Qobuz - latest retrograde 'upgrade' - June 2024

[Mandryka]

I dumped Spotify for Qobuz! I find they have everything I want....well one or two are missing, for example Chesky's catalogue. Particularly, Qobuz does out of the way French stuff well, which suits me.

A plus on Spotify is 'Connect', this works better than anything else I've tried, Tidal...still have to use the proprietary app for the streamer, Qobuz...hasn't got Connect at all - although they say they're working on it. In the meantime I go through HEOS to my Marantz (HEOS is rubbish!), or through Playfi (ok, but track identification very poor) to my Quad streamer in my preamp.

The biggest problem with Spotify is that it is not reliably 'gapless', meaning that if you play a work which is continuous eg an opera, does the equipment or app insert a gap at track access points. Spotify claims to be, it is not! Qobuz is entirely 'gapless'.....except when in 'Transfer' mode, ie playback is transfered so that the work playing goes straight from the server to the streamer - this function is rubbish!

And then there is sound quality, Qobuz wipes the floor with all the others I've tried....Tidal is a mess, and is backtracking on MQA after exposés of dodgy claims (MQA are now bust!). Spotify is playing catch-up. They promised a HiFi tier back in 2021 - urm, still waiting! 320bt ogg vorbis is not good enough when Qobuz has flac.

I've never had a gap problem with spotify - if you let me know a recording where you have gaps I'll check.

I used to be able to hear a difference between Qobuz and Spotify - but much less so now. The poor Qobuz catalogue was the killer. Since abandoning Qobuz there have only been two recordings which I needed to buy from them - the Koechlin Quintet from Syntonia and The Dvorak Quartet playing Dvorak on Supraphon.

[Mandryka]

Also, not to be overlooked, are the accompanying booklets which Qobuz provides for most new classical releases. That, allied to superior sound quality and a vast catalogue of classical (I'm struggling to think of any of label that does not have practically its entire repertoire represented on Qobuz) make it the streaming app par excellence for classical music. The only omissions to repertoire are those companies which do not make any of their catalogue available for streaming.

However, it's by no means perfect. The search function is woeful and the Android app has an irritating tendency to want to connect to a mobile network and stream at a high bit rate even when one has selcted offline listening. Another feature the desktop app lacks is the ability to switch the location for storing imports (eg expansion drive). I've tried changing in the past, and everytime there is an upgrade the desktop app reverts to the detault location on the hard drive, limiting the amount of files one can save, particularly irritating for hi res files which typically may use 1GB for a large symphonic work!

I still have access to the booklets (as a webpage) via the Qobuz app on the Logitech Media Server. That's good, but in truth so many recordings don't release digital booklets.

Search on all of them is a problem - I think you learn how to live with the quirks after a while.

[Mandryka]

On the question of sound quality of Tidal vs Qobuz, I was asked my views recently by a friend on Tidal or Qobuz, as in which is better. Having recently invested in a new streamer (Auralic Aries G2.2) and as a subscriber to both in their highest res formats, I took the same pieces of music and switched between the two. Somewhat to my surprise, Tidal Max had the definite edge, sound-wise. Not a lot in it but more space round the music and better definition, particularly with 24/192 offerings, e.g. Martin James Bartlett’s recent piano recital. I also have an Apple Classical subscription but haven’t tried that with the Auralic. Sound quality apart though, Qobuz seems to have a wider choice of recordings on offer. I’ve never listened to Spotify so know nothing about it.

I have heard elsewhere that Tidal is outstanding, and a much faster stream than Qobuz if your streamer has a problem buffering. I tried them many years ago but abandoned them because so many recordings were badly tagged - incorrect track numbers so everything would be in the wrong order. I guess they've solved that problem now though.

[Roger Webb]

............ Somewhat to my surprise, Tidal Max had the definite edge, sound-wise. Not a lot in it but more space round the music and better definition, particularly with 24/192

I did a similar comparison using my two streamers, a Marantz and a Quad, the sound was, overall better on Qobuz, but, this may have changed since Tidal are in the process of redoing their catalogue to Flac files from the MQA disaster.

The Marantz is hopeless on Tidal as one has to use the HEOS app which has the most bizarre operating 'features' eg you want to play the second string qt on a disc, select track 5 say, it plays track 5...and then stops! Quite unbelievably you either have to 'queue' the other three tracks manually, or hit 'play all' and then delete tracks 1-4...what!

The Quad streamer section of the preamp works fine with Playfi app but, and I've checked this with many different test pieces, Tidal does not play everything 'gapless' whereas Qobuz does, this is important if you play opera for example.

The most severe test for 'gapless' is this recording,

Listen to the release Beethoven (Live) by Evgeny Kissin on Qobuz https://open.qobuz.com/album/0002894797583

Ps. I agree with Sir Velo, the Qobuz booklets are really excellent.... especially now they can be viewed in app. and not as downloads.

[HighlandDougie]

I did a similar comparison using my two streamers, a Marantz and a Quad, the sound was, overall better on Qobuz, but, this may have changed since Tidal are in the process of redoing their catalogue to Flac files from the MQA disaster.

