[HN Gopher] Square acquires majority of Tidal in $297M deal
___________________________________________________________________
Square acquires majority of Tidal in $297M deal
Author : daegloe
Score : 151 points
Date : 2021-03-04 13:25 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| simonsarris wrote:
| Remember, Square has a stake in Eventbrite. They now have a stake
| in the full ecosystem of music artists: Streaming, performances,
| and soon merch, of course.
|
| It's a side ecosystem just like restaurants (Square has had a
| stake in Doordash after selling Caviar to them). Today, Square
| for Restaurants also released in Canada.
|
| As a SQ investor I'm not _crazy_ about this play but I see the
| long term reasoning. I also think JAY-Z might help with Cash App
| although its booming on its own and very much has the rapper
| demographic already (there are no shortage of songs and albums
| named Cash App for a reason).
| kjakm wrote:
| Interesting! Didn't know that and it makes a lot more sense
| from that angle.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| Curious why does square want a stake in the ecosystem of music
| artists?
|
| Even eventbrite didn't need square readers, people mostly buy
| their tickets in advance. Maybe it's for event organizers to
| upsell at the event to attendees?
|
| Maybe this is a play to demonstrate investment in black
| community, as someone else mentioned?
| [deleted]
| reilly3000 wrote:
| I think Square organizes around how people gather and
| transact, and focus on the under-banked. They have good data
| to inform where that happens, in what quantities, and when.
| Clearly food places, craft fairs, and music festivals have
| been crucial marketplaces for them, and now they are
| establishing themselves as a promotional platform to those
| markets. They now have a lot of surfaces to do so, and will
| probably always now be after more ad inventory.
|
| They are positioned to own not only how people transact in
| person, but who will be doing those transactions, where, and
| when.
|
| Imagine they roll out a data product to their merchants that
| shows an Uber Hot-Spots style dataset of sales, demand, and
| trends in both merchandise and the wild psychographics you
| can learn from a music service.
| blackearl wrote:
| Everyone would be elated if they decided to take on
| ticketmaster, though I believe TM has exclusive deals with
| most venues.
| bnjms wrote:
| Ticketmaster has worked themselves into a bad position.
| There is a subset of people who hate them. If square could
| get the sort of after purchase fees that that Ticketmaster
| charges legislated so they have to be shown up front and
| named in non deceiving ways it would go a long way to
| weakening my Ticketmaster and LiveNation's position.
| metamet wrote:
| > There is a subset of people who hate them.
|
| I'm curious about that, because everyone I know that has
| had to pay the Ticketmaster tax hates them. Many artists
| are vocal about their hate as well.
|
| I assume there's a reason venues continue to use them
| exclusively, which makes me think Ticketmaster's grasp on
| the industry is fragile enough that it'll break once
| there's enough momentum behind an alternative.
| dminvs wrote:
| The reason: Live Nation, owner/operator of many large
| venues in the US, owns Ticketmaster since 2010
| twoodfin wrote:
| Ticketmaster acts as a flak shield for the venues and
| artists.
|
| Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, had
| operating income of $325M on _$11.5B_ in revenue in
| 2019[1]. That's less than 3% margin.
|
| Most of the "Ticketmaster Tax" is going to the artist or
| venue, who get to offload any displeasure onto a
| convenient third party for a small fee.
|
| [1] https://www.livenationentertainment.com/2020/02/live-
| nation-...
| youngNed wrote:
| plot twist: livenation _ARE_ the venue
| maxfurman wrote:
| If you add up all the merch and ticket sales of the music
| industry (in non-covid times of course) it's quite a bit. 1%
| processing fees on that is a good revenue stream.
| [deleted]
| spullara wrote:
| It may also allow them to easily offer music for play in their
| Square PoS locations. Today most places that are legit are
| licensing from others.
| chanmad29 wrote:
| It all seemed rather incoherent without this knowledge.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > there are no shortage of songs and albums named Cash App for
| a reason).
|
| Product placement in movies, tv shows, songs, books,
| news,....exhausting to keep track.
| moate wrote:
| That's just rap (and other pop music). I feel like a "product
| placement" vs a "product reference" is a key distinction.
