follow it up anyway. Still messing with Tidals playlist structure, got that sorted pretty easy with Spotify, but Tidal seems to require more effort. Thats me, I get that. Spotify says 30 million tracks available, Tidal says 40 million tracks. Cant find but one Icehouse song on Tidal Spotify 3, Tidal 0 Tidal has a pretty spinning disc interface, Spotify has a small album icon Spotify 3, Tidal 0.5 So, the biggie...Sound quality. Tidal brags about being sooper dooper unbeatable quality in all their blurbs. Spotify just says high quality. While running both through the same gear, swapping from the same tracks on both streams, Spotify sounded better to me. By a noticeable margin. (iMac to Consonance DAC to vintage Pioneer SX-1980 to HPM-100 speakers) The gear shouldnt matter as the only thing that changed was the streaming service. Since you can get Spotify free for, well, free, or bog stock Tidal for what you pay for Spotify, I think this weighting is worth at leat 2 points, since its twice the price. Spotify 5, Tidal 0.5 The above is just my opinion. To note, I'm only one day into Tidal trial and theres not much real difference between the 2 to use. Not as far as I can see yet. Seems Tidal has done a good job of copying Spotify. I appreciate that musicians deserve to be paid for what they do. But as far as I see, the world moves on. We used to make lots of stuff here in Australia, but now places like Korea and China have moved in. They do it as good as we did but cheaper. Thats life, and many of us have an uncle, a grand dad or felt the effects of this ourselves. I cant see why musicians should be immune from effort to be relevant. After all, they get paid to do what they love ( the ones that own and run Tidal anyway) So does that mean Tidal is better than Spotify because, in the words of the artist Prince, “Secondly, Tidal have honoured us with a non-restrictive arrangement that once again allows us to continue making art in the fashion we’ve grown accustomed to and we’re extremely grateful for their generous support.†http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/07/prince-release-hitnrun-album-exclusively-via-tidal I dont begrudge anyone thats worked hard to make a living from earning a dollar, but if an ironing lady deserves royalties from a shirt she ironed 20 years ago for you every time you wear it.....just so she can live the life she's "accustomed" to... So, can anyone tell me why Tidal is better than Spotify as a subscriber steaming service?
Tony B Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 Tidal is lossless, Spotify is compressed. Thats a big factor for me. In every other way Spotify is better and there's way more content from what I can see.
Happy Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 Interesting that Spotify sounded better. How's that possible? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Happy Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 Frankly I might potentially move too Spotify if the SQ is almost comparable if not the same. Might have to trial. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
hired goon Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 Tidal may be lossless but Spotify is good enough for me. Or: the difference between lossless and 320kbps mp3 is not worth paying twice as much, IMHO. YMMV. --Geoff 2
Happy Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 Haven't compared the SP against Tidal but when I compared Tidal 320 against Tidal CDQ the difference was big enough to justify the cost difference. I was surprised myself as I held a faint belief that from 320kbps it didn't matter. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Guest Sime Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 Once I heard Tidal, my Apple Music subscription was cancelled as fast as my iPad would let me. I've listed to more tidal in one month than I have to Apple Music in the time since it started. Apple and oranges. If you cannot hear the difference, I'd started looking at your source players.
Guest Mr Thorens Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 Spotify was much better sounding to me than Apple
Satanica Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 Perhaps Spotify use a bit of DSP which subjectively improves the sound to some. 1
Kaynin Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 I'll be comparing Tidal with Spotify over the next 4 weeks, so will be interesting to see how I find it. I've had Spotify for over 12 months now so I'm used to the SQ, any differences should be clearly audible. The gear will be the same. The price difference is a big factor, any SQ improvement would need to be significant for me to want to spend more.
Guest Sime Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 I got rid of my Apple Music and my Creative Cloud accounts on the same day, so it covered the costs of Tidal.
blybo Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 (edited) @@darth vader , were you using Tidal in hifi mode? I.e., it's best quality? I know when I used. It sounded great but I had consistent drop outs, but that was when Tidal was brand new in Oz. from memory then you couldn't get HiFi quality from the web interface, but I could via my Sonos Connect. Just paying for hifi quality doesn't, or didn't, mean you are getting it. Edited March 27, 2016 by blybo 1
Guest Sime Posted March 27, 2016 Posted March 27, 2016 (edited) All I know is the Bluesound players with Tidal is exceptionally musical. I couldn't ever listen to a whole album on Apple Music, same dac as I'm using with Tidal. But most likely the Apple Music files are crap being the culprit. Tidal is here to stay with me at this point. Edited March 28, 2016 by Sime
Guest Sime Posted March 28, 2016 Posted March 28, 2016 The best demo album for tidal is the Album "Swing is Here" by Dick Hyman ( yea, that's his name alright ) Give that a listen, great sound.
