Tag: tidal

Lock-in

Apple got me this time. The biggest company in the world is very good at selling a piece of hardware (in this case the Apple Watch) and then linking it to an essential piece of software (Apple Music).

The watch can’t play any other music offline apart from Apple Music. I only want to play music on my watch when I am offline on a run or in the gym.

I had to quit my previous music subscription (Tidal) to join Apple Music, to go to the gym and listen with my watch!

Lock-in.

Roon + Tidal

I have recently signed up to both Roon and Tidal. So many websites and commentators are raving about it.

Linking your Tidal account to Roon gives you endless volumes of high fidelity music and MQA format recordings in a beautiful package.

It is convenient, sounds great, and the Roon software is staggering – it needs to be experienced to be understood but to me one of the key things that Roon does well is give you suggestions and notes to read while you listen to a track – this combination is key. The reading element brings back the old LP / CD cover notes vibe to streaming music. A wonderful thing and I am sold.

Now to optimise the Roon Core / DAC / MQA combinations! Can’t wait.

Streaming and ownership

If I can consume media with purpose then I will be happy. Too often though, I feel like media is force fed to me like a scene out of A Clockwork Orange.

I have decided to make a change in music subscription services – from Google Play Music to Tidal. New MQA Masters catalogues on Tidal are a factor, as are my future plans to integrate with a service such as Roon. Roon lets you interact with the music you listen to like we used to with CDs and LPs.

All of this is a rather futile effort to mitigate against the fact that when we stream our music or TV or movies, we no longer own the content. It’s a mindset from another time I guess but to pay for a service rather than a piece of art seems like a poor deal.

At least it is convenient and works on my phone though.