Tidal, Deezer

Ghosthouse....a few questions as you are very thorough in your knowledge and answers:

1) Why do you have tidal and spotify? Do you find very many tracks on one and not the other...therefore between the two a more complete selection?

2) Do you come across dropped licenses very often in these two services?

3) If I use itunes to develop a library, as I said it can download songs into your storage, what would be a really good metadata for AAC?

Thanks a bunch

easola1 -
Don’t be impressed. I try to be thorough (and accurate) but my technical competency with these things is pretty limited. I had Spotify first. I got used to it. Liked the layout and really like the Browse/Discover function. That introduced me to a lot of new music. I’m sure Tidal has something similar. Spotify also has a high success rate for containing the music I’m looking for. Tidal’s SQ is definitely better (even apart from the MQA files) - I prefer it to that of Spotify but I’m regularly unable to find albums on Tidal that are found on Spotify. I also encounter buffering delays (in the middle of songs, sometimes) with Tidal - especially at night - but never with Spotify. When listening on the main system, Tidal is the "go to" but I use Spotify as backup if an album can’t be found on Tidal to if buffering problems strike.

I do think Spotify’s SQ has improved in the years since I first started subscribing thought I’m sure the experts will tell me that is not the case. Anyway, at $10 a month for the Spotify subscription ($0.33 a day?) it was worth keeping Spotify even after I finally got the Tidal HiFi subscription. With either subscription, a dropped artist license is fairly rare...but it does occasionally happen. Go to play something from the library and find it grayed out, "That track is no longer available" (or words to that effect). Rare and nothing I get too concerned about. Like I said, if a recording is that important to me, I’ll just buy it.

Apart from using the iTunes player, I have nothing to offer on alternatives for managing AAC metadata. Don’t know if Roon does AAC (don’t have it). That should be something easy to learn, however. Good luck in your explorations.

Thank you, this is brand new for me and quite exciting I must say

My whole family uses Tidal a lot.  The sound quality is great and they have a fairly good selection. 
I "off-line" a lot of content.  It is stored on your phone but you need Tidal with a valid subscription to listen.  It's really easy to download music.  When you find a song or album or even a playlist, you will see a little toggle to click to off-line the music.  You can even create a playlist and off-line it.
So, why off-line it?  I download the data via wifi which doesn't use data and is usually faster.  That way when I'm driving or flying I have a library to listen to that doesn't need an internet connection.  And to be honest, Tidal can be quirky and not always get a good connection.  Having music store on my phone helps to avoid interruptions.

Okay Elevick! Well, I guess I can use itunes to build a library. There is one big problem for me. If the files are asc, how do I apply good metadata to the tracks that will give me good cover art? Thank you