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Answered

Tidal vs Spotify Sonos Five

  • October 8, 2020
  • 10 replies
  • 2932 views
N
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  • Nadian
  • Avid Contributor I
  • 19 replies

Dear members,

 

Since today I have a Sonos Five (horizontally spreading love in the room). Also activated Tidal hifi a while ago and am a long time Spotify user. 
 

So I tried both music services (since the S2 Sonos now supports “hifi”) to see if the difference is substantial and worth the double monthly fee of Tidal. 
 

In short I have a real hard time hearing any difference (maybe with some of the Master quality songs it’s slightly improved). 
 

Can anyone tell me if there is an actual difference between both sound qualities on a Sonos speaker. I’ve red the “facts” - the lossless support - but I’m not that impressed.. 

 

Many thanks for any advice or experiences!

Best answer by Kumar

Sonos has said that over and over in the last ten years, that science does not support the hi res claims for better sound quality.

Over this time, every review of the kit says that Sonos is very good, but.....You can guess what follows.

Sonos simply had to get that "but" out of the way in a market that is now a lot more competitive than that in 2010.

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10 replies

Annazel S
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  • Annazel S
  • Retired Sonos Staff
  • 1604 replies
  • October 10, 2020

Hi @Nadian.

Thanks for reaching out and for considering the community platform for your query.

We highly appreciate and acknowledge your interest in this matter, and possible that other users might be wondering about it as well.

No worries, some of the community members might share their experience or provide an opinion about this any time soon.

 

Please let us know if you have additional concerns, we’re always here to help.

Help others find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question
Airgetlam
  • Airgetlam
  • 44732 replies
  • October 10, 2020

Sonos doesn’t support ‘hifi’ unless you’re streaming from your NAS/local drive. All streaming companies are still the same as they have always been. See the original announcement for S2 in the Announcements area of the forum.

Bruce
K
  • Kumar
  • 13501 replies
  • October 11, 2020

In the meantime, if you have the wherewithal, something to do. Buy a genuine HD song track and downsample to your local disc as well to a format that Sonos can presently play via the internet. Then play both from Sonos without knowing which one is playing and see if you can hear the difference.

If you cannot, that should tell you if it will be worth while in future to pay more money to Tidal even when Sonos can take their “hifi” streams. 

Sonos has offered to introduce this capability to counter negative PR that they cannot do this, not because they believe it will deliver better sound quality.

N
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  • Nadian
  • Author
  • Avid Contributor I
  • 19 replies
  • October 11, 2020

Sonos doesn’t support ‘hifi’ unless you’re streaming from your NAS/local drive. All streaming companies are still the same as they have always been. See the original announcement for S2 in the Announcements area of the forum.

That’s not true, google for Tidal and Sonos. It does support hifi streaming since S2 (albeit a bit lower but then max Tidal bit) 

N
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  • Nadian
  • Author
  • Avid Contributor I
  • 19 replies
  • October 11, 2020

In the meantime, if you have the wherewithal, something to do. Buy a genuine HD song track and downsample to your local disc as well to a format that Sonos can presently play via the internet. Then play both from Sonos without knowing which one is playing and see if you can hear the difference.

If you cannot, that should tell you if it will be worth while in future to pay more money to Tidal even when Sonos can take their “hifi” streams. 

Sonos has offered to introduce this capability to counter negative PR that they cannot do this, not because they believe it will deliver better sound quality.

That would be a good experiment but I’m not familiar with downsampling and then playing on Sonos (no idea how). I could ask someone else to switch between Spotify and Tidal on the Sonos app and blind test it too. Easier 😉

So you really think Sonos doesn’t even reckon the hifi option is better ? Wouldn’t be sure about that.. 

K
  • Kumar
  • 13501 replies
  • Answer
  • October 11, 2020

Sonos has said that over and over in the last ten years, that science does not support the hi res claims for better sound quality.

Over this time, every review of the kit says that Sonos is very good, but.....You can guess what follows.

Sonos simply had to get that "but" out of the way in a market that is now a lot more competitive than that in 2010.

N
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  • Nadian
  • Author
  • Avid Contributor I
  • 19 replies
  • October 15, 2020

Hmm ok, thanks for the replies!

Any other experiences trying both Tidal hifi and Spotify premium ? 

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  • Nadian
  • Author
  • Avid Contributor I
  • 19 replies
  • October 15, 2020

Didn’t mean to press awnsered again ffs lol 

fuksi85
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  • fuksi85
  • Contributor I
  • 9 replies
  • November 5, 2020

I guess it's because I'm not an audiophile but.... I can't tell the difference. 

I made a SONOS playlist with two identical songs. One from Spotify and one from Tidal and I enabled random play. 

I cannot tell which is which. 

N
  • newport29
  • Lyricist I
  • 1 reply
  • February 6, 2021

If it helps you feel better Tidal gives much more of the profit to the artists. Contemplating whether or not to go with Tidal Hifi. 

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