About a year ago I changed to Tidal, from Spotify, but I still use Spotify for podcasts. The primary reason as to why I switched to Tidal is the bitrate (I went for their at the time HiFi 1XXX bitrate subscribtion as a student). I had just gotten my Sony WH-1000XM5 at the time, but I often find myself wondering why in the world Tidal does not have certain songs, altough their libary is huge I've never had this problem with Spotify before. So my question is whether or not Tidal is actually better in terms of audio quality when listening though Sony WH-1000XM5, or the Sony Linkbuds-S

Do you hear that Tidal (Hifi) has better music stream quality (higher bit rate) than Spotify (Premium) and can you give an example song?

Hello everyone. I have Spotify and i'm willing to chance to Tidal. Is the Quality of sound better? I do see when i play songs "low" / "high" / MAX.

Hi, I have been streaming same tracks on Tidal and Spotify since today and it's looking like Spotify is sounding a little bit better than Tidal. Is it my ears or is there something I am missing? Anyone experiencing same?

i just started tidal's free 1 month trial because I've been getting so tired of spotify's bull over the past few years. (the increased focus on AI, this year's awful wrapped, all the typical corporate stuff, premium getting more expensive every year, etc)

I can't really find any good pros other than it's not spotify. with tidal, as far as I know, you can't change your playlist covers, you can't add a pfp unless you have one of 3 apps I don't ever intend on getting, the mechanism of adding songs to playlists is more time consuming than it should be, etc.

i REALLY want to like this app. i'm looking for good music apps other than spotify or apple music, but I keep running into things on tidal that would be a downgrade from spotify. if i'm paying about the same each month, it's gotta be better overall.

are there any features tidal offers that set it apart from and above spotify? if so, what are they?

Edit: for context, I don't have any quality sound systems -- my crappy bluetooth earbuds recently broke so i've been stuck with wired, my car's sound system is abysmal, and I don't have headphones. good quality sound is REALLY nice, but I don't currently have access to a way to benefit from that feature.

Alright guys I have started a few threads now describing that I'm new to Tidal and still in the comparison stage to Spotify which I'll always keep as here in New Zealand it's essentially free if you have a mobile phone and plan. I'm still on the fence so i thought this thread would be about you describing your experience and why you prefer Tidal to the likes of Spotify. If you guys could list a song or a number of songs you have compared between both services and found Tidal to be noticable better and then if you could also describe the differences you notice that would be very helpful.

I'll go first with one track that I heard last night that kind of blew me away and that was the song: At last by Etta James. Both the same album so same version, on Tidal being master quality and Spotify regular however the sound difference was quite large. Much more difference than other masters on Tidal vs Spotify. The orchestra on Tidal was fuller sounding, her vocals sounded so much more rich and had more energy. It was definitely something that shocked me so I'm curious as to your guys experience?

I’ve used Spotify forever but since joining this sub and others like it I’ve read a lot about how Apple Music and Tidal have way higher audio quality. I don’t have a fancy setup at all, I use the wired earbuds that come with iPhones and have edifier bookshelf speakers at home for my vinyls. Is it worth it to switch to Apple Music or tidal with this equipment? I’d have to convince my entire family to switch to the family plans of either service so if it’s not a noticeable difference I’ll wait until I have a higher quality system and can get one of them for myself

I used to use Spotify until around April this year when I thought I'd give Tidal a try with their free trial on the Hifi+ tier subscription and I haven't looked back. It may cost twice as much as Spotify but the quality is second to none so I'm just curious what you guys prefer using to stream music.

I know you get cd level sound quality but I’ve heard the app is quite glitchy, also Spotifys recommendations are what have formed about 90% of my music taste so idk if tidals recommendations are as good. Can someone help me decide?

Update: I got the tidal free trial to try it out and while the quality was slightly better, I soon realised that there was no (free) way to transfer my (multiple) playlists with over 700 tracks, so looks like I’ll be staying with Spotify for now. Thanks for all the replies

UPDATE UPDATE: Bro wth it’s been like ten minutes I went back to Spotify and it’s literally unlistenable now what is this sorcery. Tidal it is. Just a little quieter than Spotify is all

I have two Questions.

First is there a difference in sound quality that I notice even if I’m not an audiophile?

