[MikeW]

So I'll try to wrap this up briefly and I want some opinions.

I had been a long time subscriber of tidal, a little over 2 years, and I cancelled my sub. About 6 months later I receive an E-Mail that says "Try us again, we've changed, here's another trial on us" this email had pictures and marketing explaining their new features.

I thought oh that's cool, and about a month passed, I had some time on my hands so decided i'd take them up on the offer. I logged in to my Tidal account, and re-activated, thinking the account had been "Flagged" for a free month. This is not an unreasonable expectation, as there was no special offer code, no expiration, and no special link to follow in the email promotion.

I was immediately charged for a month of service, with my previously on-file Pay Pal account. I was a bit annoyed by this, and sent a request to tech support for assistance. I explained the situation clearly, and attached a PDF of the email promotion. This was done within 2 hours of being charged.

The customer support just flat out refused to help AT all. They had their money and that was that. I was absolutely floored by the response. We went back and foruth for several emails, escalations and I eventually even tried to get my money back from Pay Pal, which also summarily dismissed and refused to help.

I have spent over 500$ with tidal over the years, odds are good i'd have stayed subbed for months/years after my "Free trial". However im completely done with Tidal now, and will never use their service again. Im also extremely irritated with Pay Pal, and will use them alot less now. I used to use Pay Pal all the time out of convenience, no more. Not unless there is no other choice. They clearly don't have the end user's interest in mind.

I could have filed a Charge back request with my Credit card company, and I know that would have been granted swiftly and without much fuss. I don't like doing that though, especially for 20$ and in a situation were I know, no security breach has occurred. So congratulations Tidal, you've lost hundreds of dollars in income to keep your 20 bucks. Good riddance.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Tidal has great sounding music, frustrating UI, buggy as hell, support is outrageously bad.

 

[Amberlamps]

This is how good tidal support is.

I had a problem with streaming it on my iphone using 4g, I ask tidal support w.t.f was up and daniel replied, "reset your router, that should fix the problem".

The one good thing that came out of that escapade was......I moved to qobuz.

 

[MikeW]

The lack of ASIO support was pushing me out the door anyways, but that customer service fiasco was insane. My DAC don't like Wasapi, so I need programs that support ASIO. Qobuz is no problem, and I can stream tidal though Audirvana, but i've not yet purchased that and don't know if Im going to. (on PC), trialing it now, and it's great for the fact that it "fixes" asio with tidal, and I kinda like the clean, simple interface and ability to merge Streaming and local content. Im done with Tidal though, my forced membership ends on 10/5 and I have no intention of ever giving them another dime, Qobuz as mentioned already supports asio, so the value proposition of Audirvana is lower.

Probably end up sticking with Music Bee (recently switched to this from Foobar) and Qobuz native app. Im curious about Roon, but they are awefully proud of that Metadata. Tough sell, if the price was more sane, i'd seriously consider it. I'd much rather throw 500 bucks at some end game can's though, my setup is pretty good but my HD650's are probably the weak link, at this point (Rme ADI-2 Dac /w Liquid Platinum)

There's always the chance that Amazon music will fix their App and include exclusive mode in the windows software, this also would not be supported by Audirvana, again giving me pause.

 

[squishware]

I love Audirvana and Tidal (so far).

 

[gimmeheadroom]

The lack of ASIO support was pushing me out the door anyways

I don't understand this comment. Tidal is able to use any of my DAC drivers, I think I have 3 installed on the system I use Tidal with. The problem I have is with Deezer, they use the Windows audio stack and don't see any DAC drivers at all.

It's amazing how good Deezer sounds even with what would seem to be a huge shortcoming. Quboz is not available here.

 

[eugenius]

If you care about how much money reaches the artist, Napster pays by far the best rate per stream.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

If you care about how much money reaches the artist, Napster pays by far the best rate per stream.

Well, most of the music I listen to the artists are all dead from heroin overdoses. So I'm more concerned about how much I have to pay vs. what I get for it. But seriously I think what you wrote does matter and supporting music you like by keeping the artists alive is worthy. The only thing is, I am pretty sure they have to negotiate whatever deals they can and I'm not sure you can generalize.

 

[eugenius]

Consumers with a heart of gold, place your capital !

The rate each streaming service pays for a listen and how many plays an artist needs to make the US minimum wage (updated for early 2019), taken from Digital Music News.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

What, no Quboz?

Good to know my Tidal fee is not totally wasted on their customer service team and UI developers