| Rappers reference Cash App because of what it represents, not
| because they're being paid to endorse it.
|
| Like when YG Nipsey dropped "FDT "it wasn't a campaign ad,
| and Smith and Wesson wasn't funding "Nickname" by Qadir. Way
| different from Coke paying to have a bottle on the table
| during Modern Family or whatever.
| maxfurman wrote:
| Interesting! I wonder whether the outcome of this play will be
| more efficiencies and better pay for artists, or just Square
| taking a cut along with the record labels, managers, etc.,
| leaving the artist out in the cold as usual.
| forgotmysn wrote:
| i dont think eventbrite is in the music business at all. that
| space is dominated by ticketmaster. i dont think ive ever seen
| a concert on eventbrite.
| hudo wrote:
| Artists-owned streaming company so musicians gets bigger share of
| the cake. That didn't last long. Was ever Tidal the best for the
| artisys!?
| newbie578 wrote:
| Honest question, how is Jack Dorsey (and Elon Musk) able to be a
| CEO of two different companies? His time and capabilities are
| halved, while the stress and responsibilities are doubled.
|
| How does the board approve of something like that even?
| theklr wrote:
| On square he has a competent staff to do majority of the load
| while he can be the visionary. It maybe coming around with
| Twitter after seeing them now iterate with the flurry of
| upcoming features.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| No one cares as long as the money is rolling in. Dorsey and
| Musk have enough star power to get shit done, raise significant
| cash and attract talent. So the board supposedly just shrugs at
| the half-assed CEO situation.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| Is money rolling in though?
|
| Aren't both Square and Twitter losing money?
| count wrote:
| Square is printing money, and is actually profitable.
| Twitter is spending way more than Square is making though,
| and is not profitable.
| chokeartist wrote:
| That is human nature. No one cares until the crisis is
| knocking at the door.
|
| Also I chuckle at the people who think Twitter and Tesla CEOs
| are "similar". They are not. Musk will still be here in 10
| years rolling and controlling. I'm not so sure about Jack.
| Bakary wrote:
| The simpler explanation is that we probably have a flawed
| understanding of what the CEO role entails at these companies.
| dangus wrote:
| Would you rather have half a Jack Dorsey or a whole Ginny
| Romitty?
|
| (It probably helps that Dorsey is a founder of both companies).
| fallingknife wrote:
| When a company reaches a certain size, the CEO is basically a
| ceremonial position. Note how Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jeff
| Bezos all left their companies with little effect.
| scribu wrote:
| Is there any rhyme or reason to Square's moves in recent months?
|
| First doubling down on Bitcoin, now a music streaming service.
| What next?
| hasmolo wrote:
| i think the value add is square adding financial tools for
| artist payout, but it's more just jack wanted it and jay-z is a
| buddy so...
| exacube wrote:
| TIDAL isn't getting traction & Jay-Z wants to sell it <=> Square
| needs a hook into the rap industry because they market really
| well there. Square has been paying rappers to promote Cashapp
| since 2018.
|
| Here's an article written 1 year ago about the Cashapp's traction
| with the hip hop community: https://trapital.co/2020/03/18/how-
| hip-hop-helped-cash-app-g...
|
| An excerpt:
|
| Here's Square CEO Jack Dorsey at a 2019 investor conference via
| Wall Street Journal:
|
| "This is also something we weren't expecting, but I think Cash
| App has touched in the culture. We've just benefited from people
| loving it and wanting to sing about it, and putting it in their
| music videos, and it's amazing how much that spreads."
| kjakm wrote:
| Can anybody explain how this makes sense for Square? Square +
| Tidal seems like a bizarre combination with neither benefiting in
| any significant way from being owned by the same company.
| offby37years wrote:
| Jack and Jay-Z are pals. Jack is just another milquetoast SV
| CEO, but loves to surround himself with actual celebrities.
| This appears to be all but a sycophantic move to maintain his
| friend circle. It makes zero business sense.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Chances are it's something we cannot see. Technology, people,
| an existing deal or relationship with someone Square wants to
| be close to.