Second is the algorithm nearly as good as Spotify’s.

Example: When I create a Spotify playlist it shows me right under it songs that match with the playlist. The success rate that I like these songs is somewhat 20%.

I've been sitting here listening to various songs and genres across both services, making sure I was only checking out songs that were available in max sound quality on tidal.

I really can't tell a difference. Is it because the gear I'm using is not high end enough, or is this common? I'm just using a HD560s with no dac/amp, I have equalized it though.

Just me?

Even with my Bluetooth earbuds and compressed audio I can hear the difference, everything is less mushed together and the sound just feels so much more substantial, can't wait to try it tonight with my wired headphones

I always just stayed on Spotify for convenience sake but even that is gone now, it's just an ad plastered social media app with a maximum of 3 artists that get auto played on it.

I see a lot of complaining on this reddit so just wanted to post a positive post saying that I love the service, it's so clean and smooth

Hello there, fellow Redditers, I keep seeing folks talk about the audio quality of Tidal versus Spotify, I would like those who have it to give some detailed input on the quality of basic tidal versus Spotify, and if you do have the hifi, is the hifi enough better to warrant the extra cost? Do you have to have an impressive audio setup to notice it? I listen on a decent pair of headphones from China, care of Amazon, actually decent sound quality for their price range tho. I the car on stock speakers, and on an okay sound at a polk signal S4, which has significantly better sound quality than anything else I use but probably still is what it is. Not a hardcore receiver and speaker setup and no fancy headphone, tho looking around for them in reviews and hoping to get some black Friday

I just got a Tidal membership for the first time yesterday and was immediately surprised when I shuffled Nine Inch Nails and the first few tracks to pop up were remixes or non-singles. Mixes seem to have a much more "This is the song you will like" feel, as opposed to "This is the song you SHOULD like, based on our algorithm's interpretation of one billion people's opinion."

I've only had the subscription for a day, so maybe I'm missing something, but it makes me wonder who services are FOR. Personally, I'm thrilled. This style of curation is very much up my alley. I got really tired of Spotify assuming I wanted to (sticking with NIN here) listen to "Closer" or "The Hand that Feeds" for the thousandth time. I want to encounter new and surprising tracks by artists I already know really well.

What do you look for when you go into an unknown listening experience? Familiar bops or uncharted territory? Why would the two services take such different approaches?

(Spotify, Tidal or other)

I am thinking of changing from spotify after the increase in ai support and the fact that they don't support artists that well. I'm not great with change and really struggle changing anything that I'm used to but Tidal seems almost exactly like spotify but better in every way from the research I've done. It almost seems too good to be true. Is there any disadvantages to it? How quickly do new releases come on the platform? How wide a range of a discography does it have? I enjoy finding niche artists will they be on there? Are there any features spotify has that tidal doesn't that you missed (if you used it) or had to get used to when you changed?

I've heard that the way spotify recommends music is the best, how is this the case? In what ways do they excel?

I'm on the HiFi Plus tier and I can't help but notice that even when I'm listening to music with my Bluetooth earbuds, the music still sounds better than Spotify whenever I do a side by side comparison.

I know many will say it's placebo but no, this is real. Spotify sounds very muddy in comparison to Tidal's HiFi and Master tracks.

Been a longtime Spotify user, and just recently decided to sign up to the Tidal HiFi plan with my student discount after taking sound quality a bit more serious.

Right now, I am torn between both. With Spotify, the algorithms for daily mixes are on point. My question is from your experience, how are your daily mixes with Tidal music? Forget Apple Music, algorithms for that are utter trash.

I still have three weeks left with Tidal, and so far the suggestions are decent, most likely because I need to use it more in order for it to learn my hip hop r&b taste.

What’s your honest experience like?

I’ve been testing Spotify’s new Lossless tier against Tidal over the last few days. This review is purely about sound quality, not the ethics, payouts, or anything else.

I listened across a mix of genres (electronic, rock, blues, jazz, indie) and carefully matched volume between the two. Honestly, they sound identical to my ears. I could not pick out any noticeable differences switching back and forth.

So if you are only considering audio quality, Spotify’s Lossless holds up just fine against Tidal. At that point it really comes down to which ecosystem or features you prefer.