I'm pretty happy with Tidal so far; I tried Qobuz back when I was looking for an alternative to Spotify and I remember the Android app being borderline unusable. I might be misremembering things though.
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I'm interested, but does anyone know if there's something like a ReVanced version for it so I can use it for free without ads, like I can with YouTube Music ReVanced?
Last time I used qobuz it had the worst UI in history and no way to discover music or was awful, I am now on Tidal and it's brilliant.
I don't know how it used to be, but I've just switched to it from Tidal and am generally enjoying the UI more. Plus it has functioning search, unlike Tidal. My only issue is the lack of a shuffle button on my favorited tracks.
It was probably 3+ years ago since I tried it, perhaps I'll give it another go.
You can shuffle favorites if you first select the tag "Tracks" from the top of the page, then the shuffle button should appear
My favourite thing about Qobuz is they have a store where you pay money and they give you audio files, like in the old days. So you can pay for your music then keep it without an ongoing subscription.
I love Qobuz. Also for those of you trying to boycott US goods, it's a French company. I just wish it had the same adoption and features as Spotify.
Which features does it miss compared to Spotify?
Qobuz's audio quality is a game changer. I had some technical issues with it with glitches short pauses in playback awhile back when I tried it; hopefully those are worked out now. It's great if you know exactly what you want to listen too. It's well known for lacking good algorithms for music discovery. I use Tidal and really like the daily discovery feature, automated Playlists, and the "track radio" that will give you a large list of songs similar to the exact song you are listening to. I've heard similar laments from people looking to switch from Spotify to Qobuz.
The only deal-breaker for me was that the android app doesn't persist its play state, so if I pause and do other stuff on my phone, it usually loses its place.
The number one thing I've been missing are Spotify jams. Spotify also has a wider selection of music, but tbh it's rare for Spotify to have something that Qobuz doesn't. Spotify also has lyrics, playlist folders, and audiobooks; though tbh I haven't checked to see if Qobuz has the latter.
One example is podcasts. I would miss the single interface for both podcasts and music, although Spotify is enshittifying rapidly; the turning point may be closer than I thought.
Tbh, podcasts through a "storefront" is a poor way to experience them. It's meant to be decentralized via RSS feeds. Tho having some cross-device metadata about what you've listened to is definitely helpful.
I've been using Pocket Casts for a long time for that more refined experience and ease of use between listening devices. Their new owners are ethically complicated nowadays (Automattic), and the cost for their pro features is a bit high unless you are a podcast fiend (I was grandfathered in from their old mid-2010s pricing scheme that was pay once/own forever), but it's a good app (for now).
100% with you, plus, with spotify premium you still get shitty ads on podcasts (that also do ad reads like hello fresh...) so there's no advantage at all at listening to podcasts on spotify. I also find their media library management to be clunky at best so a dedicated podcast app is a far better option IMHO.
I chose this service to replace my yt music subscription, and I have nothing but praise for their service, the quality of the music or their ethics.
I've been using Qobuz for a couple of years and I love it. Great audio quality, has 90% of any music I'm looking for, and seems to be far less morally bankrupt than many alternatives.
Too bad they block VPNs
I use proton for VPN and qobuz works for me! I've had a couple of other bugs but streaming and downloading both work!
I use Proton as well but it won't even let me sign up and explicitly says it's because of the VPN.
That's so strange. I've been using qobuz for at least a couple years now and I've always got a VPN on. Sometimes it takes me a second to load a new song if it's not downloaded already but other than I've had no issues. Are you on PC?
This is great to see. I ended up moving to Tidal from Spotify, and even though there are some nice to have features missing from Tidal (an equivilant to spotify's sync between devices/speakers as well as a better Android Auto experience), it's a far superior experience.
Quobuz is also on my radar, but they've traditionally lacked in the music catalog space. I need to give them a try again now that it's been a few years.
That said, Tidal barely has Linux clients and I don't think I've seen much movement for Quobuz on Linux, unless I've just missed it.
What's wrong with just using tidal in a browser? Zen just added a media player widget too so it's almost like having a native app that's always controllable on screen
I moved from Spotify to tidal as well. Tidal is fine except for their catalogue mess. They tend to group different artists with same name to a single artist. Here and there I feedback them, they correct it in a week or so but the first next album is wrong again. But I'm glad that at least it pays music owners better and doesn't throw money at shit podcasts and such
There is Tidal Hi-Fi on linux, but I suspect that's what you mean by 'barely'
Yep! It's a good app overall, even has some improvements over what is shipped on macOS.
https://github.com/Nokse22/high-tide is new and promising for a better experience overall. I'd always prefer native over electron.
Oh, looks cool! The UI feels pretty clunky on desktop, but it still seems pretty nice.
It works well, what do you want more? Sure, it's not official but the most of the important bits are official since at it's core it's a web app.
Absolutely! It works fairy well. A little clunky since the Linux support is bolted on after, but it's not noticeably worse than the macOS experience. The extra options it offers over what tidal ships to macOS are also nice.
These non-native electron apps are all kinda junky for native music listening anyway. (This is a problem with Spotify's desktop app as well)
I've moved to Deezer, love the HiFi audio! Also works well under Linux using Mellowplayer
I'm on th e verge of doing the same. Do we know how much Deezer pays artists?
Deezer is a very ethically poor company, unfortunately, due to their owner, Access Industries.
Been using Qobuz for several months now. Pretty happy with it overall so far. You can get full audio quality via browser, which is great since lots of services have poor Linux support.
Unfortunately they're not available everywhere.