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

Thanks, Portland.  You reminded me and now that you mention it I do recall downloading Tidal back when I first trialled it.  At that time, I was streaming Spotify & Tidal and playing ALAC ripped CDs via USB out of the MacBook.   Got rid of Tidal when I cancelled the trial subscription because I couldn't hear a major diff. between it & Spotify (similar decision process as what Loomisjohnson reports).  More recently, got an Aries Mini that came with a Tidal subscription.  With this I can hear more of a difference between the two services but still think it's not huge; i.e.,  listening on the main system to Spotify doesn't leave me pining for Tidal.  I still use the MacBook as a source for headphone listening at night.  I wonder if having Tidal on the desktop would eliminate some of the buffering delays I encounter when playing from the Tidal site via Google Chrome.  Okay.  Thanks again for your reminder.  

Ghosthouse, I have not had any buffering at all during my trial.  So maybe the download is better for that?  I am not sure.

I am pretty sure I cannot hear a difference with Spotify and Tidal on my Mac and iPhone.  But I wonder if I bluetooth stream a Tidal download vs Spotify download in the car if I will?  Right now Tidal via bluetooth in the car is pretty good but Pandora is way worse.

Anyone here compare to Deezer Premium? I've been using it the past month. It's cheaper than Tidal HiFi and the SQ is pretty good but haven't compared to the others.

Back to the NPR tracks. Using my iPhone, and $50 headphones or my Mac with these headphones left me guessing and I only got a couple of them right and picked the 128 twice!

At 48 I guess my hearing is not as good as it used to be. Having said that, I could hear some differences and I think my expectations were wrong. Since I don’t remember which is which I may try again and I may also try it through a real system.

The things I was trying to key in on were space between instruments, flattened sound, harmonics, lack of extension.

None of it panned out. I do think that perhaps and that is a perhaps is that the 128 sounds a bit more rolled off and that would make sense. But the unexpected part is I kind of like what seemed like a midrange emphasis.

Spotify is clearly enough for my phone, computer, car listening.

I do wonder if adding a DAC like a Dragonfly would change this outcome?

Portland - I can't say whether a Dragonfly would change the outcome for you.  It did not for me.  Regardless, it's a nice "add on" for laptop/headphone listening and does improve the sound.  At $100 for the latest version of the black and 30 day return with Audio Advisor, worth checking out.