| kyriee wrote:
| In some places, you need to pay rights to play music in your
| store. As Square has a great number of business customers, it
| might be an easy upsell. Like get paid and provide a great
| ambiance?
|
| Could also be a play to help reframe how people think of
| Square and be able to expand in other categories SMBs might
| need.
| goodoldneon wrote:
| That's a great point I hadn't thought of. For example,
| small coffee shops play music on Spotify. IANAL, but I
| assume that's technically illegal, though no one will sue a
| tiny coffee shop over that. But once you start expanding to
| multiple shops, you may want to get more "legitimate". You
| already have Square, so now you can just add the Tidal
| service to your bill
| ebiester wrote:
| The cost is less Tidal and more the Ascap and BMI
| licensing. It looks like there are companies who will
| bundle the cost of licensing into your monthly fee,
| though.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >In some places,
|
| Some? Can you please tell me about where you
| legally/legitimately can perform recorded music in a public
| place for public consumption without "permission"?
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I can't speak to the legality, but i've seen countless
| places (retail shops, restuarants, etc) where they were
| playing radio over the speakers. Also, i've seen playing
| over spotify.
| dylan604 wrote:
| As have I, and every one of those are breaking ASCAP/BMI
| licensing. A lot of stores subscribe to "in-store"
| networks, and that subscription covers these licensing
| fees. Using someone's iDevice with their Spotify/whatever
| app even if it is paid for is NOT a license for public
| performances. You (royal you) can disagree with it, but
| it is what it is. If it is usually the smaller places
| that feel the proper licensing is too expensive, but will
| be floored when they get popped.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Pure speculation, but I think there might be a play for Square
| to get into the concert merchandise business. The merch booth
| at shows always has vinyl and CDs for sale. Most people no
| longer have the latter and vinyl is a much smaller market
| compared to streaming.
|
| I think a merchandise vendor who could provide exclusive
| releases to attendees in addition to handling payment
| processing might be very attractive to artists.
| skc wrote:
| And Jay-Z happens to be the founder of RocNation, a quietly
| successful artist/athlete management concern.
|
| A lot of dots can connect here.
| gowld wrote:
| Why does a search engine have a music company? Why does a
| premium hardware company and OS company have a music company?
| Why does a retail store have a music company?
|
| It's conglomeracy and the theory of the firm. Mergers are
| efficient.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _Can anybody explain how this makes sense for Square?_
|
| I think the next frontier in fintech is getting in every
| payment rail imaginable. The music part isn't relevant, it's
| the payment of artists that Square is most likely interested
| in. Square wants to process your deposit right into your
| CashApp bank account and pay for your records with the CashApp
| card.
| BLanen wrote:
| Dorsey giving money to friends.
| newhouseb wrote:
| This article (currently) leaves out a detail mentioned by Jack in
| his tweetstorm about this [1]:
|
| > [Jay-Z] will now help lead our entire company, including Seller
| and the Cash App, as soon as the deal closes.
|
| Does this read as Jay-Z having an... operational role? I know
| Jack's leadership of Square and Twitter is fairly non-traditional
| but this was surprising to read.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/jack/status/1367460921937817602
| a-posteriori wrote:
| I think this makes tons of sense when you look at Cash App's
| distribution strategy. They have heavily focused on targeting
| the rap and music communities through influencer marketing.
|
| > _Square has run similar campaigns [referencing a seperate
| Burger King campaign] with rappers like Travis Scott and Lil B
| and other influencers, triggering a network effect for the Cash
| App. With 120,000 replies, Travis Scott's tweet gained more
| momentum than Burger King's. If only 129 of the 120,000 who
| commented on his tweet were new to Cash App, then Square's cost
| of customer acquisition would have been less than the $925 per
| user that banks pay on average, according to our research, and
| 6,000 comments, only 5% of the total, would have dropped it to
| $20. Moreover, as the converted users appear to spread the word
| on social media, the Cash App can acquire additional users from
| just one._
|
| https://fintechradar.substack.com/p/breakdown-2-a-deep-dive-...
| offtop5 wrote:
| Jay Z live coding session coming soon.
