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Add to SafariWhen comparing TIDAL vs Amazon Music Unlimited, the Slant community recommends TIDAL for most people. In the question“What are the best music streaming services?” TIDAL is ranked 5th while Amazon Music Unlimited is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose TIDAL is:
The Tidal music streaming service has a maximum streaming quality of 1,411Kbps bit rate with FLAC-formatted lossless files. This is quite an upgrade compared to most music streaming services, which go at about 320Kbps bit rate.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Amazing quality
The Tidal music streaming service has a maximum streaming quality of 1,411Kbps bit rate with FLAC-formatted lossless files. This is quite an upgrade compared to most music streaming services, which go at about 320Kbps bit rate.
Pro Pays artists more
As of March 2018, TIDAL pays the artists 2/3 more than Apple Music and 3 times more than Spotify, for an equivalent catalog and subscription price. (40M songs on TIDAL and Apple Music vs. 30M on Spotify, $9.99/mo for all 3). Napster is the only service that pays the artists more than TIDAL.
Pro Discounted student subscription
Tidal offers a 50% discount on monthly subscriptions for students with a valid university email account.
Pro Awsome desktop app
Pro Built-in audio search
The Tidal music streaming service mobile app has a built-in audio search, similar to Shazaam and Soundhound.
Pro Military/veteran discount a BIG plus
Pro Get one-month free Hi-Fi (FLAC, 24-bit music)
Almost all if not most songs are 24-bit FLAC files, "Master" is an ever higher quality
Pro Possible to transfer purchased music between devices with no limitations
Purchased music can be downloaded and transfered to other music players/file storage devices.
Pro Discount for prime customers
Prime customers get a discount on the service.
Pro Great web app
This service's web app works really well.
Pro Supports uploading custom tracks
Upload your own music files with the option to buy more storage if you have more than the limit.
Pro Great recommendations
The built-in recommendations feature is great, since it uses both content purchased from Amazon and streamed music to calculate new suggestions.
Pro Mobile applications available
Mobile applications for Android and iOS.
Pro Desktop client
Desktop client for Mac and Windows.
Cons
Con Songs may take some time to load
the Tidal music streaming service may take up to 10 seconds of buffering to load and play a song, sometimes even stopping a song mid-way to buffer.
Con No free tier
The Tidal music streaming service has no free tier available. Only a 7-day trial. While the trial is helpful for learning what the service has to offer, it may not allow for a complete picture due to the time limit.
Con Offline isn’t offline and mobile data is consumed in one song
Con Hi-FI Can be expensive for some
Con Android App frequently crashes
The Android App for Amazon Music crashes frequently, especially when you leave it in the background.
Con Rips artists off
Amazon pays artists even less than Spotify! Per count, as of march 2018 Amazon paid $0.0040, Spotify $0.0044, Apple Music $0.0074 and Tidal $0.0125.
Con Clunky desktop app
This service's desktop app is clunky and nowhere near as nice as its web client.
