Qobuz or Apple Music?


Which service do you use?  Are they close in sound quality, or do you prefer one over the other?  

Thank you for your thoughts.

 

 

128x128mikeydee

Showing 1 response by dinosore

As others have pointed out, you can’t get Apple Music on any streaming devices, except maybe the Sonos Port (which is limited to 24/48). In that regard, there are few streaming environments where you can directly compare Apple Lossless and Qobuz. I guess you can stream it from a computer or iPad to your system, but some would argue those methods to be inferior to a dedicated streamer.

I stream Tidal and Qobuz on my home systems, but also have access to Apple Music through my cell phone plan. Through headphones (AQ Nighthawks or Grado 325e and either AQ Dragonfly or iFi DACs) I really cannot discern much of a sound quality difference between all three. But, I admit, I don’t really spend any time doing back-to-back comparisons. I have tried Apple Music via Airplay to my main system. Although Airplay is limited to 16/44, my initial impression is that Airplay didn’t sound as good as my CD player or dedicated streamer. But, again, I haven’t spent a lot of time doing comparisons. I tried it a few times and thought "meh."

That said, I actually like the Apple Music app much better than those of Tidal or Qobuz. I tend to listen to albums versus playlists or individual songs, and Apple does a much better job of categorizing your saved albums.