|
| Jay Z is a bit unique among mainstream rappers, his first album
| , Reasonable Doubt, was released independently. He's much more
| involved on the business side then your typical act taken for a
| ride by the label and left broke.
| bsimpson wrote:
| It's downthread of his mention of joining the board. I wonder
| if that's what he's referring to.
| gowld wrote:
| Executive (which strangely means _not_ executing) not
| operational, likely. Making deals, doing PR, celebrity stuff,
| picking winners of internal product pitches.
| ThomPete wrote:
| Squares internal motto went from Make Commerce Easy to Economic
| Empowerment some years back.
|
| Square Cash is really big in the black community so Jay-Z
| obviously have a lot to offer there to further expand the
| business.
|
| With regards to Seller I think the idea is to push more for the
| "black owned business" motto and thus he will have a lot to
| offer there too.
|
| Disclaimer, I used to work at Square
| nemothekid wrote:
| I think Jay Z is just getting a board seat.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/square-to...
| goatherders wrote:
| Why? He's an accomplished businessman having built a number of
| successful brands.
| ROARosen wrote:
| It's the way he's being full-time active CEO to two major
| companies see here: https://www.yahoo.com/now/twitter-jack-
| dorsey-should-be-fire...
|
| EDIT: After seeing the other comment I realize I might have
| misinterpreted who the parent comment is referring to, is it
| Jack or Jay-z?
| newhouseb wrote:
| Jay-Z
| ROARosen wrote:
| I stand corrected
| [deleted]
| newhouseb wrote:
| I'm not doubting his acumen, it's clear he's a great
| businessman.
|
| I think the dissonance is that "leading an app" implies (to
| me) a more internally facing set of responsibilities than the
| kind of brand-building and collaboration I associate Jay
| with. Then again, maybe this is the strategic perspective
| that Jack believes these apps need.
|
| Candidly, I'm also just chuckling at how some set of folks at
| Square are probably wondering to themselves "...is Jay-Z
| going to be my manager?"
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I guess it's odd for a music and branding mogul to take on an
| operational role at a payment processing company, in the same
| way it'd be odd if Patrick Collison started a label and
| dropped a rap album.
| flycaliguy wrote:
| Odd but reminds me of Ryan Reynolds role at Mint Mobile.
| Marketing and operational roles merged. Basically when
| marketing is the crucial next step, your celebrity wants a
| big stake.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| it's fascinating. I think we're watching hyperreality
| take on a new aspect in real time.
| GormanFletcher wrote:
| It's certainly striking, but the world is full of surprises
| like that. Goldman Sachs' CEO is an EDM DJ with 550,000
| monthly Spotify listeners. He performs at nighclubs and
| music festivals, gets plays on Sirius XM, and his tracks
| chart on Billboard.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_M._Solomon
| beaconstudios wrote:
| we contain multitudes, maaan.
| fakedang wrote:
| Have you heard his music? Almost everyone I've clubbed
| with, DJ'd with, learnt from, etc all universally say his
| music fucking sucks. I doubt people listen to him for the
| quality of his music, than wannabe IBankers looking for
| inspiration or something (and there was no shortage of
| analysts at GS who would listen to his shit for vibes or
| something).
|
| It's a big world, so if you find the right platform for
| your best talent, you could become the next "surprise"
| too.
| davidedicillo wrote:
| He's not a businessman. He's a business, man.
| moneywoes wrote:
| Was looking for this comment. Well done
| ancharm wrote:
| Whats the % chance they start to lay the initial ideas down for a
| decentralized music ecosystem?
| buildawesome wrote:
| 0%
| pityJuke wrote:
| Is this just because Jack Dorsey likes Jay-Z or what? I can't
| imagine what acquiring a niche streaming service is going to
| achieve for Square
| [deleted]
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Maybe he wants invites to those cool rap parties as reported by
| TMZ.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| hate that this makes Jay-Z look like some kind of genius business
| guy to market people because he got an exit, when Tidal was an
| 'also-ran' as someone else said, and like never had any
| impact/users from the start
|
| no idea how it held on this long, even in the beginning seemed
| like ridiculous thing to start up and chance of artists flocking
| to it or it become dominant against apple and spotify etc was
| next to zero
| rchaud wrote:
| Strange comment. Should people not start a business because
| competitors exist?
