Rant: Why I Now Love TIDAL
Tidal cleaned itself and is making a comeback.
It’s no secret that I’ve been a Roon user for a few years now. But up until recently I’ve been almost exclusively pairing my Roon subscription with Qobuz with Tidal as a backup for anything missing from the Qobuz service.
Up until recently I never really considered using Tidal as a main service. That was mostly because of its reliance on MQA for Hi-Res audio. As an audio enthusiast, the one thing I definitely didn’t care for is the relatively questionable history behind the format. It’s a "trust me, bro, it’s better" format. I get the sentiment, especially when it rolled out on Tidal in the mid-2010s. The mobile boom was there and Tidal wanted to offer Hi-Res audio without murdering your data plan. There was also the problem of mobile data speeds.
But we’re now in the age of 5G and high-speed cellular networks and the era where most music streaming services are offering true Hi-Res audio without having to use compression tricks. The aforementioned Qobuz and Amazon Music offer Hi-Res in the FLAC container and Apple Music offers it with its own ALAC container (FLAC, but optimized for Apple devices). Spotify says Hi-Res audio is coming soon™, but it announced that back in 2021 and we’re still waiting.
So that brings me back to Tidal. In the summer of last year, the company announced that it would be working towards replacing its library with Hi-Res audio in the FLAC format. And while it missed its deadline, the company has made significant progress in bringing a vast majority of its catalog over to Hi-Res FLAC from MQA. It’s a huge undertaking and along with this change, Tidal is also working hard with its partners to bring Hi-Res FLAC via Tidal Connect.
But outside of the move to Hi-Res FLAC, Tidal seems to be improving its service at a rapid pace and I think it’s time for a lot of audio enthusiasts and even some mainstream folks to reconsider Tidal. And to be completely honest, I’ve been wanting to do a write up on Tidal for a few months now. Especially right now with all of the changes the company has made to improve its service.
So without further ado, here are my thoughts on the current state of Tidal.
Hi-Res FLAC and The Slow MQA Death
Let me start there. Over the past few months, I’ve been slowly but surely shifting my library from Qobuz to Tidal. Whatever is available in Hi-Res FLAC on Tidal gets removed from my Qobuz library. And whatever’s not, remains in Qobuz in the meantime.
Somewhat ironically, the majority of what’s left of my Qobuz library is all CD-quality (16-bit, 44.1 kHz) or 24-bit. 44.1 kHz songs or albums. Almost everything that’s in 48 kHz or higher has been replaced by its Tidal counterpart. This isn’t all too surprising as Tidal made a deal with Warner Music Group several years ago to mass convert a lot of its CD-quality catalog to MQA. Now, the company needs to slowly but surely reverse course and replace all of those with standard CD-quality files.
From my perspective in replacing my Qobuz library with its equal Tidal counterparts, the company seems to be working from Hi-Res down, starting with higher sample rates moving downward. So it’s only a matter of time before the company starts working on pulling out its CD-quality MQA files in favor of standard FLAC files.
The only reason I started migrating is because Roon implemented support for Hi-Res FLAC through Tidal a few months back. With Roon, you’re able to decipher the file quality without needing to play the file first (looking at you Tidal, with your vague Max tag, which indicates Hi-Res FLAC or MQA). The best thing about Roon, and this has always been the case, is that you can specifically select which version of an album you want. Still prefer MQA? As long as Tidal still has it, you can play it. For me, it’s a great tool because some CD-quality files on Tidal already have a CD-quality file but Tidal is still keeping the MQA file. In the Tidal app, these will play as MQA. But I can specifically choose to add the CD-quality version in Roon and it’ll never play the MQA version.
I know some users are still waiting on their favorite streamer or platform to update to Tidal’s latest API that enables Hi-Res FLAC. For those users, I get it. You’re currently stuck with MQA only (for better or for worse). It’s a transitional period and will take some time to get situated.
Weekly Updates
A pleasant change to Tidal’s strategy recently is that the company is committed to rolling out weekly updates to its apps. This goes hand-in-hand with the fact that the company is constantly listening to user feedback. For example, Tidal has already made several changes to the home page within the app, giving users more flexibility in terms of what’s shown and what’s not. The core Tidal applications are extremely stable and a joy to use when I’m not using Tidal within the Roon experience.
As of recently, Tidal rolled out a feature that lets you share a Tidal link with non-Tidal users directly within the app. Now, when you share a link from within Tidal, it’ll give options to open the track or album in Tidal, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, or Amazon Music. This is completely transparent to the user but makes it great for everyone else. I’ve been using song.link and album.link on my blog since the start and now I might just switch to using Tidal links instead.
I will say though, that while they remain committed to updating their core apps on a weekly basis (phone, tablet, and computer apps), the company’s other applications need an overhaul. Tidal’s smartwatch and television apps, for example, are very outdated. For example, the TV app seems to be centered around music videos and makes it very difficult to access your music library. Its smartwatch app doesn’t allow for search, forcing you to only play stuff that’s already in your library. It’d also be cool if they’d support smart speakers as well. Tidal Connect covers most traditional setups but totally misses out in the smart speaker space.
It Has The Features (But Needs To Update Them)
Despite what people think, Tidal has most of the features the big streaming services have. Tidal Connect isn’t as good as Spotify Connect in terms of multi-room audio, but it lets your current Tidal device become a remote control for your other audio devices. Of course, I use Roon, which has its own protocol and multi-room audio system. But that only works at home. On the go, it’s nice to have an avenue for bit-perfect audio.
