Is Tidal/Deezer worth it?
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?
You're viewing a single thread.
Unless you have expensive equipment, you will get no quality improvement over 360bit from Spotify. No flagship phone or Bluetooth headphones have high enough quality for various reasons. So without dedicated equipment, they're not worth paying more than you do for Spotify now.
And even if you have the equipment, whether your ears can discern the difference is debatable. And even if you can discern the difference, whether it's a noticeable improvement is another matter. And even if is a noticeable improvement, that doesn't necessarily mean your enjoyment of the music is any higher - sure, you may be able to make out some additional instruments or some nuances you didn't pick up before, but that doesn't mean the emotional response that's invoked in you is any higher. At least in my case, I found that in the end, it didn't really matter - the enjoyment that I got from listening to lossless audio via audiophile gear wasn't really much different from the enjoyment I got from HQ streaming music via regular gear. At least, the inconvenience wasn't really worth the gains.
IMO, music is about emotions and mood. Some of my fondest memories of music can be traced back to crackly radio on a cheap 2-in-1 set and making mixtapes, or catching the FM waves whilst driving and discovering some legit good tracks, many of which are still part of my regular playlists.
even if you have the g, whether your ears can discern the difference is debatable
You can test if you can tell the difference!
IMO everybody who's considering Tidal or another hifi platform should take this test first. If it turns out you can't tell the difference at 128kbps then you really shouldn't bother.
This is an awesome test, thanks for sharing it, now I finally know for sure that I can't hear a difference with my current setup (a Galaxy Note 9 and a DUNU Titan S IEM)
You should be able to get some improvements if your phone and headphones support LDAC or AptX HD. How perceptible this improvement is is debatable. IMO it wasn't worth the 75% reduction in battery life for my headphones.