|
| Not to mention this is hardly Jay-Z's first exit. He sold his
| clothing brand Rocawear sometime in the 2000s and as the
| article says, he sold a luxury booze brand as well.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| regularly see comments "who tf uses Tidal" "never heard anyone
| ever say they use Tidal"
|
| When it launched it was marked "DOA" and everyone said we
| didn't need another streaming service (even if Spotify was yet
| to really take off, but did eventually)
|
| A few ppl use it for FLAC quality streams and under some
| impression the service pays artists more because the launch
| board was all top gross artists on a stage. But within a few
| years all these reports came out about falsified stream numbers
| / inaccurate etc for Beyonce and Kayne releases.
|
| bah
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| Perhaps great irony, in the "Other Tweets" section below Jack's
| tweets I see this one from Paul Graham - "When startups are doing
| well, their investor updates are short and full of numbers. When
| they're not, their updates are long and mostly words."
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| The former American national soccer team manager, Bruce Arena,
| once was famously quoted describing a scrappy player, Clint
| Dempsey, with the phrase, "He tried shit." Meaning - it was
| sometimes weird, didn't always work, but he went for it and took
| risks.
|
| You can think what you want about this deal, but Dorsey is
| similar. It reminds me of Amazon in a lot of ways. They will
| absolutely try anything, no matter how weird. Some start-up
| delivers tacos by drones? The next week Amazon has a whole new
| AWS managed service to deliver tacos by drones, and shuts it down
| the next year.
|
| If there is any business out there right now that has some
| potential to be the Amazon of consumer finance, it is Cash App.
| Obviously the chances any business could do that are low. It's by
| no means a clear path to success, but you at least have to admire
| Square for trying weird shit and being willing to do anything to
| see what works.
| pfraze wrote:
| I generally agree, and the question I have for Jack's
| leadership is, does he like to win or does he hate losing? If
| it's the latter, he'll have the follow through to make these
| risks pay off.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Why ???.
| ASpaceCowboi wrote:
| Im gonna throw my speculation, is it to attempt to implement a
| crypto method of payment to musicians through Tidal?
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| Wouldn't it be interesting if you had a free streaming service
| but you had to down a program that mined crypto on your
| machine?
|
| It might also be a brave-like service where you can either buy
| Dorsey dollaroos (what I assume the logical name for a new
| crypto by square would be) or click on ads, then use the
| dollaroos to buy streams.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > Wouldn't it be interesting if you had a free streaming
| service but you had to down a program that mined crypto on
| your machine?
|
| Absolutely not
| twobitshifter wrote:
| When Sprint invested $200M for a 33% share they had about 1
| Million subscribers in 2017.
|
| https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7662726/tidal-sp...
|
| Not sure why NYTimes said this was undisclosed. This would give
| revenues of approximately $240M a year generously assuming
| everyone is on the HiFi plan.
|
| I haven't been able to find more recent subscription numbers. Was
| Sprint able to push Tidal to their customer base?
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Now Square just has to also purchase Bandcamp and offer to
| directly include your purchases (for music that isn't in the
| streaming service's library already) to your Tidal library after
| buying it on Bandcamp. And then fill the void left by the
| shutdown of Google Play Music and YouTube Music's sub-par "upload
| your own music"-feature.
| willtim wrote:
| I am thinking of moving to Tidal. The Spotify sound quality is
| awful for Classical music with their compression/processing
| unable to deal with complex passages. The Android app also
| upsamples everything to 48KHz and has occasional random audio
| glitches. Hopefully Tidal is better.
| kjakm wrote:
| Spotify have announced a 'HiFi' service coming later this year.
|
| https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-22/five-things-to-know-...
| leetcrew wrote:
| why tidal is particular? as far as I can tell, amazon music HD
| is the same thing for substantially less money.
| willtim wrote:
| The marketing for this one hasn't reached me yet. Thanks for
| the recommendation.
