I have to admit I broke down and purchased a 5G phone for my self just to get a smoother better lossless streaming experince in my car lol
I need to get myself a very straight forward 24/96bit dac for the car now too, my little UCA202 only does 24/48 but I’m enjoying Qobuz still! Have the time I just listen to what ever they have as “new” and I’m disocvering music that way lol
I’d likely pass on RP tho as I imagine it’s browser based and I prefer either Amazon on Desktop with lame’o direct sound lol [I have it manually set to 24/192 with win10] and then stricly UAPP streaming on android
Still it sounds like quite a cool service, I also need to get myself the NPR Radio app I really enjoy their content. Hopefully more main stream radio stations will start to offer a mirror’d online service with a lossless option!
I find that V-shaped frequency responses (however one arrives at them) are best suited to car listening unless the cabin is SUPER quiet. The boosted bass and treble seem to compensate for all the road and wind noises while driving.
Ehh not quite for me, I usually turn the bass WAY down. The car has a nice enough sub I can feel it but the woofers are too mid bass heavy, so I de emphasize them
With 2020 approaching I am sure we will see who the best companies are for streaming lossless in the new year and if some will continue to be in business… interesting read,
Yeah, I honestly haven’t been able to bring myself to try Tidal even after hearing so many good things about it simply because of Jay Z, Kanye, and other “artist owners” involvement and the constant rumble of them going out of business. They were giving away $250 headphones a few weeks ago if you signed up for a year now it’s $5 for 5 months… sounds like they are desperate for new subscribers, something seems off. My spidey senses are going off…
Really? I’m impressed by Tidal’s FLAC 24/192 quality. When you say Qobuz has better quality streams do you mean it has more hi-res content or do you mean that it somehow have higher quality than 24/192 (for example)?
@Torq answered better than I could I use Spotify premium for music discovery and non analytical on the go listening. I use Qobuz when I want the best sound possible on my higher end audio chains and for review/analytical purposes…
Ah, I see. I could have sworn I read that they had FLAC files for the Masters quality. Is there an easy way on a Mac to see what bit depth and sample rate are used? You can set Tidal to Exclusive Mode (which I guess is ASIO) and pass through MQA.
MQA (“Master” quality) encoded files are stored/streamed as FLAC.
Their native bit-rate is still only 16-24/44.1-48 kHz. MQA first-stage unfolding gets you to 24/88.2 or 24/96 kHz. Anything beyond that needs an MQA DAC and is just upsampling anyway (no additional musical information/data).
If you want to see the native bit-rate of an MQA/Master-quality file you’ll need to use something other than the Tidal client. Both Audirvana and Roon show the actual source bit depth/rate, as well as the decoded MQA depth and rate.
But the short version is that Qobuz has true hi-res files, and Tidal has MQA, which is a hybrid lossless/lossy format, encoded as PCM and stored as FLAC, with the lossless portion being roughly 13-15 bit/44.1-48 kHz, and the lossy portion being anything above that.
They have true hi-res content up to 24/192, all PCM.
Qobuz have almost finished filling out their catalog in the US. I believe they’re within 1 million tracks or so of Tidal in terms of numbers. However, each service has different content … so even when the numbers are at parity, there will still be differences in the content available on each service (one reason why I use both of them).
Do the trial for Qobuz too, they have a special now. Having both of them you can do an A-B test and heard the difference, I do agree Qobuz sound better, but the limited catalog is also true. Depending on your music preferences, maybe is enough.
Thanks @Torq for such a masterful explanation!!
I responded to that Tidal promo…will give it a go for 5 months…I happily accept offers from wealthy investors with money to burn! There is no loss to end users if they close, and they do have a chance of getting my long-term business. After a free trial, I’ve stuck with Google Music/no-ad YouTube for a long time.
More broadly, I’m receiving many free streaming offers right now. These include Apple TV+, Disney, etc., etc. The new offers follow a 12 month “free” Netflix deal where I realized that they produce 95% garbage. I. Did. Not. Renew. It seems there is a mad rush to compete with the Netflix model. Prices will fall. Many vendors will likely disappear. Enjoy the transition period.
I use Spotify premium for music discovery and non analytical on the go listening. I use Qobuz when I want the best sound possible on my higher end audio chains and for review/analytical purposes…
