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Is Tidal/Deezer worth it?

Hello, everybody, I've been thinking to move on from my Spotify subscription to move to Tidal or Deezer. I want to try out HIFI audio, but still get a good and stable experience. Are there any suggestions for which one I should pick? Could you also tell about your experience with those apps, or are there any other you would recommend more?

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  • Dunno where you stand on all things Apple, but Apple Music is truly stable and has Hi-Fi (lossless). Works on both iOS and Android. Queuing and other specifics might irk you at first - just bear in mind it's different from Spotify in that it favours albums over playlists and algo-generated content. TIDAL's fine and the sound quality rumours you've heard are all true, but still has a bit of ironing out to do. Deezer used to be great, but now it's expensive AF. Just export your library through tunemymusic.com or soundiiz.com first and feel free to explore whatever tickles your fancy.

  • I've been very happy with Tidal. I prefer the UX to the Spotify app but it is lacking some functionality like Spotify Connect. It's also nice that they pay artists more, and that none of my subscription fees are feeding into a $200 million contract for Joe Rogan.

    If you use Google Home/Assistant, Tidal doesn't integrate well. It does integrate with Alexa.

    As far as audio quality, I'm reasonably certain that I'd be unable to discern between the top tiers of any of the current services in a blind A/B test.

  • Leaving this one up but just a friendly reminder about rule 2 in the sidebar and that we ask folks to submit questions like this to !askandroid@lemdro.id. Thanks!

    Also a reminder for others to subscribe there, so we can ensure a dedicated space for those seeking help while maintaining the essence of what made /r/Android enjoyable for everyone :)

    • It looks like the . at the end of your sentence is interfering with the link to the community name, at least on my instance.

      Just FYI for future posts and if anyone gets community-not-found, remove the .

      • Weird, are you using at app? It seems to be working fine from lemdro.id and lemmy.world from the web on my end. Link also follows through. Could you share a screenshot by chance?

  • I used Tidal for a bit and quite liked it, though it has quite a few gaps in its library compared to Spotify and YouTube Music. I signed up for Dolby Atmos music, which was hella cool but I blew through all the Dolby Atmos content I wanted to hear before the 30 day trial was up.

    Quality wise, as others have said if you're using standard Bluetooth SBC it doesn't matter anyway. If you've got decent gear and actually use it then it's worth paying for Hi-Fi but that's not most people.

    Free trial though. Can't go wrong with that.

  • I realize you asked for other recommendations, but I suspect you don't want to actually maintain your own music library but rather want streaming services recommended?

    Of the two alternatives you are currently looking for I do have experience with Deezer, although it has been two years at least. The music library is almost as complete as Spotify in my experience I rarely had issues with songs not being on there. The recommendation algorithm at the time was nice, but would sometimes get stuck in a hyper specific genre that would only reinforce itself.

    For HIFI audio you basically do need fairly good audio gear for it (decent wired headphones for example), I'd say that for most people it is not worth paying extra for as it is really difficult to tell the difference.

    One other service I have used is Youtube Music as it is included in premium. It does not have an HIFI option but otherwise is fairly okay. Basically worth looking into if you were also considering Youtube premium, but otherwise not really special.

  • I moved to Deezer from You Tube Music a couple of years ago. I was on YTM for about six months after Google shut down Google Play Music (which was awesome). You Tube Music was a steaming turd, flakiest app I have ever used.

    Deezer has been fantastic. Android app very rarely gives me any issues, and has probably the most extensive catalogue of any streaming service I have ever used (although it is a bit disorganised and shambolic at times), The Premium subscription is reasonably priced, especially if I use the yearly sub rather than the monthly one, and sound quality is great (although I only use HQ audio, not Hifi). I believe they pay artists more than most others

    Other big upside is that there is NO limit to how many tracks you can download into a device if you are a Premium user! I have half a terabyte of country music in my phone. The only limitation is how much storage your device has. You can only download playlists / music into a maximum of three devices, I only have my phone and a waterproof media player so not an issue for me

    Only downsides are the somewhat disorganised catalogue I mentioned - some artists have more than one artist profile with different albums scattered across them, and when two different artists share the same name they often get mushed together into the one profile. Discographies tend to be a bit random in the way they are organised. But careful use of the search function will find almost anything and everything.

    Reorganising/ rearranging large playlists on the web client/ browser can get a bit flaky, with a really big playlist I find its sometimes easier to just rebuild it from scratch rather than move large blocks of tracks around

    The MP3 upload tool is pretty clunky and has no folder feature, and a limit of only 2000 tracks upload. But because they have such an extensive catalog you shouldnt need it much

    The downloaded music section in the app has no folders either which would be nice but isnt a deal breaker. Only other issue I have is that the Play button for playlists on the Android app defaults to shuffle mode which is a flaw shared with Spotify, and there is no way to disable shuffle even for Premium users. This is the ONLY thing YouTube Music gets right

    I havent used Tidal but I have heard their catalogue is much more limited and what little exploration I did bore that out

49 comments