Tidal Lost Tons Of Money In 2015

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How can Tidal lose this much money when they have Kanye signed? Heh, sorry...I couldn't help myself. Feel free to post your "tidal wave of money down the toilet" jokes in the comments. :D

If you guessed that it would be expensive for a small streaming service like Tidal to compete with heavyweights like Apple and Spotify, especially through exclusives... you guessed correctly. Tidal's parent company, Aspiro, has reported a $28 million loss for 2015, the year Jay-Z bought it. That's more than twice the $10.4 million loss it chalked up in 2014. While the Wall Street Journal understands that this doesn't include all US financial data (it's not a "complete picture"), it's not exactly flattering.
 
The market is saturated with streaming services. What could Tidal really offer that isn't already out there?

Besides Kanye that is.
 
Maybe if more people knew who or what Tidal was. I haven't even heard of it til now.
 
Investors getting that sinking feeling as the tide goes out? :D
 
Not unlike a certain fruit company... :troll:

I know I'll get flamed but yes Apple is that good with iOS. Android is a clusterfuck, I tried it for an upgrade cycle and just didn't like it. I think it would prob be alot better if all android devices had to run the stock distro and all got the same updates...
 
From a consumer standpoint, I simply don't feel that subscribing to multiple streaming or music subscription services is a wise decision. Like digital games, I purchase an overwhelming majority of my games through Steam because they pioneered the service and appear to be the most dedicated to it and most reliable source; when I buy something, including digital things, I want to download them and I want to be able to keep them. Yeah, there is risk in buying digital games, but Steam seems to have the least amount of risk at the moment.

The only way I would buy digital music is if I intended to unconditionally support an artist (I would likely buy directly from their website) or if it was something I wanted to keep and be able to re-download in the future from a reliable/reputable service (Amazon, I don't do iTunes). Basically, I'm too old to trust these pop-up digital music services, so I pirate music, then if I like it I'll either go to a local music store or Amazon and buy it on CD and rip it to FLAC or high-VBR MP3.
 
I know I'll get flamed but yes Apple is that good with iOS. Android is a clusterfuck, I tried it for an upgrade cycle and just didn't like it. I think it would prob be alot better if all android devices had to run the stock distro and all got the same updates...

Quality phone solves this, don't buy low end rebranded junk and you won't get junk. i learned this the hard way with phones, get what you pay for. Got a G4, loving it, use vanilla or cyanogen and could not be happier. Prior was a Lg Stylo, biggest piece of shit i ever used in my life, both android. Also hate the Apple garden club requirements so.
 
Quality phone solves this, don't buy low end rebranded junk and you won't get junk. i learned this the hard way with phones, get what you pay for. Got a G4, loving it, use vanilla or cyanogen and could not be happier. Prior was a Lg Stylo, biggest piece of shit i ever used in my life, both android. Also hate the Apple garden club requirements so.
Phone quality aside, market fragmentation is still a big problem for Android.

But on topic, there are already a ton of awesome streaming sites. I have Google Play Music. What does Tidal offer me that Google doesn't? I don't listen to Kanye, if anything that turns me off from their service.
 
Kanye's new album is on Apple Music anyway. Tidal offered nothing special and had a terrible interface.
 
Phone quality aside, market fragmentation is still a big problem for Android.

But on topic, there are already a ton of awesome streaming sites. I have Google Play Music. What does Tidal offer me that Google doesn't? I don't listen to Kanye, if anything that turns me off from their service.

I do agree with that sentiment, for sure, my above post is a quality example of it.
 
I want a site that sells lossless for the price of or lower than cd's. Mp3's are reprehensible to music. With the current state of pc's and internet, there is no excuse for garbage anymore.
 
I pay for Hi-Fi Tidal and have been since it's relaunch when Jay-Z and the 13 other artists bought it.

Why? Because I can stream music through my computer which uses a DAC straight through to my amp and speakers and I can clearly hear that it isn't the overly compressed Spotify/AppleMusic quality stuff.

It's worth it. $20 bucks a month is a drop in the bucket considering how often and how much music I listen to on a daily basis through my setup. It's also a nice companion to my ever growing vinyl collection.