|
| EDIT: looks like Amazon HD might force re-sampling of 44.1KHz
| to 48KHz on Android, which is a shame if true.
| leetcrew wrote:
| unfortunately, I don't think any of the streaming services
| offer the same level of control and confidence as something
| like foobar2000 with a local library. when I was originally
| shopping for a streaming service, I found it very
| frustrating to figure out all the technical details. they
| don't make this information at all easy to find, and even
| if they do, it's hard to trust that something weird doesn't
| happen under the hood on some devices.
|
| my main use case for streaming is android auto, so I
| lowered my criteria to "no lossy-lossy reencode for
| bluetooth and works well with google assistant". so yt
| music was basically the only option for me. I would have
| tried amazon HD, but apparently google has deliberately
| made it hard to use with assistant, which hamstrings it for
| music in the car.
| mayneack wrote:
| After the end of google music, I switched to Tidal + Plex. It's
| great for library organization, custom dynamic playlists, and
| mixing personal files with streaming.
| IvyMike wrote:
| I moved to Tidal when Spotify decided to blow huge amounts of
| cash getting into the "exclusive podcast business" while still
| paying peanuts to most artists.
|
| Tidal pays musicians something like 3x what spotify does. [0]
| This is probably still not enough, but at least it's the right
| direction.
|
| The higher sound quality has just been a bonus.
|
| [0] https://soundcharts.com/blog/music-streaming-rates-payouts
| svantana wrote:
| In case you missed it, there is an audio quality section in
| Spotify's Settings menu, and the default is "automatic", which
| might not be the highest. I'm not sure but I think the "very
| high" setting is 320kbps ogg, which I've never heard of anyone
| being able to discriminate from lossless in a blind test. Also,
| Spotify is coming out with lossless later this year.
|
| (not affiliated with spotify and not very pleased with the
| service in general myself, just saying.)
| willtim wrote:
| I have it set to "Very High" and have their normalisation
| turned off. I can provide samples demonstrating distortion
| and break-up; the waveforms even look completely different
| visually. It's even audible over non-audiophile headphones.
| On my HD800S it's unlistenable. I have no idea what they are
| doing to the sound, but I have found many recordings that
| sound awful on both Android and Windows.
| [deleted]
| svantana wrote:
| That sounds more like error on the label's/uploader's
| behalf? Most often that should be the same across
| platforms, including lossless. I've heard cd skips, vinyl
| crackle and tape warble on spotify so I know what you mean.
| jakub_g wrote:
| Might be related:
|
| https://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-
| watermar...
| raverbashing wrote:
| Then I'd think it's the "audio watermarking" some companies
| insist on using. Because for some rights holders, you're
| paying for their product but f-you nonetheless.
|
| Edit: watermarking not fingerprinting
| xnx wrote:
| Fingerprinting or watermarking?
| SSLy wrote:
| Would you be able to share specific passages? The neighbour
| commenter mentioned fingerprinting, it might be that or bad
| master.
| willtim wrote:
| Sure, one example is the first minute opening of Osmo
| Vanska's Mahler 5. The big crescendo between 40-45
| seconds sounds particularly bad, lots of break-up and
| distortion. Sounds fantastic on the CD.
| SonOfLilit wrote:
| Links:
|
| https://open.spotify.com/track/2in7T2TWPkJW6Z6Ih9P4Ew?si=
| 7e6...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTcl20dgHSM
|
| Sounds identical (and very noisy) on Spotify and Youtube
| on my very crappy laptop speakers. I don't own the CD.
| kingosticks wrote:
| This
| https://open.spotify.com/album/1V5q6IEheMUjOTYJar4f54 ?
| It sounds fine to me but the exact copy I get might well
| be different to you if we are in different regions.
| nr2x wrote:
| That's not high quality: Give me lossless, 24bit master or
| GTFO! ;-)
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| while it doesn't help today, they are in fact looking to do
| that by Q3, from everything i've seen. I'm holding on to
| Spotify for now for ease of use, but I too want something
| better. I didn't like tidal when I used it years ago,
| though i'm sure they've changed quite a bit.
