Qobuz - who just subscribed?

I have been using Qobuz for a weeks now. If I remember correctly I have Qobuz Studio. While the sound is good there are not that many hires albums and I still miss albums.

There are some Einsturzende Neubauten albums but not all of them. Same goes for Alternative 4, The Third and the Mortal, Wreckmeister Harmonies and other bands I like.
 
joeinid said:
Roon 1.6 is supposed to be compatible. I have not tried yet, still using Qobuz directly from my Lumin U1 mini into my Bricasti.
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I’ve been having trouble running Qobuz with Roon. It seems to have issues with the 24/96 and higher files. Sometimes takes 30 seconds to load and then will only play for about 10 seconds before skipping. Tidal MQA plays fine. When running Qobuz through the Lumin app on my D1, it plays fine. Anyone else?


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I have had Tidal for a year or two and have enjoyed it. Had BETA and now annual subscription of Qobuz. Will continue the A/B for another month or so but will most likely drop Tidal. Qobuz edges out Tidal in all resolutions just ever so slightly. And yes my DAC does full unfold of MQA. Tidal currently has the edge in ROON interface and available library but I anticipate that to change quickly. MQA does sound wonderful but it is a Lossy format whereas Qobuz streams lossless
 
Rubytuesday said:
I’ve been having trouble running Qobuz with Roon. It seems to have issues with the 24/96 and higher files. Sometimes takes 30 seconds to load and then will only play for about 10 seconds before skipping. Tidal MQA plays fine. When running Qobuz through the Lumin app on my D1, it plays fine. Anyone else?


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You should visit the Roon forums. I noticed a post similar to yours there.
 
Just looked at it, they don't even provide a screenshot of the interface and probably don't have nearly the quantity that Spotify does, so sticking with Spotify.
I don't "listen" to streaming. I just use it for background and research, so I don't need "high quality sound". Qobuz is the same price as Spotify for my purposes, but Spotify at least allows one to see the interface and takes a step further to let you see the titles and play with it without signing up to see if it is to your liking and no worrying about them ignoring your request to cancel before the 30 days are up. Yes, I have premium subscription to Spotify, this is not about trying to get something for free. It is about hyperbole vs real info for me.
If Qobuz decides to allow one to see a screenshot of the interface and to see how many titles are available, then I will take another look, but until then, no thanks.
 
Audiophobiac said:
Just looked at it, they don't even provide a screenshot of the interface and probably don't have nearly the quantity that Spotify does, so sticking with Spotify.
I don't "listen" to streaming. I just use it for background and research, so I don't need "high quality sound". Qobuz is the same price as Spotify for my purposes, but Spotify at least allows one to see the interface and takes a step further to let you see the titles and play with it without signing up to see if it is to your liking and no worrying about them ignoring your request to cancel before the 30 days are up. Yes, I have premium subscription to Spotify, this is not about trying to get something for free. It is about hyperbole vs real info for me.
If Qobuz decides to allow one to see a screenshot of the interface and to see how many titles are available, then I will take another look, but until then, no thanks.
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Definitely Spotify is a better fit for your needs. For hose looking for CD Quality sound, higher resolution offerings, and/or Roon integration, Spotify won't do. That is where Qobuz and Tidal come into play.
 
I’ve been on Tidal for a bit and I’d love to try Qobuz. I listen to a lot of 60’s, 70’s, 80’s rock, Fleetwood Mac, Stones, Doors and the like. How’s the selection with that genre? I can’t find a way to see what they offer.
 
sid325 said:
I’ve been on Tidal for a bit and I’d love to try Qobuz. I listen to a lot of 60’s, 70’s, 80’s rock, Fleetwood Mac, Stones, Doors and the like. How’s the selection with that genre? I can’t find a way to see what they offer.
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I would start with https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/shop and see if music that you are looking for is available. Keep in mind that the catalog is not complete in US.
 
I just started a 30 day free trial with Qobuz.

I used Soundiiz to transfer several of my Tidal playlists into Qobuz.

I am using Roon. Both Qobuz and Tidal seem to work very well in Roon.

My initial thoughts are:
1. None of my Tidal playlists transferred 100% successfully into Qobuz.
2. The transfer success rate is about 75%. However there was one Tidal playlist of songs selected by a teenager that only transferred about 40% (that should be an indication of what kind of music not to expect in Qobuz).
3. The Tidal playlists only had 16/44 tracks, but Qobuz found a few 24/96 replacements.
4. I did not find that the 24/96 replacements always sounded better. One or two did while others sounded the same as 16/44.
5. However there was one particular Qobuz 24/96 file that did not sound as good as the 16/44 Tidal version. There must be something wrong with that file.
6. The overall volume of the Qobuz tracks is lower.
7. The 16/44 tracks sounded the same.

Preliminary conclusions:
- If the transfer success rate is about 75%, then 25% of your music is not available in Qobuz.
- just because you can get high def albums, that does not mean that they will sound better.
- at this moment I am not enticed to switch.
 
nicoff said:
5. However there was one particular Qobuz 24/96 file that did not sound as good as the 16/44 Tidal version. There must be something wrong with that file.
6. The overall volume of the Qobuz tracks is lower.

- just because you can get high def albums, that does not mean that they will sound better.
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Interesting results.

For overall volume differences, please verify that your means of playing Tidal and Qobuz do not involve any volume normalization / leveling. Tidal app and Spotify app support volume normalization (not sure about Qobuz app yet). [If played using Lumin players using Lumin app instead of Roon, no volume normalization is done.]

I speculate that in a lot of cases, differences may be caused by differently mastered versions of the same album given to the different streaming service providers.
 
And if you've been following the ongoing threads on CA/AS you know that they are still finalizing rights agreements with various labels and the track count on the US site is growing every day and based on the negotiations with the labels may still take a while before the US catalog equals the EU one. The official launch was only six days ago so don't be so quick to judge as David has been completely transparent about the process of label negotiations.
 
Jack said:
And if you've been following the ongoing threads on CA/AS you know that they are still finalizing rights agreements with various labels and the track count on the US site is growing every day and based on the negotiations with the labels may still take a while before the US catalog equals the EU one. The official launch was only six days ago so don't be so quick to judge as David has been completely transparent about the process of label negotiations.
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True Jack. A lot is still being worked out with the labels Per David Craff not to mention updates are forthcoming on the search engine and a "Desktop Release is focused on updating the libraries used". Like anything NEW in the US, things take some time. So far I'm liking what I hear.
 
Last night I listened to a few Tidal MQA tracks and compared them to the Qobuz 24/96 versions. I do not have a MQA DAC so I had to depend on Roon to do the first level software unfold. To my ears the Qobuz 24/96 sounded better.

Next I am going to try to compare with the CD-quality version from Tidal.

The problem I find with these comparisons is that is seems nearly impossible to tell if Tidal and Qobuz are working with the same version of the recording.
 
Good thing then there are options as I have had Qobuz for over 18 months and Tidal for three years and I hear the opposite through six different DACs.
 
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