It's a bummer to know that most everyone is more than happy to listen to their music through shitty compression and even shittier headphones/speakers. Even if you can't tell the difference in quality (which you would after listening to FLAC audio for some time) you are already doing yourself and the artist a major disservice by listening to a just a fraction of what was actually recorded in the studio. Pro tip: just because your headphones have great bass response doesn't mean you're listening to good quality audio.
 
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I pay for Hi-Fi Tidal and have been since it's relaunch when Jay-Z and the 13 other artists bought it.

Why? Because I can stream music through my computer which uses a DAC straight through to my amp and speakers and I can clearly hear that it isn't the overly compressed Spotify/AppleMusic quality stuff.

It's worth it. $20 bucks a month is a drop in the bucket considering how often and how much music I listen to on a daily basis through my setup. It's also a nice companion to my ever growing vinyl collection.

It's a bummer to know that most everyone is more than happy to listen to their music through shitty compression and even shittier headphones/speakers. Even if you can't tell the difference in quality (which you would after listening to FLAC audio for some time) you are already doing yourself and the artist a major disservice by listening to a just a fraction of what was actually recorded in the studio. Pro tip: just because your headphones have great bass response doesn't mean you're listening to good quality audio.

Some ppl simply don't care, so long as they can hear music. I don't need crystal clarity and fuller mids and bass, when I'm just trying to get a workout. Nor do some of us want to be stuck with a big set of cans on our head. Why I have some crappy Bluetooth in-ear headphones for the gym and some Bluetooth Sennheisers for walking on the streets. At work, it's whatever is stock on a Dell Precision T7500 with my Bluetooth Sennheisers using a wire connection. I'd be more than happy with any streaming service for those times.

Then in my car, the layout of a car simply sucks for audio anyways. There simply is no good way of setting it up without randomly mounting speakers here and there to test things out. So got nothing more than a Sony headunit with some Rockford speakers and powered woofer. I pair my phone to the head unit. Not gonna hear any kind of high quality audio in majority of cars.

At home, I've ripped my CDs to flac. Pushed through a Sound Blaster X7 Limited dac to my Audio Technica A700s. I personally don't do the streaming, cause cellphone connection is spotty where I'm at. Either way, people can choose what they want to use for their music. If audio quality was a major concern, Beats wouldn't have took off.

Not everyone is going to care as much as another person for something else. I don't get how ppl can't fix items that you use everyday. Their computer, their car, their house, etc.
 
I love Tidal HiFi. I can't listen to Amazon, Spotify, or Apple. FLAC is so much better sounding than the other crap on the market. I could care less about the Tidal exclusives wit the exception of Prince. The Black Album in FLAC is delicious! One of my favorites on Tidal is 1950's music that my father used to listen to on road trips with us. Jazz sounds so much better in the FLAC format. ABBA in FLAC is freaking awesome! Electronic music sounds noticeably clearer and the bass is more defined listening to Tidal.

What I don't like about Tidal is that they only allow one stream at a time. I have a less than $3 a month Pandora account for my mom to listen to. She's going blind so I can just set it to play a genre for her and she's happy. She can hear the difference in Tidal and Pandora though; but for her it's not enough to pay for a second subscription. My little sister loves my Tidal account. She is notorious for kicking me off my account to listen to some Nick Cave.

For me Tidal is worth every penny. The Tidal app has new options for DAC owners. There is an Exclusive Mode where Tidal has exclusive use of the audio device. Also you can Force Volume where Tidal is at max volume, and you control the volume on your external device. Pretty awesome stuff for those of us that absolutely love music.

To be honest the $10 Tidal subscription is nice too. And college students can get a 50% discount to make it even cheaper.
 
I pay for Hi-Fi Tidal and have been since it's relaunch when Jay-Z and the 13 other artists bought it.

Why? Because I can stream music through my computer which uses a DAC straight through to my amp and speakers and I can clearly hear that it isn't the overly compressed Spotify/AppleMusic quality stuff.

It's worth it. $20 bucks a month is a drop in the bucket considering how often and how much music I listen to on a daily basis through my setup. It's also a nice companion to my ever growing vinyl collection.

