Today I’m comparing the current reigning champion of music streaming, Spotify, with Tidal. I will use the same criteria I use in all my music reviews to determine the winner. Keep on reading to find out why I think Tidal is currently the best music streaming service.
Music quality between Spotify and Tidal
Tidal is a clear winner on music quality, with CD quality streaming in the HiFi price tier and a higher quality music stream plan at a higher price point is also available. You can find out more about the latest deals on the linked Tidal pricing page.
Spotify streams up to 320kbps using lossy compression. You can read my article on digital music formats here for further exploration. You can find out more about the current Spotify prices in the included link.
If you have a reasonable setup, you can hear the difference in quality between the two streaming services. For me, it makes the experience of listening to music more enjoyable.
Music discovery between Spotify and Tidal
Both Spotify and Tidal are very good at helping you to discover new music that you will likely enjoy. However, Tidal does throw in the occasional curve ball. This will be because I have only recently started using Tidal, and the algorithm is still learning.
Spotify just beats Tidal in this area for me, but it is really close, and that is why it wasn’t a significant factor in my final decision.
User Interface/User experience between Spotify and Tidal
Spotify is the winner. The Spotify application is well designed on all platforms making it easy to use and navigate. With most features supported across platforms
The Tidal user interface is well designed, but it appears to have more significant functionality gaps than Spotify. I can shuffle play my liked tracks on the Android app, but I can’t do that on the Tidal Windows app. I find it very frustrating, and if my phone can do it, why can’t a PC.
I have also experienced some users with the application not always playing music on occasions, which can require a restart to resolve the issue. I think it’s in part due to my setup and using my DAC to decode the MQA master content. That doesn’t, however, make it any less frustrating.
Conclusion
The main drivers I used for selecting the right music streaming service this year were music quality and the ability to discover new music easily. Something I had become used to as a Spotify subscriber.
That is why I decided to subscribe to Tidal; it offers the music quality I want while enjoying the music. Through Spotify could win me back by actually delivering on their promise of Hi-Fi quality music. You can find out more about Tidal and Spotify in our review of each streaming service.