Summary
Tidal vs Spotify … Spotify is the most popular music streaming service in the world. It has more than 236 million active paying members and a wide catalog of artists, albums, podcasts, and audiobooks. The majority of desktop computers and mobile devices are able to accommodate it. Tidal, on the other hand, may be a better choice for you if you are a lover of high-resolution audio since it has an emphasis on high-resolution material and provides a far larger library of music and video content.
For the purpose of determining which platform is superior, we evaluated Spotify and Tidal with regard to their prices, sound quality, and the devices that they support.
Tidal vs Spotify: The cost
Individual users may choose between two different service packages on Spotify. In the free, ad-supported tier, you have access to the complete library of material that Spotify has to offer; however, there are limitations about how you may interact with it, and there are also advertisements included. The Premium plan, which includes all of the features, costs $11 per month, which is the norm for the industry at this point. In addition, Spotify has a plan for two people, known as Spotify Premium Duo, which costs $15 per month. Additionally, the company offers a family plan for six people, which costs $17 per month and includes parental controls. Additionally, there is a student plan that costs just $6 per month.
A student may get an incredible bargain by purchasing a premium plan for Spotify, which gives them access to a free Hulu subscription that is sponsored by advertisements. If this is your first time signing up for Spotify, you may get a free trial of Spotify Premium for a period of thirty days. You are able to download up to 10,000 songs for offline listening on up to five different devices if you subscribe to one of its subscription plans.
The news outlet Bloomberg reports that Spotify intends to increase pricing and launch additional membership choices in the year 2024, both in the United States and in other countries. It is anticipated that premium subscribers will pay an additional dollar each month, while the payment for the duo and family tiers may rise by two dollars each month. One alternative that is less costly, priced at eleven dollars, will contain music and podcasts, but it will not include audiobooks. Also, we are still waiting for Spotify to divulge its intentions for its high-resolution audio offering (more on this will be provided below), which is something that the majority of its rivals already provide.
The subscription price structure of Tidal was revised in April 2024 in order to streamline its services and improve its ability to compete with its competitors. There are new plans that provide lossless audio, high-resolution FLAC, and Dolby Atmos music. The firm has discontinued its long-running HiFi and HiFi Plus subscriptions and replaced them with new ones that include these features. In addition, there is no longer a free plan that may be used. There are now three additional options available: an individual plan that costs $11 per month, a household plan that costs $17 per month (which covers up to six members of the household), and a student plan that costs $5 per month. In addition, the individual plan may be upgraded to include Tidal for DJs for an additional fee of $9 per month.
You will get access to more than 110 million songs in lossless, high-resolution FLAC, and Dolby Atmos formats, depending on which of the subscriptions stated above you choose to purchase. Offline listening, tailored mixes, editorial playlists, and live sessions are made available by the service, which does not include advertisements.
If you are new to Tidal, you may get a free trial that lasts for thirty days. Throughout the trial period, you will have unrestricted access to Tidal’s complete repertoire, which is free of advertisements and lossless, as well as its streaming capabilities.
As a result of the revised rates, Tidal is now more competitive with Spotify. Spotify, on the other hand, continues to be the market leader in terms of pricing since it does not provide any kind of free plan.
A winner is Spotify.
Tidal vs Spotify: Devices that are supported
All of the major operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, iOS, tvOS, Android, and Android TV, are supported by Tidal’s applications. In addition to catering to the needs of audiophiles, it is compatible with a number of very high-end streaming components manufactured by companies such as Astell & Kern, Devialet, Denon, Harman Kardon, KEF, Martin Logan, and Meridian, to mention just a few.
Its support for more prevalent devices, like as gaming consoles or the Roku platform, is less robust than that of other platforms. It is possible that users who wish to watch Tidal on these devices may be required to sign up for a Plex account. It is possible to integrate your Tidal account with Plex, and if you do so, you will be able to utilize the Plex client on a broad range of media streaming devices and gaming consoles.
Not only does Spotify support all of the main platforms, but it also has a relatively small number of linked audio devices that it does not support. Spotify’s device compatibility is undoubtedly the finest among all music streaming services. It comes with support for a wide range of devices, including smart speakers, wearables, and even some of the audiophile brands that Tidal supports.
A winner is Spotify.
Tidal vs Spotify: The catalog’s vastness and the range of music
Possibly the most difficult category to evaluate is this one. The music streaming service Tidal has a collection of 110 million tracks and 650,000 videos as of April 2024. Spotify claims that it contains one hundred million songs, five million podcasts, and three hundred fifty thousand audiobooks. We have not yet discovered a third party that can independently verify their assertions, so, for the time being, we will accept them at their word.
Determining the diversity of music may sometimes be a challenging task. It is generally accepted that the majority of the musicians included on Tidal’s repertoire are hip-hop and rap artists, particularly those who are very young and unknown. As a result, this is consistent with the initial ownership structure of Tidal, which was mostly comprised of successful performers like Jay-Z who were interested in fostering new talents. On the other hand, given that Block, once known as Square, is now the owner of Tidal, this impression could be shifting.