It's a bummer to know that most everyone is more than happy to listen to their music through shitty compression and even shittier headphones/speakers. Even if you can't tell the difference in quality (which you would after listening to FLAC audio for some time) you are already doing yourself and the artist a major disservice by listening to a just a fraction of what was actually recorded in the studio. Pro tip: just because your headphones have great bass response doesn't mean you're listening to good quality audio.

I loved the quality of Tidal; just despised their layout and lack of depth in their music curation. Apple and Spotify do a great job of curation and I am constantly exposed to new or new to me artists. Tidal hasn't come close. I think they are trying to do too many things and not focused on the music. I don't care about music videos, give me a myriad genres of music and DEEEEEEEEP playlist curation. I check back in every few months hoping for change, but still not there on the curation.
 
I switched to Tidal for HiFi Lossless for 1 month, but switched back to Spotify for basically every other reason. The "quality" increase wasn't worth the money and IMO Tidal kinda sucks otherwise. Much prefer Spotify's UI and their New Music Friday playlist is much better than the Tidal equivalent. I use pretty decent audio equipment too -- still wouldn't recommend it personally.
 
I agree that Tidal needs more music on their service. I miss my Washington, D.C. Go Go music scene. It's something funky like Parliament, but different. I love the live instruments. Tidal unfortunately doesn't have many tracks to listen to in that genre. I run into the same issue with other music on Spotify. Sometimes I wish that the Library of Congress could curate anything over say 25 years old. I'd pay for a subscription for that!
 
I use Tidal as more of an extension of my physical music library anyway and have not had many issues relating to 'missing' music on the service.

I do agree that it isn't very useful as a music discovery service but I couldn't care less about that really (but I know that I'm in the minority with that). The playlists that they put on there are enough for me to find new songs or artists but it's definitely not as robust as other music services. To me though that was never the draw for Tidal as I simply wanted FLAC audio from it.
 
Quality phone solves this, don't buy low end rebranded junk and you won't get junk. i learned this the hard way with phones, get what you pay for. Got a G4, loving it, use vanilla or cyanogen and could not be happier. Prior was a Lg Stylo, biggest piece of shit i ever used in my life, both android. Also hate the Apple garden club requirements so.

When I did try it I got a name brand phone, a Galaxy S3. The phone itself was more than fine, just didn't like Android.
 
When I did try it I got a name brand phone, a Galaxy S3. The phone itself was more than fine, just didn't like Android.

There's your issue, you used a Samsung which does NOT use stock android or Cyanogen. Vanilla is much better and only on select phones and cyanogen is really great. I too hated Android until this point, if you haven't you should try the above.
 
The market is saturated with streaming services. What could Tidal really offer that isn't already out there?

Besides Kanye that is.
As far as I know, Beyonce's new releases are streamed through Tidal only -- unless you want to straight up purchase them.
 
I love Tidal HiFi. I can't listen to Amazon, Spotify, or Apple. FLAC is so much better sounding than the other crap on the market. I could care less about the Tidal exclusives wit the exception of Prince. The Black Album in FLAC is delicious! One of my favorites on Tidal is 1950's music that my father used to listen to on road trips with us. Jazz sounds so much better in the FLAC format. ABBA in FLAC is freaking awesome! Electronic music sounds noticeably clearer and the bass is more defined listening to Tidal.

When I was younger and had better audio stuff (I'm starting to upgrade to get better stuff again), I always went to jazz music to listen to. The instruments were perfect to hear all the nuances and you could hear the small differences and just little things in the music. Not post-processed to sound completely different. Full range of frequencies. It is one of the best types of music to really try out audio equipment, IMO. The music itself isn't my favorite, but I don't hate it. It's more of an appreciation.
 
I miss Grooveshark. It was an illegalish grey area service, but they had such a big selection that you listened to on demand. I haven't really liked a streaming service as much since. Pandora doesn't have enough bands on it. Spotify was also disappointingly lacking. It's no wonder so many people turn to pirating or youtube. It's the only way to actually get a decent collection of music at your fingertips.
 
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