Spotify vs Tidal

[manicm]

Does Tidal Hifi really sound better than paid, highest quality Spotify?

I played Brian Eno’s Apollo and I couldn’t really tell. This was the remastered version.

Does anyone really find Tidal better?

 

[Niallivm]

What equipment are you listening on?

 

[manicm]

Just on my laptop, with B&W MM1 desktop speakers.

 

[manicm]

I could listen on the Denon Ceol N10, maybe today.

 

[bigboss]

You won't be able to tell a difference with your setup. Most will struggle to notice a difference anyways.

 

[Niallivm]

Try a Tidal or Qobuz trial month. You may notice a slight difference but it depends on equipment and listening conditions.

 

[knaithrover]

Tidal is significantly better than Spotify to my ears - when I first heard Tidal after using Spot for a couple of years I really couldn't believe how rubbish Spotify was in comparison. Audible difference.

 

[habu77]

Does Tidal Hifi really sound better than paid, highest quality Spotify?

I played Brian Eno’s Apollo and I couldn’t really tell. This was the remastered version.

Does anyone really find Tidal better?

I have recently switched from Spotify Premium to Amazon Music HD and there is an audible difference which has only become more evident since I bought a Marantz NR1200 which is capable of playing 24/192 files. Spotify's 320 mp3 is absolutely listenable but can't hold a candle to high res files.

The HEOS app on the amp and Amazon Music HD's app are dreadful and dire compared to the functionality that Spotify offers but my main concern is sound quality. If Spotify ups its game and offers high res listening it will be the perfect platform and I would change back in a heartbeat. I don't understand Spotify doesn't make it available as well, coupled with their playlist handling etc. they would knock all other services way out of the ball park.

And although I adore Apollo, maybe something less ambient might be better comparison material? ;-)

 

[manicm]

Ok, through my mum's Denon Ceol N10 with its own speakers - Spotify was definitely worse than my own FLAC rip through USB, which on turn was perhaps *slightly* worse than CD, but USB was good enough to put the CDs away.

This was the track Synchronicity II from Police Synchronicity album. Parts I look out for is the reverb/echo when Stings sings 'a humiliating kick in the crotch' - he adds reverb to 'crotch'. And there's reverb near the end of the song when he repeats 'a million miles away'.

Now Tidal - the good news - the integration through Heos was superb! It seems Heos had the equivalent of Tidal integration/'Connect' all this time like it has Spotify Connect.

The bad news is I couldn't play anything - because I'm on the trial Tidal only allows playback through PC - with Hifi/Masters. So I can't test on hifi unless I subscribe. I'll think about it.

 

[SteveR750]

An alternative to Tidal, assuming you're OK with the ethics, is Amazon HD. If you're a Prime subscriber, then it's £13 a month and access to CDA and 24/96 hi res tracks. The app is nowhere near as slick as Spotifys or Tidals, but it works, and worth the saving.

 

[RobDavies]

I tried Tidal v Spotify a few months ago.... both on highest settings, streamed from my phone to an Arcam rBlink to a PM6006 into a pair of Wharfdale Diamond 9.1’s.

Couldn’t tell the difference - so I stuck with Spotify. But then, my hearing is fifty years old, a bit knackered from attending hundreds of metal gigs since I was fourteen, and I know my system isn’t exactly high end.

However, I’m currently trialling Deezer and I have to say I like it. To me, and on the hi-fi/flac setting, it sounds a bit crisper and the stereo image is possibly slightly wider than I’m used to with Spotify.
I need to do a proper A/B test....

 

[Niallivm]

I’ve tried them all and signed up with Qobuz for a year, which works out at £12.49/m

 

[SteveR750]

I’ve tried them all and signed up with Qobuz for a year, which works out at £12.49/m

I've just been looking at my PC settings as just realised I get the W10 notification sounds coming through, so looked to see if Amazon takes exclusive control, and after a bit of googling realise it doesn't! So W10 is doing all of the things it does to the signal before presenting it to the DAC, and it appears the Qobuz has wasapi built in, so I'm going to investigate that, or resume Tidal and run it through Audirvana. Otherwise I'm about to waste money upgrading my DAC amp!

 

[SteveR750]

So, I've cancelled my Amazon HD sub, and re-started Tidal, as you can set exclusive use of the output driver, and avoid all the unpleasant windows interference.

 

[manicm]

I've just been looking at my PC settings as just realised I get the W10 notification sounds coming through, so looked to see if Amazon takes exclusive control, and after a bit of googling realise it doesn't! So W10 is doing all of the things it does to the signal before presenting it to the DAC, and it appears the Qobuz has wasapi built in, so I'm going to investigate that, or resume Tidal and run it through Audirvana. Otherwise I'm about to waste money upgrading my DAC amp!

Does your DAC come with a driver ? If so you should be installing it and is probably why W10 still takes control.

 

[manicm]

I tried Tidal v Spotify a few months ago.... both on highest settings, streamed from my phone to an Arcam rBlink to a PM6006 into a pair of Wharfdale Diamond 9.1’s.

Couldn’t tell the difference - so I stuck with Spotify. But then, my hearing is fifty years old, a bit knackered from attending hundreds of metal gigs since I was fourteen, and I know my system isn’t exactly high end.

