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Add to SafariWhen comparing Qobuz vs TIDAL, the Slant community recommends TIDAL for most people. In the question“What are the best music streaming services?” TIDAL is ranked 5th while Qobuz is ranked 9th. 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 High quality streaming
Music streams at 16 bit, 44.4 khz, Flac, CD Quality. Also, high-res is available.
Pro High quality (CD+) streams; subscribers gain access to booklet, when available
Metadata, while better than many, still can't compete with physical media. New to N.A. at the time of this review so there are still some gaps in their catalog.
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
Cons
Con Officially available in a limited number of countries
Qobuz is only officially available in 10 countries (which does not include Canada and the US). You can use a VPN in order to pay for the service in an unsupported country. Some users have mentioned success with contacting the country and being added manually (you can read more here).
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