| [deleted]
| kennywinker wrote:
| While I'm no audiophile, I switched to tidal recently for
| another music-loving reason - they pay a larger share to
| artists.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Amazon Music offers higher resolution music.
| maxerickson wrote:
| You left out 'repeatedly'. Ticks me off that there is no way
| to disable ads in the app.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Ads? Not sure what you're referencing here.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I pay for Amazon Music. On my (Android) phone, I get
| modal 'upgrade offers' on a regular basis. Ads.
| nr2x wrote:
| Qobuz is amazing for classical.
| joubert wrote:
| Tidal sound quality is unparalleled IMO.
|
| I've got a good set of speakers, and coupled with Tidal's
| Master[1] quality recordings, there's just no way I can go back
| to something of lower sound fidelity.
|
| [1] https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/115000397069-TID...
| threeseed wrote:
| I am the opposite. On my Focal Clear there is no advantage
| for Tidal over Apple Music.
|
| Would be curious to see if you can pass this test:
| http://abx.digitalfeed.net
|
| Because what people fail to understand is that from source ->
| listener there are multiple points at which information is
| lost. People obsess over the file format but not over which
| DAC they use or whether Apple, Spotify, Tidal has better
| encoding capabilities.
| thisisnico wrote:
| Couldn't agree more :)
| mft_ wrote:
| Can I ask what your system is, to feed the speakers?
| fallingknife wrote:
| Why do you need to pay for a streaming service for classical
| music? Isn't it all public domain by now?
| tzs wrote:
| The underlying music for a large fraction of classical music
| is public domain now (but not all...classical music never
| stopped being composed).
|
| But copyright can also cover the performance itself, not just
| the underlying music. So even though Beethoven's 9th symphony
| has long been public domain, for example, the Telarc
| recording of it by Christoph von Dohnanyi and the Celeveland
| Orchestra & Chorus is not. If you want to do something with
| that specific recording, you need permission.
|
| Also, a particular arrangement might be copyrighted. Consider
| Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition". That was composed
| as a piano piece in 1874, and long ago became public domain.
|
| Since then, numerous other composers have arranged it for
| orchestra, with the most well known arrangement probably
| being Maurice Ravel's in 1922. There have been dozens of
| other orchestrations including several this century, and also
| numerous arrangements for other types of groups and
| combinations of instruments and solo instruments.
|
| A given recording will only be public domain if the
| underlying work, the arrangement, and the performance are all
| public domain.
| teodorlu wrote:
| Recordings are often recent.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Performance aside, plenty of classical works aren't out of
| copyright. My favourite composer, Herbert Howells, died in
| 1983; his works won't be out of copyright until 2053.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Spotify is pretty much bottom of the barrel if you're a music
| album fan, I think.
|
| I find it's only good at playing random songs on giant
| playlists, or playing the radio. Managing a library of albums
| is a huge pain and I still don't understand how it's supposed
| to work.
|
| Then there is the problem of questionable digital masters.
| There's 0 transparency into the mastering process and what
| Spotify uses. As you've observed, some things just sound really
| awful on Spotify.
|
| If you really want the best, I suggest Roon + Tidal
| subscription for playback. Then use Qobuz/Bandcamp/etc. to
| purchase lossless FLACs to import into Roon, or rip CDs
| yourself. This will give you the best quality, and you can be
| certain the source quality is good. You can use Tidal lossless
| for streaming things you don't buy (but the selection is much
| more limited). The Roon UX is way, way better than Spotify for
| managing a large collection of albums.
| 015a wrote:
| Audirvana is another app which competes with Roon. Audirvana
| is a one-time fee of $100, versus Roon's subscription model
| (or, I think, ~$800 lifetime subscription, which is pretty up
| there).
|
| I think the big thing both Roon and Audirvana achieve sub-
| optimally is just overall application performance and user
| experience. They do have a ton of features which help in
| managing massive audio libraries, far better than Spotify or
| Tidal alone. But, Roon legitimately feels like a browser app
| they threw in an iframe and nativefied. Audirvana is better
| IMO, but isn't as good as Roon at auto-discovering album
| artwork and metadata-ifying the connections between your
| local songs for hyperlinking and discovery.