For its part, Spotify’s collection seems to be more balanced, but this may be a reflection of how the site automatically begins to adjust itself to the musical inclinations that subscribers have displayed. We are aware that, as a result of worries over insufficient royalties, several musicians have steadfastly refused to allow Spotify to carry their music. The majority of these issues arise from the fact that Spotify’s free tier is financed by advertisements. The year 2014 saw the beginning of Taylor Swift’s well-known boycott of the corporation; however, she has since returned several of her released albums.
In light of the fact that the stated catalog sizes are among the largest in the business and that there is no objective method to analyze any of this, we are going to declare this a tie.
Victory: the draw
Tidal vs Spotify: High-quality sound
Tidal provides lossless, CD-quality streams, unlike Spotify, which offers compressed 320kbps streaming quality and delivers lossless streams.
However, if Spotify ever manages to provide its long-awaited high-resolution audio option, things may be different altogether. It has gone by a few other names over the course of the last several years, including Hi-Fi and Superpremium. The most recent glimmer of optimism comes from some code sleuthing done by a user on Reddit named Hypixely, which was published by The Verge. According to this code sleuthing, Spotify’s lossless feature may instead be an add-on called “Music Pro” and could handle FLAC files with a bit rate of up to 24 bits and 44.1 kilohertz. Through the introduction of this new service, Spotify would finally be able to compete with other music streaming services such as Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, and Amazon Music by providing tunes of better quality.
Therefore, Tidal is the winner when it comes to sound quality, at least for the time being. One important thing to keep in mind is that in order to get the most of Tidal’s higher-bandwidth streaming, you will want a device that is compatible with the service and, in certain instances, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The lossless CD-quality streaming that Tidal offers is compatible with almost all of the devices that it helps to support. However, users of mobile devices should be aware that these streams will use your data allocation at a considerably quicker pace than tracks that are not high-resolution. If you are concerned about the amount of data taken up by your mobile device, you can check your settings and choose the option that has a lower definition.
It is important to note that Tidal is compatible with a wide range of high-resolution formats, including Dolby Atmos Music, Sony 360 Reality Audio, FLAC, and MQA. It is possible that in order to hear some of these (such as FLAC and MQA), extra external equipment, such as DACs, are required in order to get the highest possible degree of quality. Below is a comprehensive list of devices that are compatible with MQA.
A victor is Tidal.
Tidal vs Spotify: In addition to videos and podcasts
The concept of music streaming services has expanded outside the realm of music in recent years. The mix is becoming more comprised of a variety of elements, including live performances, interviews, podcasts, and videos. Tidal has made the decision to concentrate most of its efforts on live concert recordings and films, some of which are only available via the site. The platform offers a collection of more than 650,000 films, some of which are excerpts from live performances, live concerts in their entirety, or exclusive presentations. The capability of mobile users to download any of these films for offline viewing is a significant aid in avoiding the expenses that are associated with data use.
There are videos available on Spotify as well, but the corporation chooses to be reticent about publicizing them. During your browsing experience, you will not come across a video category, and even the search filtering choices, such as “see all artists,” do not include a “see all videos” option. In order to find a certain song or podcast, you must first search for it and then check to see whether there is a video that is associated with the stream. You are able to begin viewing it by pressing the play button, if there is one.
Not only that, but even when it is accessible, there have been some people who have had trouble viewing video material. When you are attempting to view anything using the Spotify mobile app, you may be required to go into the settings of the app and turn off the audio quality feature. It would seem that this is a solution to the problem of missing videos, regardless of the cause.
When it comes to the podcast material that Spotify offers, the firm claims a collection of more than 5 million podcasts among its offerings. As of the time that this article was written, Tidal had a relatively limited number of podcasts.
You subscribe to a music streaming service mainly for the purpose of listening to audio, despite the fact that we are pleased by the video repertoire that Tidal offers. As a result of the significant rise in the number of people listening to podcasts, we are going to award this category to Spotify.
A winner is Spotify.
Tidal vs Spotify: Final Thoughts
Because of its massive music collection, its compatibility for a large number of devices, and its wide range of premium and free plans, Spotify is the obvious option for the majority of people. It is not a coincidence that it is the most popular streaming music service from all over the globe. For all of these reasons, we are going to declare it the winner of the competition.
Tidal’s packages, on the other hand, make it possible to listen to music of genuine high-fidelity via a subscription service that is simple to use. This is in contrast to the world of compressed digital files. And despite the fact that more recent platforms such as Qobuz have emerged to threaten Tidal’s dominance in the realm of high-fidelity listening, the platform continues to excel in the realm of ultra-premium music, and it seems that Tidal has no intention of ceasing its operations in the near future.