Piya72 Posted March 28, 2016 Posted March 28, 2016 There is a guy called Archimago, who did a study using mp3, comparing to lossless, offering blind samples to willing testers http://archimago.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/high-bitrate-mp3-internet-blind-test_3422.html definitely worth a read.. !! if you cant be bothered reading, he found that out of 151 respondents, in his blind trial, more people liked the mp3 versions, and the more expensive their gear, the more likely they preferred the lossy version !! (of course, not every respondent responded the same) according to this study, it is very possible that Spotify sounds better than Tidal for a lot of people... (price not in the equation) me, sometimes I prefer Spotify premium, usually find my lossless ripped files sound better.. (I have not yet subscribed to Tidal, but intend to one day...) I reckon that the story isn't simple, and that a lot of factors must matter more than the format, and that thinking lossless is simply better, just isn't right every time... am listening to "Swing is Here" on Spotify, and it sounds good... !! (one of these days, I'll trial Tidal) 2
Gargui Posted March 28, 2016 Posted March 28, 2016 I used soundiiz to convert my Spotify playlists into tidal. Very handy indeed. https://soundiiz.com SQ on Tidal for me was head and shoulders above Spotify but one thing lacking was the mobile app on Tidal still has a way to go. Sent from my E6683 using Tapatalk 1
joz Posted March 28, 2016 Posted March 28, 2016 The other week while @@Marc s place I was very impressed with the way he had Roon and Tidal intergrated. Perhaps he may chime inand share his thoughts.
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted March 28, 2016 Volunteer Posted March 28, 2016 The other week while @@Marc s place I was very impressed with the way he had Roon and Tidal intergrated. Perhaps he may chime inand share his thoughts. Notwithstanding the problems I still sometimes get with tidal, the Roon + Tidal combo is awesome
aechmea Posted March 28, 2016 Posted March 28, 2016 The best demo album for tidal is the Album "Swing is Here" by Dick Hyman ( yea, that's his name alright ) Give that a listen, great sound. He is one of the performers that can be found on "Reference Recordings". Methinks that the recordings by "Prof Johnson" has a lot to do with it. Johnson invented (well you know what I mean) HDCD and the Pacific Microsonics ADC/DAC machine. 1
darth vader Posted March 28, 2016 Author Posted March 28, 2016 @@blybo I belive I was using it Tidal in Hifi mode, i will double check @@davidro, I'm not sure how its possible that Spotify sounded better to me. Maybe its the way my gear is, maybe its what I've got used to, but I really couldn't pick Tidal as being worth twice the cost. I'm not sure how someone with small ear buds using a mobile device could either. Its got me baffled at this point, Tidal "should" be better. Maybe I have some settings wrong or something. I signed up for the free Tidal hifi trial, I logged in to hifi, I cant see what else I should have to do @@joz maybe @@Marc can shed some light here, I hope so.
Guest Sime Posted March 28, 2016 Posted March 28, 2016 I'm going to have to look up what Roon is. Agh, PC software, rules me out. The new Bluesound app with all its many other issues is at least handling Tidal a million times better.
reflux075 Posted March 28, 2016 Posted March 28, 2016 I have a Spotify subscription and I am currently trialing Tidal Lossless. Tidal's lossless sound quality is definitely way better than Spotify. But Spotify definitely has more/better content than Tidal. Not sure which way I will go at the end of the 1 month trial I wish Spotify would do a lossless subscription. 1
wolster Posted March 28, 2016 Posted March 28, 2016 I'm a big fan and long time user of Spotify premium. I tried Tidal but simply did not think it was worth the extra dollars for what I use it for and I often could not find albums I searched for on Tidal. Add the off-line playlists available on Spotify and it was a simple decision for me. 1
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