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On mid-fi do you hear much difference between Tidal and Spotify

If you are using Spotify paid membership and using the 320kbps vs Tidal streaming? I am mostly listening (wired) in my car and headphone with my iPhone and MacBook.

Since the services are very similar I wondered if it is worth the $20 for Tidal HiFi vs $10 for Spotify. Or similarly Tidal Premium at 320kbps at $10.

Thoughts?
portlandlay
portlandlay OP
62 posts
 
Thank you so much.  I download the Tidal Software on the Mac so I am the browser does not matter in that case.

I appreciate the information.  I have not played extensively with either but I a getting used to the Tidal interface on iOS and my mac.

I can tell you that even bluetooth from my phone with Tidal downloads and Pandora at its best is night and day.  Pandora is mostly horrible.  Plugging in with Tidal is CD equivalent to my ears.
gdnrbob
4,409 posts
 
Pandora needs to up the streaming rate, that's for sure.
Spotify premium isn't bad. Compared to Tidal, it is a close second. There has been some noise about Spotify moving to higher streaming rates recently. If so, it will probably knock Tidal back a bit.
Believe me, I want Tidal to be a player, but the selection on non-current genres is lacking. And, I'm not a hiphop fan, unfortunately.
bob
nycjlee
286 posts
 
For me I would put Apple Music second and Spotify and close 3rd.  Would gladly move to Spotify lossless service as long as Aurender supports it.  Unfortunatly, I'm committed to Aurender hardware and right now they only support Tidal and Qobuz 
jyprez's avatar
jyprez
241 posts
 

I have subscriptions to Pandora, Spotify and Tidal HIFI. Tidal (HIFI only)  is WAY better in sound quality than the other two, no contest. I have the others because, Pandora has  a better random selection of music when I just want to listen to background jazz in a particular style through my Sonos player, Spotify was what my kids said I should get (it has the best selection of stuff the young set wants) and it does give a better selection of exercise music for the gym but the sound quality sucks (kids don't care).

chrisr's avatar
chrisr
541 posts
 
I have never heard tidal, but spotify is ok on earbuds/cellphone, can be ok on a stereo but it depends on the time of day in my experience;. I have a membership and sometimes, usually friday evenings and saturdays, i have to switch to pandora because spotify streams at 64kbps or less.  It is very rare when it sounds actually decent.

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