Tidal vs Qobuz yet again

Hmmm, I’ve never had a problem with the Qobuz app on my iPhone. It works quite well actually.

Well quite a few apps are better on iOS as Naim app users on Android know all too well :slight_smile:

And though the Qobuz app works for me on Android (as in “plays music and downloads work”), it’s without doubt very basic compared with other streaming apps

I apologize if I offended you.

One of my pet peeves on any forum is when a member provides information such as “In some thread I have seen numbers of 1-2 mil users for Tidal and 200K for Qobuz.” without any reference to source.

I have spent some time looking for numbers and the data is varied. I found one article where is stated that Tidal owns less than 2 % of the global market and could not find any numbers for Qobuz. I did find a couple of items and linked below as an FYI.

Doing a quick internet search I found “And then there’s Tidal, which has historically targeted consumers who seek a higher-quality audio experience. Though Tidal’s lossless audio tier is $9.99 per month — the same cost as Apple Music, and just two dollars a month more than Amazon Music — Tidal owns less than 2% of global market share

For Qobuz I couldn’t find any subscriber numbers but did find a nice review published in March 2022 stating they were listed as the ‘Best Streaming Service for High Quality Audio’.

…as an FYI, when I have traveled I have used the Qobuz app on my laptop to listen to music on my laptop with a pair of headphones and it has worked quite well.

That’s quite surprising to me. I would have said that the sampling rate is more important. (I believe it’s not possible to resolve more than 19 bits anyway - at least according to Mr Beekhausen). There are a number of tunes on Qobuz that are 24/44.1 and I can’t honestly tell them apart from 16/44.1. But 24/96 is rather more obvious. I’ve never heard a 16/96 file (as far as I know) so this can only be an impression. Mind you I listened to some 24/192 songs the other day and couldn’t reliably tell them apart from DSD64 versions. So I could just be half deaf! They both sounded pretty good to me!

No worries. I am one of the persons who always does the work for other people and googles stuff or searches the forum for them. But in this case, in a train in Poland where phone service drops every two minutes, it’s not so easy.

I think it was FeelingZen who one of these days posted subscriber numbers that Apple had published.

But really we don’t need published numbers to know that Tidal has more subscribers, more money, and has invested more into their app than Qobuz.

Like I said above, the Qobuz app plays reliably for me and downloads work, but this is more or less the extent of its features. No comparison to the Tidal app.

I’m sure they are the best streaming service for HQ audio (is there another apart from Amazon?) and it’s absolutely fine with Roon. But one can’t be surprised if some users expect more from a streaming app than the Qobuz app offers

I didn’t realize there was that much disparity b/w the platforms. The Qobuz app on my phone seems fairly robust and my downloaded music always plays without a hitch. I’d say it’s on par with if not better than the Tidal app I used previously.

I don’t know if there is, I have never seen the Qobuz app on iOS. I’m just saying that many apps are better on iOS, so the iOS experience is not necessarily a measure for the Android experience. And Boris above is not having a good one on Android.

On Android at least, it seems to only let you search for albums and artists, favorite them, and play them. You can download for offline listening if it works, and make purchases. And it has playlists. This seems to be the extent of the features. It’s simply not on the same playing field as the Tidal or Spotify apps

24bit recordings should have less quantisation distortion than 16bit assuming the engineer did a good job. I also find the dynamics better and more natural, easier to find a comfortable volume level.
16 bit MQA will play at 16/88 and some radio stations stream 16 bit Hires (above 48kHz).

Soundiz? Can’t seem to find it asl am a convert from Tidal to Qobuz and have many favourites to transfer

After comparing Tidal and Qobuz, and then Qobuz on-line versus Qobuz (or other) files downloaded as WAV files and then streamed locally from an UnitiCore to a NDX2, I’ve concluded that Qobuz is best for on-line streaming, but a downloaded WAV file is significantly better again.

I highly doubt it. Can you share how exactly you did the test? Was it double blind?

It’s not a science project using ISO9001 quality assurance. I simply listened to stuff I know well, and then downloaded some WAV files and it was obvious they are better. That’s good enough for me.

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That is common ground to me. For me downloaded sounds better although mine are flac and that is good enough for me :slight_smile:

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Sadly it is. Ot good enough for me. I doubt human perception.

Fair enough. I’m happy with my own enjoyment and perception.

Indeed and I preferred WAV over transcoded FLAC (Asset on QNAP) despite others thinking it made no difference. I’ve done tests with Roon and the difference is no longer there so I converted my store back to FLAC.

Have you converted your entire store to WAV?

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I can also join this statement. I use roon (on Nuc) and audirvana (on mac mini) and audirvana sounds better for one reason only, it converts all flac files to wav, and I can easily check that when I open naim application to uniti nova, writes wav. And I claim that audiravana sounds better than roon only because it converts everything to wav which is an unzipped file, unlike flac which requires unpacking from a streamer (so there is probably a drop in quality, but I’m not an it. expert, but the difference is very easy to hear) . Anyone can play a song in two formats to be convinced of the difference, which is very big in my opinion.

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Roon decompresses FLAC by default (it can be turned off) so the streamer doesn’t have to do any work.

No, I’ve always ripped CDs to WAV on my UnitiCore, as recommend but my Naim dealer at the time. When I first starting streaming I was ripping on my Mac, but I’ve since re-ripped all of my CDs. When I buy downloads I choose WAV as my first choice, but a number of bands I buy from only do hi-res FLAC, so I have these as well. I use Roon but have never through to try converting the FLAC on the fly through Roon, I wouldn’t even know how to do that.

Oh no I am now thinking of converting my flac to wav. Might as well - I have the space.
As long as I think my music sounds as good as it can to my ears, even if subject to placebo effects, I am happy. :slight_smile:

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