It’s the time of year for saving money!
For the past couple of years United States Audiophiles have had one choice if they wanted full-resolution or higher multiple-genre digital music streams – Tidal. That will soon be changing as Qobuz enters the U.S. marketplace. And while some well-healed audiophiles (and reviewers) may subscribe to both, most audiophiles who want high-resolution streaming are probably going to choose one or the other. The big multi-million (or billion) dollar question is which one.
I have had a Tidal subscription for several years now and have a rather extensive library of both albums and single tracks as well as several self-curated playlists. The first big question I had was, “How can I easily duplicate this in Qobuz?” The answer is a separate stand-alone application by the name of Soundiiz. It’s either free (a stripped down version that will not do much besides lure you to pay), or $3 a month. I’ll let them have a couple of months, and if I never use it again, then I’ll cancel. It took it quite a while to “copy” my entire on-line Tidal library over to Qobuz, and it generated quite a few “can’t locate” error messages along the way, but in many cases even though it generated an error message Soundiiz still duplicated 99% of my Tidal library in Qobuz successfully.
So, if the only thing that concerns you about switching from Tidal to Qobuz is loss of library data, Soundiiz makes that part easy. Now, what are the primary differences between the two services I’ve discovered, so far?
Qobuz and Tidal’s opening, or landing pages are very similar – you are presented with various playback choices from different categories. Aside from small design differences, graphically these pages don’t show much differentiation from one another. But Qobuz has less U.S. Pop and hip-hop-centric material in the forefront, unlike Tidal. Qobuz seems to be more egalitarian, but as I found after a couple of weeks of digging around, it is less deep in some musical genres that matter to me.
As of today, July 31, 2018, Qobuz seems to have less Americana, roots, bluegrass, and old-time music in its libraries than Tidal. Here are two examples of bands that were available in Tidal but not Qobuz – the Cleverlys are a bluegrass band that does covers of rap, heavy metal and hip-hop material – their one album was on Tidal but in Qobuz. Another example is the Irish roots band, I Draw Slow. Tidal had four albums, Qobuz had none. Conversely, Tidal had nothing by the ’70’s British band Unicorn while Qobuz had their new compilation album on Omnivore Records. It may be that to have a “complete” on-line library, you’ll need both…
Occasionally the information in Qobuz shows signs of under-curatorship. One egregious example is the Taj Mahal album Giant Step instead of being attributed correctly to Taj Mahal, Qobuz lists “Interpretes Divers” as the performing artists with a link to their other tracks, which weren’t exactly the blues…
One area where Qobuz does have more to offer than Tidal is in the area of liner notes and background information on an album. Qobuz has an “about” section for each album that in some cases has almost as much information as Roon regularly supplies in their application. And then there are downloads – Qobuz offers them (and charges for them) while Tidal does not. If high-resolution download availability is important to you Qobuz will be your preference.
Speaking of Roon, as of today they are bested by Audirvana+ as far as integrating Qobuz. Audirvana offers connections and playback functions for both Tidal and Qobuz while Roon only has Tidal. I expect Roon to add Qobuz soon, but I’m wondering if Roon will combine the two libraries together as they do with my home and Tidal libraries or keep them separate. I hope that users can have a choice…
On the subject of choice, so far the only portable player in my possession that supports Qobuz is the Sony NW-ZX2. If your portable player is Android-based you should be able to obtain the Qobuz app thorugh the playstore. As of today, none of Astell & Kern’s players support Qobuz. A&K’s position is “We are evaluating Qobuz, but have no ETA on when or if we may implement it on our players.” Of course anyone with a smartphone can get the Qobuz app and stream and download to their heart’s content, just like they can with Tidal.
One last obvious difference between Qobuz and Tidal is their newsletter and email approaches. Qobuz email is more general and covers many different types of music while most of Tidal’s missives are to pimp one particular exclusive release. In this regard Qobuz projects a less urban-centric musical image with less au-courant hype.