Tidal also has support for music videos (something that’s new to Spotify as of 2024!), lyrics, pre-save/add, and animated artwork. I think the main problem with these features is that they went under the radar for the company for a long time (and arguably still do). It’s one of those areas that I’m hoping gets better but it’ll be in the long-term future since these aren’t tentpole features.
Of course, the biggest selling point of Tidal since the beginning is lossless audio. Tidal was one of the first music streaming services to offer lossless audio. And even now, the world’s biggest music streaming service still says lossless audio is "coming soon" and has been for over 3 years now. But it works the other way around, too. Tidal had MQA for the longest time and now that all of the other Hi-Res services are pushing FLAC in some form, Tidal is now moving away from MQA as well. Needless to say, competition is good.
Improving Algorithms
When I first tried using Tidal a number of years ago it would constantly recommend me hip-hop/rap content despite having very little music from those genres. It’s what initially turned me away from the service and then, of course, MQA came along and that solidified my dissatisfaction with the service.
But nowadays I find Tidal’s personalized album and track recommendations to be insanely good. The recommendations are certainly better than Qobuz (non-existent), Deezer, and Apple Music in my experience. I love firing up the Tidal app from time to time and looking at what it recommends to me. It’s not perfect, but 8 times out of 10, I end up loving what it recommends. For those, I have to actually fire up the Tidal app because personalized recommendations don’t show up in Roon, especially for new releases.
The best way to put it: if you like playlists then Spotify is for you. I’m not a playlist listener by any stretch of the imagination, so Tidal’s approach to discovery works much better for me.
Price Drop
On top of all of that, there’s the price drop. Tidal for the longest time was the most expensive music streaming service out there for its premium offering, coming in at $19.99/mo for one user. Of course, with Apple, then Amazon coming in with Lossless, Hi-Res, and Dolby Atmos audio coming at much less, Tidal was a much tougher sell.
Thankfully, now, starting early next month, Tidal will join the rest of the industry, with its top offering now being $10.99/mo. That includes Hi-Res audio, Dolby Atmos, 360 Audio, and MQA. That makes it much more compelling to more casual users.
And for audio enthusiasts as myself who practically pay for every music streaming service under the sun, it saves us $9 a month and might even convince some to either drop a different streaming service now or pick up Tidal at the lower cost.
For me, as I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m going to continue paying for both Tidal and Qobuz until Tidal can really move the vast majority of its catalog away from MQA and onto pure FLAC. Or, at least enough where I can feasibly replace the small amount of MQA in my library with local FLAC files without taking up too much space on my NAS.
Conclusion
It’s not much, but I have more faith than ever before in Tidal. It made mistakes in the past but is clearly trying to right those wrongs. It’s a process that’ll probably span the next few years. But as someone who hard swore off Tidal years ago for its stupid decisions, I am now a Tidal defender.
Compared to others, Spotify is in a world of its own. Spotify does whatever it wants and users have to deal with it. It’ll do everything but launch Hi-Fi at this point. It’s also a closed ecosystem despite Spotify Connect. Every company is different but Spotify won’t allow you to effectively build a third-party Spotify client, bypassing its own app.
Apple and Amazon Music are also closed ecosystems. Neither wants to work with other platforms or vendors (or very few, with the exception of Sonos. And bluOS in Amazon’s case), forcing you into their own apps for the most part.
Tidal seems to be open and willing to work with effectively anybody. It has its own connect service similar to Spotify. But Tidal is willing to give up control and allow third-party developers to build their own experiences while effectively using Tidal only as a service (aka Roon, Audrivana, and Plexamp).
Tidal’s first-party app is also relatively simple yet intuitive. It doesn’t try and force podcasts or anything else on you. It’s just a music player and that’s what I love about it (looking at you Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music). No hate to any of those apps, but it would be very nice if you could disable podcasts within those apps and make it a pure music app. Is this my, "Old man yelling at cloud" moment? Probably. But when I want music, I just want music and nothing else.
But it’s tough. Tidal isn’t all the way there yet, but the company’s actions speak louder than words. Sure, Tidal’s library has room to grow compared to Spotify and Apple Music (and honestly, I don’t know if it’ll ever catch up), but Tidal at least is showing signs of trying.
It’s fairly obvious looking at the music streaming landscape from the last two or three years that all the big competitors are afraid of losing users to one another. Hence why Apple Music has gotten a ton of new updates within the last year even though development for Apple Music specifically has been really slow in the years prior. Or Spotify adding a slew of new AI features and constantly trying to push the envelope in that regard. To me, unlike Qobuz unfortunately, I think Tidal has a good shot at getting its act together and being able to actually compete. The audiophile and audio enthusiast community is small but is willing to pay top dollar to get the best files around.
Tidal’s turnaround is surprising yet refreshing. Because for once, I feel like we have a major music streaming service actually listening to its users. And that’s where I’m going to put my money where my mouth is. While I’m still paying for Qobuz in addition to Tidal, Tidal is now my main source of music. My Tidal library is now outpacing what I have on Qobuz 2:1.
Of course, I’m still using both in tandem with Roon, which merges both services alongside my ever-growing local music library.