iBroadcast. Upload music you have purchased, access it from everywhere. No ads. Not great for discovering new music but it’s an underrated service.

I use Tidal. I have no issues with the app or anything it recommends to me. In fact, it does a really great job at mentioning new music from bands that I haven’t heard from in a while. Econoline Crush and Filter are 2 that had a recent release that even Apple Music didn’t tell me about, even though I have both bands music in my library with Apple.

I’ve tried to like Spotify, but I just couldn’t get into it. There was just a feeling that it’s not a music first app, but a user data collection app that happens to provide music. I don’t get that feeling with Tidal.

If I had to complain about Tidal for something, it would be the Live feature. I have the toggle off for showing live sessions, but I’d love to just turn it completely off and remove all traces of that feature. No one cares what I’m listening to, and I have no intention of being “social” in my music app.

I turned off the streaming services and went back to mp3s. Jellyfin has Finamp and there’s also VLC and others I’m sure.

I was on Tidal forever ago. To answer the most important question, no the higher quality audio files aren’t total snake oil. Certain offerings definitely sound better. Amazon Music generally offers higher sound quality though. Tidal also do pay artists better, but Napster is the best about payment if I’m not mistaken (ironic as fuck).

As for the app though… It’s been a few years, but this is where everything that offers sound quality goes to shit. The desktop player was ass and the website was ass. It didn’t know how to handle Last.fm and other things I’d consider basics for Audiophiles. Amazon Music’s UI was even worse, I cancelled it after 2 days.

Spotify has the best value proposition. Hulu+Spotify for 10 bucks is good. I also question how long Tidal will be able to continue existing.

On average, TIDAL pays out around $0.013 per stream. link
Spotify pays artists between $0.003 - $0.005 per stream on average. link

I chose Tidal for that. They pay artists significantly more than Spotify does. Spotify also platforms Joe Rogan. F#%& that

Revanced YT music.

There is one feature that is missing on all other music streaming apps that makes them useless to me: Spotify Connect

I remote desktop into another computer for work a lot, so I need a solution for listening to my music on my main computer, while controlling it from another device.

I tried Tidal cause I like the idea of paying artists more per stream. However I simply didn’t like the UI (especially the lack of album covers visible when list-viewing playlists) and recommendations.

Ended up switching to Apple Music which, even on Android, I prefer.

Has lossless, supports uploading your own files to the cloud, my fav Library system, and pays artists more per stream than Spotify. No podcasts too 👍 Windows app is also getting pretty good (still behind Spot tho)

Spotify on spotube or swipify client

Spotify pays Joe Rogan a huge salary. I won’t help support it.

I use innertune from fdroid, I’m quite happy with it

I use YouTube music because I watch a lot of YouTube and because it pays roughly 0$.08 per stream, which is higher than Spotify. I know tidal pays it’s artists more, but I really like the way YouTube music is set up, and I love that I can find music videos and lyrics super easily in the app

I used both Spotify and Tidal, I have upper mid range headphones and I couldn’t tell the difference in quality.

I’m now using YouTube Music because it costs the same as Spotify (around $4 in my country) but I also get YT Premium, so no YT ads on mobile either. On desktop I’m using an ad blocker, so by having premium I can support the creators that I watch without wasting my time with ads.

I can’t speak much about the money making stuff, but I’ve read that most music artists make the majority of their income through touring and ticket sales for their live performances at venues, music festivals as well as attending other private events etc - and this goes back to even pre-Spotify days. So Spotify not paying artists well doesn’t really make a big difference. In fact, I’d argue that Spotify actually brings artists publicity, much like how mp3 sharing did back in the day, or the radio for that matter. I’ve discovered many artists via radio back in the day, much like how I discover them today via Spotify’s recommendations, and personally, I don’t see the issue.

Anyways, as a former audiophile, I’ve decided to choose convenience over perceived audio quality, so I use Spotify. Mind you, it’s not like I don’t perceive any difference at all, but the point is, for my day-to-day listening, it makes little difference - especially when most of my listening is in generally noisy environments like at work or during my commute. Also, Spotify streams at 320kbps Ogg Vorbis (on a good connection) - you’d need to have really good ears and gear to actually hear a difference between that and an uncompressed stream. Even then, it’s not like it makes a difference if you’re say just listening to pop and rock music or something.

It’s not like I’ve completely given up on lossless audio - I do use my audiophile gear when I’m in the mood and want to listen to certain tracks like say some of Pink Floyd atmospheric stuff like in A Momentary Lapse of Reason, or say John Williams, or classical music like Tchaikovsky or Vivaldi, but these are just a small fraction of my listening experience.

So if you are blessed with the ears and gear to actually make out the difference between 320kbps ogg vs FLAC/DSD, AND you listen to the kind of music where it really matters AND you care enough about that difference that it affects your enjoyment - then sure, go for Tidal. Otherwise, there’s no point.

I found that spotify improved when using the desktop Bluetooth to speaker (no ads). Switched to spotube on my mobile.