So, if forced to choose one over the other, as of right now I would choose Tidal because it has more of “my music” and it already integrates with Roon and Sonos, but given a bit of time, my preferences could change…Coke or Pepsi…VHS or Beta…Yankees or Mets…or both…only time will tell who wins this one…
Not much point in having music that appeals to Americans until they launch in the United States in Qobuz’s case. Tidal doesn’t have a significant subscriber base in their hi-fi tier so I doubt anyone is too worried about competing with them.
Personally I hope journalists don’t get Qobuz for free like they do with Tidal.
Why? Don’t like educated journalism? 🙂 As we all know from our current pres, it’s way easier to talk about things you know nothing about…but if you want articles with useful info, it helps if the reviewer can do more than read the product lit and regurgitate it…
Well I don’t encounter educated journalists because journalism died with Duke Lacrosse in the United States. Steven I’ve said it enough times high end audio reporting and stories are entertainment. If i want useful information about high end audio I’ll get the information myself.
Thank you for clarifying your biases.
The audio press never really were journalists. The basic tenants of journalism are truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public accountability. Let’s ignore truthfulness for a moment can an outside observer readily ascertain the accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness of what you write? I would argue they can’t.
As for public accountability how many in the audio press are upset with me for having a list of the members of the audio press who support MQA? If you were a journalist at heart you would have “followed the money” and reported on it. Or is that too scary a proposition because as Det. Lester Freamon said on The Wire “You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don’t know where the bleep it’s gonna take you.” Instead you left it to me.
Reviewers have been failing me since the first issue of The Absolute Sound (smear and roughness in the stacked Advent review only at alarming volumes I would never otherwise consider). That’s why I consider them entertainment.
Finally what’s wrong with just writing about audio and telling stories skipping the whole journalism thing?
Tidal is marginally OK for classical music. Is Q any better?
Tidal is trying but Qobuz has a head start…
1. What resolutions are supported? Does Qobuz support MQA? Any sound differences?
2. Going to their website it says “not available in your country”. When?
1. Tidal – MQA (44.1/16 to 384/32); Qobuz – FLAC up to 192/24, no MQA at present time.
2. Rocky Mountain Audio Fest will be the official release launch.
Ugh, Tidal is 24/96 not 32/384
With MQA Tidal is 192/24 on several of my MQA-enabled DACs. I haven’t found any 384 yet…
David there are no compelling reasons to MQA. The number of subscribers to Tidal’s HiFi tier is too small for MQA to be important to Qobuz. And very few people even care about CD quality streaming.
no sound difference to me,just want services you wanna give your money too
Been a Qobuz subscriber for 12 months, couldn’t be happier. And Qobuz certainly integrates with SONOS, don’t know why you would say it doesn’t
I’m glad to hear that in your region Sonos supports Qobuz. Hopefully when Qobuz is officially released in the U.S. at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest Sonos will have released an update for US users that includes Qobuz.
It will…
I use Roon (love it!) with Tidal Hi-Fi. My favorite genre for the last year has been Film Scores / Soundtracks. I may have to do a deeper search but it doesn’t seem like Tidal has that many. I just checked Qobuz and they have about 30k albums. I also like the fact that you can get hi-res downloads for the price of MP3s. For those 2 reasons, I’ll probably switch to Qobuz/Aurdivana when the service is available in the U.S.
Thanks Steven, Here’s a few things t consider; We’re all adding to our perspective catalog daily. fyi, Qobuz has a responsive “request this album or artist” page. audio.content@qobuz.com. Try it… they’ve gotten a few of my requests.
So, job one has been procuring non-compressed 24 bit FLAC files. In Europe, that’s 2 million, or about 800k more hi-res cuts than Tidal. And now, the library is being filled out with more 16/44 and 16/48, which just takes time to get them all ingested and or procured. Dan Mackta, the new Managing Director has deep ties w many indie and obscure labels. More announcements soon, but you’ll have a true US site and will be making some big announcements soon that will enhance the service even more. Hope this fills a few holes.
I picked up a Qobuz promotional card at RMAF last October and have been auditioning Qobuz since. I find it sweeter sounding overall than Tidal MQA, with more precise imaging and truer harmonic structure even at 16/44. I think they’ve finally got streaming right. I’m selling many of my CDs….