I agree whole heartedly!
Overall, if sound quality is your concern, I would highly recommend you at least audition Qobuz.
I've been a hi-fi man for nearly 50 years now, and a trained audio engineer who helped in the construction and setting up of several London recording studios. Sound is all that important to me and I have no brand loyalties or axes to grind.
If you are reading this and have not tried Qobuz, I'd urge you to do so if the best reproduction of music is important to you. Happy listening!!
Thanks T64 - I appreciate your perspective.
UPDATE from my last input almost 1 year ago:
After living with Qobuz (and still Deezer) for the last year I have not changed my mind - Tidal's sound is of lesser quality in, 'my' system - your mileage may vary. Again, system is NAD M33 out to GoldenEar Triton Ones. All control done through the bluOs app on Samsung tablet.
As a last test I again ran Tidal as a trial (new email address) for one more time and did many comparisons of many styles of music. Limits are of course:
(1) A slight delay in switching over using the BluOs app but it's pretty minimal and can't be helped
(2) I can never be sure that I'm listening to the same master or version...
However, after many files and styles, running Qobuz I consistently heard better separation, clearer highs, tighter bass and more detail.
Tidal while nice, always sounded slightly more 'dull', less expansive or engaging, while it's bass was often a bit too 'pushed' forward.
Same results with headphones, although sometimes Tidal had more weight and attack 'punch'. My cans are not audiophile grade as I do not do critical listening on headphones, but it was interesting nonetheless.
Pros for Tidal = great 'Tidal Connect' feature which is just so easy to use through the BluOs app. I do wish Qobuz would build something just as good. Have mentioned it but they say it's way down the track...
Cons on Qobuz = in this regard is that with BluOs I have to use their app 'within' BluOs itself (Deezer is like this also). This can sometimes lead to slow loading and seeking, plus the app layout is a bit limited in terms of easy search for your Favorites. BluOs is a bit of a closed ecosystem but I now accept that and just hope for improvements over the years.
BTW - Amazon HD arrived in Australia after my last post and, after a trial (in fact before it ended) I just laughed and deleted it. Sound quality was on a par with Deezer but the app, either Android or Win desktop was terrible, with a limited jazz and electronic catalogue that made Qobuz's look like a veritable galactic library. As for Spotify Hi Fi - I'm still laughing...
Having said all this, I have to say that the vast majority of my listening is from my own ripped FLAC library of many thousands of tracks from ripped CDs or downloads from over the decades. Streaming is secondary to my listening but very important for finding and evaluating before purchasing my own copies.