Thanks for your thoughts and replies. I have now cancelled Spotify, continuing my trial with Tidal but have also started a 1 month trial with Qobuz. My initial impression is that I can hear little difference between the cd quality of Tidal and the hifi of Qobuz, but I can detact an improvement from Spotify with both Tidal and Qobuz. So i have a month to make my mind up. The user interface with Qobuz is crude but serviceable. It might make more sense to continue with Qobuz where hifi is obtainable through my Uniti Atom without need of an external DAC or Roon. I didnt rely on the new music recommended by Spotify, preferring to search myself, and can live without lyrics. I made the point earlier that all of these services appear to change frequently; it is all so impermanent and in 1 year it might all be very different.
1 issue is that occasionally the Chromecast stream drops out whilst listening to Qobuz through the Qobuz app, but works flawlessly through the NAIM app. I’ll explore poential reasons online; at least its not my internet which would drop on both apps.
I just got an email (as a former Tidal subscriber) offering me 3 months of HiFi+ tier for £2.
As it includes non-MQA hires files, I will try it again to compare Tidal and Qobuz on SQ, as my system is very different to what it was last time I had Tidal.
Jim,
Thanks, I am still subscribed to Tidal’s highest res. But whenever I stream any Tidal track via my Naim NDX2 quality changes to Hifi. I will be happy to get any track name that you manager to stream form Tidal in your Naim gear at their highest resolution to try here. I guess others will be happy to get that info as well.
When using the Naim app, it is not using Chromecast. And Chromecast buffers are small, leading to dropouts especially with hi-res material. (When using the Naim app, it uses the 50 MB buffer in the Atom, so is more resilient). See this post:
I also compared Groovin High by Keith, both services in 16/44, and possibly the Qobuz had a tiny edge, but probably I could not tell them apart reliably in a blind test.