[rvalero]

My favorite is spotify and deezer Tidal is not famous here in Spain

 

[SilverEars]

My favorite is spotify and deezer Tidal is not famous here in Spain

Spotify is probably the most popular in general due to the mainstream. Audiophiles are a pretty niche market segment. We choose based on niche aspect that the general public wouldn't consider. I don't think the general public cares if USB Audio Player Pro does bit-perfect with Tidal or has an in-app parametric EQ. Or does the public care if the stream is going through ios or Android mixer, and thus not bit-perfect stream.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Spotify is probably the most popular in general due to the mainstream. Audiophiles are a pretty niche market segment. We choose based on niche aspect that the general public wouldn't consider. I don't think the general public cares if USB Audio Player Pro does bit-perfect with Tidal or has an in-app parametric EQ. Or does the public care if the stream is going through ios or Android mixer, and thus not bit-perfect stream.

To that point there was a thread on Bluesound forums. I asked if they would show the sample rate and bit depth for all files played over the device including MQA instead of green or blue which just tells you authenticated or generic MQA and not much info for other types. Several guys chimed in and asked for it also. Bluesound's position is our users don't care about that and we don't want to clutter the display. Amazing how many companies have no idea who their customers are.

 

[SilverEars]

To that point there was a thread on Bluesound forums. I asked if they would show the sample rate and bit depth for all files played over the device including MQA instead of green or blue which just tells you authenticated or generic MQA and not much info for other types. Several guys chimed in and asked for it also. Bluesound's position is our users don't care about that and we don't want to clutter the display. Amazing how many companies have no idea who their customers are.

I guess the market they are targeting is the ones looking for a simple box around the house.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I guess the market they are targeting is the ones looking for a simple box around the house.

I wonder what percent of their customers for node 2i boxes are boom-box kids vs. audiophiles. I have never talked to a non-audiophile who had any idea what bluesound is. On the other hand I guess their "smart speakers" are probably not known to audiophiles...

I think the node 2i hardware is dramatic overkill for people who don't care about quality audio and while it's not high-end gear it's more than most non-serious people are ever going to spend on music gear.

 

[rvalero]

Spotify is probably the most popular in general due to the mainstream. Audiophiles are a pretty niche market segment. We choose based on niche aspect that the general public wouldn't consider. I don't think the general public cares if USB Audio Player Pro does bit-perfect with Tidal or has an in-app parametric EQ. Or does the public care if the stream is going through ios or Android mixer, and thus not bit-perfect stream.

I agree but also Tidal is twice as expensive as spotify and many people enjoy the quality of premium spotify

 

[SilverEars]

I wonder what percent of their customers for node 2i boxes are boom-box kids vs. audiophiles. I have never talked to a non-audiophile who had any idea what bluesound is. On the other hand I guess their "smart speakers" are probably not known to audiophiles...

I think the node 2i hardware is dramatic overkill for people who don't care about quality audio and while it's not high-end gear it's more than most non-serious people are ever going to spend on music gear.

The high-end folks will go for certain expensive brands, and node 2i seems to be more wide range including those looking for a simple box. I'm an audiophile and I don't like these boxes although they serve a specific purpose. I prefer a PC interface, and hate the interfaces on tablets, or custom app interfaces made by these companies. Mac or Windows PC apps have more features and better control IMO.

I demo'd expensive streaming boxes as well, and they were just overpriced placebo crap, and hated the limited control.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I agree but also Tidal is twice as expensive as spotify and many people enjoy the quality of premium spotify

Many people enjoy all kinds of stuff. Spotify is objectively not as good as Tidal, Qobuz, etc. Premium Spotify is streaming lossy music, the other services are streaming lossless. Well, MQA is lossy but you don't have to use it. Anyway, there are reasons to pay for lossless services and there are reasons to use free services.

 

[SilverEars]

I agree but also Tidal is twice as expensive as spotify and many people enjoy the quality of premium spotify

It's better to not pay twice as much (or more) for services if you don't need it (or can't use or don't care of using full potential benefits of). Spotify library is much larger, and it makes sense for most people. There only certain advantages to Tidal, and could be a consideration if one could take advantage of it, and deem it worth of the premium.

 

[buke9]

I have Tidal and Qobuz and Qobuz does sound a bit better for me but just doesn’t have the library of Tidal but does have some that Tidal doesn’t have because of the artist preference but has seemed to change for King Crimson who has for a bit ago has not been on Tidl but now they are. If you have the gear Qobuz sounds fantastic as does Tidal . I don’t have a Spotify Premium account to test it but these 2 sound pretty damn good.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

I love Spotify. It got me back into music. The play lists it creates for me are on point. Music discover is fantastic. My whole family uses it, so the family plan works great for me.

That said, I signed up for a 30-day Tidal trial. I listened critically for several weeks and dozens of hours doing A/B testing. I found Tidal to be slightly better in quality. Maybe 5% across the board. A bit clearer. A bit deeper. A bit fuller across most genres. The MQA does not make as much of a difference than I expected, but that may be due to my DAC not supporting it. I find myself listening to a lot of classical music with Tidal. It has very good playlists as well and it does daily mixes as well.

The clincher was when I found out about the Best buy $99 first year annual plan for Tidal Hifi which renews at $119. I signed up today and ended my trial. I am keeping both Spotify Family and Tidal. I also signed up for Soundizz which is very easy to use. It enables you to sync up your playlists. So, I copied all of my Spotify playlists to Tidal and I even set up a daily sync of the daily mixes it creates for me. If my family wants to leave Spotify, I think I can downgrade to the free version and still synch up the play lists.

 

[intoitreviews]

I use Tidal and Roon for my own library as well.

 

[BusDriver]

Another aspect of Tidal vs Spotify is that Spotify is more popular in a lot of foreign countries. I wouldn't mind paying Tidal for the higher quality format/streaming if not for the fact that I can't find a lot of my favorite Japanese musicians on Tidal. I'm big on "foreign" (relative to the US) music in general.

 

[ColoredVinylSucks]

I don't thinks it's worth the extra cost. I use Spotify premium for previewing music before purchasing the hi-res version, or for just car listening.

 

[DPardon]

For my ears, Tidal was not worth it. I could tell a difference running it through my PC and DAC, but this is solely my experience. I was not going to pay twice the amount for little to no difference in quality. I also find that Spotify's search is better. I searched for Prince on Tidal and could not find him at first. I think it was a search engine mistake, but I do not see that with Spotify. I have only found one error so far in Spotify's catalogue.