I’ve been a mostly-okay-with-it Spotify user for years now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, the payouts suck, there’s no major discovery anymore thanks to The Algorithm\u2122 (all hail) and for some reason they’re doing videos now? Like, okay. Settle down there, big wheels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the convenience is there and hell, most of my music is there. Say I want to listen to Juno Reactor, Seth Sentry, and Fear Factory in the same playlist? They’re both there. Add them to “another 40 hour playlist #5” and you’re cheerin, Ed Sheeran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then I got into headphones that didn’t suck (more on that in another post), and FLAC files, and I wrote this post\/incoherent babble a while back now.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh yeah, and Daniel Ek sucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I switched over to Tidal<\/a> (read: I signed up for Tidal and forgot to cancel my Spotify account, so I’m running both. Sigh.) and have done so for a number of months now. Seeing as I’m already basically a homebrand version of Dankpods<\/a> I figured it’s high time I put my thoughts on it out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WHAT IS IT? IS THIS THAT TIKTOK TREND THAT HOSPITALIZED ALL THOSE KIDS?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ok so you’ve got Spotify or Apple Music, right? Tidal is essentially the “pro” version of that. Offering up audiophile quality lossless audio where possible, Dolby Atmos, and pushing a “by artists, for artists” agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It pays artists out better, too ($0.01284 per stream, vs $0.00318 per stream for Spotify). Nifty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond that for the general end user not a lot is different. You can still cast music to IoT devices, use Apple Carplay\/Android Auto, make playlists, the works. While the difference is about a bee’s dick worth, it’s nice knowing I’m pumping the best quality possible music into my head. Chuck some good headphones on and you’re golden. Add into the mix support for Dolby Atmos and similar fanciful things and you’re in for some good listening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UI is familiar to anyone who has used YouTube Music, Spotify, Apple Music, etc previously. You can add to playlists, you can queue songs, there’s a co-listening\/”go live” feature, it’s all there, for the most part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of things being “all there”, the gang’s all here, too. I’ve only noticed a few songs missing from Tidal that were on Spotify, but they were either meme songs or easily findable again. I even checked just now if Donnie Dumphy’s “Havin’ A Time’ is available, and sure enough, he’s there, in all his ADHD glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SO WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n