About to leave Tidal, but what's next?

M

muteki_no

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Joined
Nov 25, 2024
Messages
8
Hi,

I recently got a Wiim Ultra and after having been an Apple Music subscriber for a few years, I decided togive Tidal a go. The integration with Wiim was good, it offered lossless, the app isn't too bad, but bitperfect playback on Linux is not possible (either limited to 16/44.1 in Firefox or resampled to 24/48 with Chrome) and the last version of the iOS app has introduced a bug when streaming to a DAC where bit depth/sample rate gets stuck (Tidal acknowledged the issue, but as a reply I got "this is Apple's fault, meanwhile download your music to avoid the issue).

Those two limitations and the fact that the customer service confirmed that they have no plans to fix it are enough for me to consider another streaming service, but then again I just see limitations everywhere:
-Spotify: No lossless, so not even considered
-Amazon/Youtube Music: I don't want those companies in my digital life.
-Qobuz: Testing it now. Almost good, but the web player (which is used in Wiim) is missing the "artist radio" button, which I use a lot.
-Deezer: Might be a candidate, but limited to 16/44.1 (Not that I have supersonic ears or ultra high end gear)

So no service checks all the boxes and I guess I will have to end up compromising.
Qobuz might be good, but the lack of artist radio option and the not so good recommendations are a real minus.
Any thoughts on Deezer? Would any of you recommend it?
 
Qobuz! The radio and recommendations aren't great in my limited experience with them (I mostly self-select what I'm going to listen to), but the streaming is great if you have healthy internet, and you'll be supporting a company that pays one of the highest royalty rates to artists.

Edit: I just opened the Qobuz app on my Mac and there's a shuffle button on the artist page. My guess is that that's "artist radio"..?

Edit 2: I tried it with Pink Floyd and it queued up ~12 songs, mostly from The Wall and DSOTM. So it's definitely not "radio", just a playlist of stuff that's probably weighted toward what's popular. Shame.
 
I would try Napster, I just left Qobuz for tidal lol
Qobuz recently removed 3 albums I purchased as in I cannot stream them or redownload them but I can search for them and stream them as a subscriber kinda annoyed me
Qobuz is good quality wise but I would advise not buying albums from them as they may be removed at any point luckily I have a copy on hard drive
About to try Napster myself as it’s the last streaming service I haven’t used
 
Wouldn't you be able to try any of the alternatives on your Linux system and verify if bit-perfect playback is working? At least Qobuz has a free trial.

Personally I was just thinking about switching to Tidal, but it seems to lack integration with Google home/assistant 😶😶
 
Apple music might have the best features if you are in the ecosystem but the integration (apples fault not WiiM) is terrible. I tried tidal and thought the quality wasn’t great. I was really surprised how good Amazon music and Qobuz are. Qobuz’s quality might be the best imho. So far I went with Qobuz.
 
I know you stated you would prefer not to go down the Amazon Music route but in respect to your requirements it would otherwise be a good fit, especially since the LinkPlay devices are in the (still unique, I believe) position of being able to use AlexaCast in hi-res connected straight from the Amazon Music app. It is not perfect, but maybe less imperfect than many alternatives.
 
I use Tidal a lot. Very pleased with the service and has connect functionality.
Could the question maybe asked in this manner:
If bitpefect isn't working properly on Linux or an apple device is Tidal to blame?
 
So far, my son and I are pretty happy with Tidal (still getting used to it from Spotify and Tidal) while my wife has been a little slower to give it a go, despite me paying for a family plan for 2 months now. For some reason, she is still stuck on either Spotify or Pandora free plans, and she was the one who struck down Spotify because she couldn't use Spotify directly from WiiM as she had gotten use to when we had Sonos.

It is a shame that Apple and WiiM can't get it together so that I can use Apple Music natively in WiiM and to simplify billing on my end.
 
I’ve tried out Tidal.
What makes me leave them is the lack of volume control outside the app ( Connect) and the lack of watch-controls and volume.

I know Apple probably stands behind those restrictions but, the conclusion will be the same, Tidal loosing
 
Since it's all about compromise, i think I will settle with Qobuz. I won't have artist radio in the web player and Wiim, but it ticks all the other boxes.
I want to believe that Qobuz Connect is around the corner, which will get it close to all the features I am looking for.
Meanwhile, as someone recommended I might add Roon and check if it's worth it on top of Qobuz.
 
WmB said:
Yeah. That might work. But when you have to have an extra remote or a specific app open is just not good enough

On my old android phone volume even works fine from lockscreen
Click to expand...
Its good enough for me.
Quality from Tidal is very good.
 
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