|
| The critical thing that I _love_ about that methodology of
| music playback is the "synthesis" they both do of Tidal and
| your local music. There is a ton of music out there that's
| inaccessible on (all!) streaming services, and every
| audiophile I know eventually starts amassing a collection of
| lossless files from Bandcamp/etc. Neither a streaming service
| nor your local library alone is ever the "complete" view into
| all the music you want to enjoy; you need both, synthesized
| into one integrated view. Google Play Music used to be a
| decent solution to this, not the greatest quality but it
| solved this problem well, but then Google nerfed it into the
| ground.
|
| There's still a lot of work to be done in this domain. To be
| honest, my go-to for local music playback is the same app
| I've been using for a decade after the fall of Winamp; Foobar
| (Windows). Its simple, ridiculously performant, infinitely
| customizable, and works great.
| willtim wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendations. I'm still very new to
| streaming and still buy CDs for most of my music. I am
| currently using UAPP on my phone and plug it straight into an
| RME ADI-2 DAC, the advantage being I don't have to fire up
| the PC. The disadvantage of course is storage on the phone.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Roon sounds like it would be great for you - but you'll
| have to spend some time and money on setting it up. I have
| all my music in lossless FLAC on a Synology NAS and run the
| Roon server on there. The Roon client should work on your
| phone and connect to your RME ADI-2 DAC as well (great DAC
| btw, I'd really like one myself). It handles lossless
| streaming, and ensuring the digital chain is optimized for
| quality all the way to your DAC. It can also apply
| arbitrary parametric EQ on the server side, in case you
| want to use some EQ profiles for your HD800s if you don't
| have the RME handy.
| threeseed wrote:
| > You can use Tidal lossless for streaming things.
|
| I have a Focal Clear, Schiit Lyr 3, Schiit Bifrost 2 and I
| can not tell the difference between Tidal and Apple Music.
| There are tests online which people regularly post on Head-Fi
| and Reddit which also shows that almost all people can't
| distinguish lossless from high quality lossy encodes.
|
| > or rip CDs yourself. This will give you the best quality
|
| No it won't.
|
| As Apple describes in their guide for Apple Music they have,
| "dynamic range that's superior to red book CD audio" because
| they transcode from the high-bit masters.
|
| https://www.apple.com/itunes/docs/apple-digital-masters.pdf
| GormanFletcher wrote:
| As much as dislike Spotify's UI, I listen to a mountain of
| fringe content that no other streaming service carries but
| Spotify has in spades, because all of the indies make sure to
| upload to Spotify.
|
| I'm sorely tempted to build my own library/playlist
| management front-end on top of Spotify's API. They're the
| only streaming service I've found with an official
| streaming/remote control API, and with upcoming lossless
| support (albeit only CD-quality), their library with a
| tailor-made UI seems like the best trade-off I'm going to get
| in a music service.
| hudo wrote:
| Qobuz should be best for Classical and Jazz ... I have Tidal on
| the droid and never had any glitches.
| willtim wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation. I see that Qobuz also
| integrates with UAPP on Android (which gets around the 48Khz
| limit). Since I listen to mainly Jazz and Classical, it
| sounds like a good fit.
| luckycharms810 wrote:
| I would highly recommend Qobuz. Great company, ownership that
| cares about artists and music.
| willtim wrote:
| I can confirm Qobuz sounds great. I've signed up for a free
| trial. The integration with UAPP on Android works well and
| gets around the Android 48Khz limitation. Thanks for the
| recommendation.
| jariel wrote:
| This is a bizarre, seems like there is a personal issue here and
| perhaps the board should have a look at this? This is one of the
| areas that CEOs seem to have a lot of opportunity for odd
| behaviour, what with Benioff spending billions of his companies
| money on companies that he has invested in etc..
| untilHellbanned wrote:
| NFT. Enough said.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| I was thinking of switching from Google Play Music (er, Youtube
| Music) to Tidal; I'm going to wait to see how this plays out.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Tidal is an also ran. Jay-Z made the right call here. Jack Dorsey
| not so much.
| dagorenouf wrote:
| I do not see the genius of this move.
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