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this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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Tidal sounds decent per the page you linked, but there's no trial without plugging in credit card info. I'd be willing to fork out some cash for a decent service, but I'm hesitant to give them my financial data just for a 'free' trial. Do you use Tidal? If yes, good experience? Pros/cons?
Pulling up Qobuz now.
Edit - fawk, Qobuz does the same thing. That TL page established a really solid stance against the AI enshittifying music, so I'm tempted to dive in just for that. But, same spiel: any review for Qobuz? (sounds like you don't personally use it, but @anyone else reading this)
I use Tidal and am happy with it. I changed from Spotify a few years ago because Spotify pissed me off locking away podcasts, Tidal pays better to musicians and the audio quality was better (at the time?). I can tell you that on Tidal I have never been subjected to slop.
Today I might have a hard look at Qobuz as well, except that my Tesla (I really did buy it before Elon went completely off the cliff) has Tidal support but not Qobuz 🤷♂️ My streaming boxes support both.
Music streaming is weirdly European with Spotify from Sweden, tidal from Norway and Qobuz from France.
I subscribe to both tidal and qobuz. I tend to prefer qobuz overall but I do think the playlists generated by tidal are better. I also like that tidal makes their API easy to access if you want to build something that utilizes your subscription (I have an app running on a raspberry pi that generates playlists that are outside of the normal stuff I'd get from their recommendation system).
I also don't love MQA (it's effectively snake oil and unfolding a 44khz track doesn't magically make it higher quality. I will take a 192khz track but don't try to tell me MQA is somehow better, because it's not...)
Overall my streaming is 75% Qobuz and 25% tidal).
Glad to answer any additional questions.
Qobuz also offers a free service to port your Spotify library and playlists over into Qobuz so you don't have to start from scratch if you don't want to.
Better playlists from Tidal, but you use Qobuz more? What does Q do better that keeps you gravitating to them?
...does Qobuz have a dark-mode tucked away somewhere in the settings? Jfc I feel like I'm reading print off a lit lightbulb lol - that alone might be the tie breaker.
...man, I wish my ears were good enough to tell the difference between formats. They used to be... that preference for symphonic metal might be taking its toll! A decent quality MP3 is pretty much indistinguishable from the fancier formats to me, unless I have it obscenely loud, which... muh ears...
Speaking of volume, does either server do a better job of keeping their tracks at a fairly stable decibel level? I think this is more dependent on the recording itself vs the software that plays it, but we all know the struggle of a song coming on that's way too quiet, so you turn it up to a normal decibel level; then it finishes AND THE NEXT ONE COMES ON AND RATTLES YOUR FUCKING SKULL! ...or tools built in to address basically that but within a single song (symphonic metal loves doing this - open with just symphony to establish a contrast, then LOAD-ASS GUITAR! then back and forth throughout the song. Sounds amazing against silence; in other environments like work or driving, doesn't pan out so well)
I tend to search for artists directly and the qobuz version often times has a 24 but version where the tidal version is 16 bit. Honestly there's a lot of overlap.
When I say playlists I mean the daily playlists are better in tidal. I do really like some of the more static curation from qobuz like the taste of qobuz or quobozissime or whatever it's called... I honestly like having access to both.
I use Roon to access both platforms at once. Roon normalizes the track volume for me. I can also do that through my blue sound node.
Qobuz does have a dark mode, at least on the mobile app.
Oh, fuck yeah. I turned on the Dark Reader extension for PC Firefox, and it fixed the non-mobile site right up. Hadn't tried the app, but assumed it also lacked a toggle - glad to be wrong. I'd be using both pretty regularly, and that website without Dark Reader...
Not familiar with that either, but it sounds like I should be. Getting a lot of homework from you! ^_^
Oh, like a hand-picked list from the staff? Tbh I probably wouldn't use that a ton, unless they've got someone on staff with my same niche interests... and I'm pretty picky. Metal in particular has a lot of... idk... howler monkey using a guitar as a bludgeoning tool to strike a snare drum... kinda music. No hate to any metal heads here, but not my cup of tea: weeding that stuff out while keeping the gems is a tall order. Seems like the kind of thing an algorithm would be able to handle, but so far I haven't found one that can distinguish the howler monkey metal from the symphonic metal. Probably because most fans don't give a shit about that distinction - they just like it all.
It's sounding like I should just try both. Or first, I'll try visiting them from my work comp tomorrow and see if either isn't blocked - can't access the big ones like Spotify or Pandora, but these might be flying under IT's radar.
Thanks a ton for all your insight!!
For awareness - I acknowledge that roon is expensive... I bought a lifetime license a few years back when it was cheaper.
The filters for metal subgenres are subpar in terms of handling what you're describing, but again, the overall curation for new metal is pretty solid. Overall I feel that qobuz helps to identify good new releases. Turned me onto immortal disfigurement and to the grave (likely more symphonic than what you like).
Best of luck finding out what works best for your use case.
Tidal is actually great. You can get studio quality, if that's something you care about, they give 3x more to artists than spotify, share your playlist, good track radio, and indeed filter out all the ai crap. Honesty I have to say it's a great service.. I buy as much as I can on bandcamp, and use Tidal for streaming.