However, I’m currently trialling Deezer and I have to say I like it. To me, and on the hi-fi/flac setting, it sounds a bit crisper and the stereo image is possibly slightly wider than I’m used to with Spotify.
I need to do a proper A/B test....

No matter how good the Arcam is, I suspect you compromised your streaming audio by using Bluetooth, and is probably why you couldn’t hear much of a difference. By and large I would only use Bluetooth for casual use.

Are you also using Deezer that way? Does your phone have aptX?

 

[SteveR750]

Does your DAC come with a driver ? If so you should be installing it and is probably why W10 still takes control.

Yes indeed it does., and worked exclusively with J River before I moved to streaming and replaced my home system with Sonos. Exclusive control isn't a downstream hardware control, it's in the app. Tidal can invoke it for Master and HiFi quality tracks, J River had to be configured, Qobuz I believe can be configured too. Audivarna could do it, but Amazon are not a partner, so whatever DAC you use, at the moment, Amazon HD can only run in shared mode.

 

[manicm]

Yes indeed it does., and worked exclusively with J River before I moved to streaming and replaced my home system with Sonos. Exclusive control isn't a downstream hardware control, it's in the app. Tidal can invoke it for Master and HiFi quality tracks, J River had to be configured, Qobuz I believe can be configured too. Audivarna could do it, but Amazon are not a partner, so whatever DAC you use, at the moment, Amazon HD can only run in shared mode.

Ah Amazon. Yes, they need to up their game in the software.

 

[SteveR750]

It means that all of the Ultra HD (24/96) tracks are downsampled to 16/44, so utterly pointless using their hi res service. The only work around is to change the PC output sound settings to the track rate, but if you change it to 24/96 to play the Ultra HD tracks, then the standard HD (16/44) tracks are unplayable, unless you go back into your windows settings and change the shared output rate back again.

 

[RobDavies]

No matter how good the Arcam is, I suspect you compromised your streaming audio by using Bluetooth, and is probably why you couldn’t hear much of a difference. By and large I would only use Bluetooth for casual use.

Are you also using Deezer that way? Does your phone have aptX?

Yes, Deezer is being streamed the same way. Bluetooth streaming is via the AAC codec on an iPhone (which the rBlink supports).

I did try Chromecast audio but it sounded poor compared to the rBlink.

 

[Niallivm]

If you’re after High Resolution audio you won’t get it over Bluetooth. Personally, I found the improvement between standard streaming services and Qobuz’s CD-quality streams more dramatic than any anticipated quality improvement from CD to High Res.

 

[SteveR750]

I've re-subscribed to Tidal, and it's definitely streaming in exclusive mode, as you can't play anything else whilst its active. The Amazon app has an exclusive mode option, but it doesn't work!

I've spent some time comparing a few tracks streamed from Tidal in both 16/44 and 24/96 res to the same tracks and resolution from my J River PC app that has all my CDs and Hi Res files on it. I can't hear any difference , it's not noticeable to my ears if there is one. So I'm satisfied that Tidal can stream both CDA and 24/96 res quality as per it's claims.
I can hear a slight difference between Spotify and Tidal, usually a slightly mushy hazy treble in the former, doesn't seem as tight a rhythm. For many people it's maybe not worth the extra cost, and tbh most of the time when music is on in the background I'd never notice.

 

[jonboywalton75]

I've re-subscribed to Tidal, and it's definitely streaming in exclusive mode, as you can't play anything else whilst its active. The Amazon app has an exclusive mode option, but it doesn't work!

I've spent some time comparing a few tracks streamed from Tidal in both 16/44 and 24/96 res to the same tracks and resolution from my J River PC app that has all my CDs and Hi Res files on it. I can't hear any difference , it's not noticeable to my ears if there is one. So I'm satisfied that Tidal can stream both CDA and 24/96 res quality as per it's claims.
I can hear a slight difference between Spotify and Tidal, usually a slightly mushy hazy treble in the former, doesn't seem as tight a rhythm. For many people it's maybe not worth the extra cost, and tbh most of the time when music is on in the background I'd never notice.

I've tried them all
Qubuz, amazon hd, Tidal etc all sound much better the 320 kbps tracks
Amazon software is soooo bad i pay the £7 premium for Tidal
Marantz NR1200 into Focal 714's

 

[SteveR750]

I've tried them all
Qubuz, amazon hd, Tidal etc all sound much better the 320 kbps tracks
Amazon software is soooo bad i pay the £7 premium for Tidal
Marantz NR1200 into Focal 714's

Now I've got a new DAC in place that has a display of the file type being streamed, I know that Tidal exclusive mode works, and that Amazon HD does not work in exclusive mode.

In other news, I was looking for a way to stream from my NAS into my desktop (I use J River n my laptop, but it's an old release and I'm not paying for the upgrades as I didn't see the benefit ) so am trying out musicbee. It's a really basic UI, but all the important stuff is there like ASIO and WASAPI drivers, and it plays from a network device. Best of all it's free!

 

[Deleted member 188533]

When Amazon launched the HD tier I spent a 3 month free trial doing A-B comparisons with Tidal Masters and some fairly resolving headphones. Amazon has slightly better sound quality but the terrible interface made me keep Tidal. I'm a Prime customer and have been for almost 12 years so I'm already in the Amazon ecosystem.