I would happily pay the full price just to NOT have to buy a PopSmoke Rap LP 
The offer kind of tells you who their target audience is though ( if it wasn’t obvious enough from their home page).
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Tidal must be remembered as the pioneers of the HiFi streaming…and it is true that if you like playing Rap songs, then Tidal is a better choice than Qobuz…if you like Scandinavian jazz…then Qobuz, I don’t know for Austrian folk Jodler 
Strangely there is an answer. Qobuz runs a different catalogue of titles for each country that it is available in. This allows quite a lot of local content to be available on the server for that territory. There is Qobuz Austria and so there is a strong possibility that jodelling recordings will be available. But only if you subscribe to the version for that territory.
I can indeed remember the early days of Tidal when it was owned by Aspiro. Totally inadequate for classical music enthusiasts like me. Most of the repertoire they had was session stuff I guess originated for publisher’s libraries and with performers under assumed/invented names such as (I can’t remember so I am making these up just to give a flavour) the Norwich Philharmonic or the Black Forest Symphony Orchestra. That kind of thing. I do, however recall meeting with the Aspiro guys and the Meridian/MQA guys in January 2015 just after the launch of MQA and even then they were pretty committed to going with MQA for higher resolution. The desktop player supporting it took a fair time to develop however.
Qobuz is well known for classical music fans…I was looking for Dunedin Consort recordings…on Qobuz…almost nothing…when they have all of them on Tidal…so, it seems that Jay Z doesn’t listen to Beyoncé only
One thing that is questionable is whether or not all albums on Tidal are strictly legit. Most ( all?) of the Dunedin Consort recordings are on Linn Records. AFIK Linn does not authorise streaming of their repertoire aside from their own Linn Radio streams.
I have downloaded from HD tracks 24/96 files (also available as 192kHz, but at a time of download my dac wasnt supporting 192kHz) and found recently exactly the same one on Tidal Masters MQA 24/192. I liked 24/96 more by a huge margin. Sound was cleaner, LF was more tight. MQA version was a bit grainy, mushy. There is a small chance we compare different mastering versions.
More than a small chance, I would say.
Some weeks ago I posted a link to the Audiophile Style interview with dCS. Now there is an interview with Qobuz . It is very interesting concerning Qobuz’ history, its mission, how it functions and it also touches on controversial subjects like artists’ payments. Recommended:
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Thanks Pete!
I have had a recurring thought about leaving Tidal, particularly due to the onslaught of Rap and Hip-Hop albums that I have to wade through.
But I have a military discount subscription to Tidal HiFi, which is pretty hard to beat.
It’s odd that I see many more hip hop/rap titles when looking at Tidal via Roon. If I open up the Tidal app I am presented with items consistent with what I have listened to or tagged within Tidal on Roon.
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The presentation of options is entirely different between the Tidal app, and Tidal in Roon for me. There is still plenty of Rap and Hip-Hop getting in the way.
I agree on the different presentations. In the Tidal app I seldom am presented with Rap or Hip Hop. Now If I could only get rid of Jazz suggestions.
Agree. I am of a similar view and may just opt out of Tidal hi-fi.
As Tidal has started Tidal Max, I wanted to fuel the conversation on this topic.
In case some of you are interested in the family subscription on both services you should know there is a big difference between Qobuz and Tidal.
With the later you can share the subscription with family members not living in the same country. With Qobuz the family must live in the same country…For some of you that might be useful info.
Yes that is worth pointing out. However there is a very good reason. Tidal is a music streaming service. Qobuz is a download vendor which also has a streaming service. That is it has a different business model. Qobuz originally (and before the current owners) was downloads only limited to France.
The big issue is that sales of recordings are territorially restricted by the record labels and publishers, often with different owners of the same repertoire in different countries. This affects availability and revenue distribution and is why Qobuz serves individual territories with different databases.
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I’m sure I’m not the only one here, but this was never an either/or decision for me.
The catalogues are different enough that the extra cost is worth it for me. These subscription services aren’t megabucks like some of the rest of our gear. I get more pleasure from an otherwise unavailable album than I do from adding $10k of tweaks or a new component. Sometimes I get to treat myself and do both, but if one had to go it would be the system upgrades, not access to thousands of albums via the internet’s 1s and 0s.
I wonder how much of that was money laundering? Not surprisingly they won’t say but even their public admission that it was an issue is proof enough that it was “significant”.
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