Yes, the Tidal vs Qobuz was recent so FLAC rather than MQA. I have an MQA enabled DAC/pre-amp in France which I use for MQA CDs which do sound rather better than their Red Book cousins, based on limited comparisons. The latest Yuja Wang Vienna Recital sounds terrific in MQA CD format.

[Roger Webb]

Yes, the Tidal vs Qobuz was recent so FLAC rather than MQA. I have an MQA enabled DAC/pre-amp in France which I use for MQA CDs which do sound rather better than their Red Book cousins, based on limited comparisons. The latest Yuja Wang Vienna Recital sounds terrific in MQA CD format.

Tidal have announced that all their MQA files are now being replaced by Flac and below is the review of MQA that kicked-off the row

https://youtu.be/pRjsu9-Vznc?si=pXV2T7lB8WMRuucm

There's a response from MQA in part two. One of the things I find most disturbing about Tidal/MQA is their attempt to silence the truth.

https://youtu.be/NHkqWZ9jzA0?si=AwymAiiFlxNaUjjL

I'm not sure where it leaves you who bought an MQA decoder licence as part of the cost of your streamer?

[richardfinegold]

On the question of sound quality of Tidal vs Qobuz, I was asked my views recently by a friend on Tidal or Qobuz, as in which is better. Having recently invested in a new streamer (Auralic Aries G2.2) and as a subscriber to both in their highest res formats, I took the same pieces of music and switched between the two. Somewhat to my surprise, Tidal Max had the definite edge, sound-wise. Not a lot in it but more space round the music and better definition, particularly with 24/192 offerings, e.g. Martin James Bartlett’s recent piano recital. I also have an Apple Classical subscription but haven’t tried that with the Auralic. Sound quality apart though, Qobuz seems to have a wider choice of recordings on offer. I’ve never listened to Spotify so know nothing about it.

I did a free Tidal trial years ago and the way they organized their classical it was terrible, like a chimp on meth I think someone else described it. Has it improved?
Streaming for me is secondary to physical media. I use it mainly to explore recordings not in my possession, so Apple works fine for my needs in terms of search engine, catalog depth, and sound quality

[Roger Webb]

...............Streaming for me is secondary to physical media.

I think I said somewhere I was running out of space!

https://www.ratherrarerecords.com/wp-content/uploads/AlexGregory_cartoon_vinyl_1000.jpg

[Anastasius]

Sadly the abomination that is version 8.1 is all that is available to get from Play Store. If anyone knows where to find the previous version then please let me know. So many bugs. Forgets your settings between opening and closing the app. Trying to distinguish between whole works and movements is tortuous and clunky. It randomly throws in tracks to your Library. You never know if you are looking at tracks or whole works. You used to have a pop up alphabet button down the RH side so you could quickly go down to, say, Wagner. Gone. So now you have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and....until your fingers bleed.

In a word SNAFU


Had a quick look at Spotify....useless user interface. Great for two-year olds, I guess.

[richardfinegold]

Sadly the abomination that is version 8.1 is all that is available to get from Play Store. If anyone knows where to find the previous version then please let me know. So many bugs. Forgets your settings between opening and closing the app. Trying to distinguish between whole works and movements is tortuous and clunky. It randomly throws in tracks to your Library. You never know if you are looking at tracks or whole works. You used to have a pop up alphabet button down the RH side so you could quickly go down to, say, Wagner. Gone. So now you have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll and....until your fingers bleed.

In a word SNAFU


Had a quick look at Spotify....useless user interface. Great for two-year olds, I guess.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. A lousy interface that frustrates can really take the joy out of streaming.
There isn’t a perfect streaming interface for Classical Music, but I have found Apple Music to be the best of the lot. They bought the software drone the Primephonic Classical streaming service which generally got high marks from user. The catalog is deep as well.
I agree with you about Spotify , based on a past subscription . I just returned from a week of limited internet and used Amazon Music. Essentially every disc I have ever purchased is available as an mp3, after I downloaded the disc to my phone. I did 20 albums or so. I hated the interface, even for that limited amount of music, but hey any port in a storm

[Anastasius]

I did have a quick foray with Apple Music and put it on my Android phone. Of course that requires me to enter my Apple ID username and password. Shortly after doing this, I got a message on my iPhone (an elderly phone) telling me that a data breach had revealed a load of my passwords. OK...most likely a coincidence but it did pull me up short. I trust Apple's security but not Samsung. So removed the Apple Music app and changed my password! If I start using the iphone in the workshop I will have to find the adapter lead for the DAC.

[richardfinegold]

Apple Music works on both iphone /pad and an Android Tablet. My streamer uses both Chromecast and AirPlay but I apparently can't Chromecast from an Apple device. Chromecast sounds bettrer so I use the anderoid tablet.
Not sure what your data breach was about. Try it one more time and see if a similar message appears

[Anastasius]

No, once bitten !

[Nick Armstrong]

Sadly the abomination that is version 8.1 is all that is available to get from Play Store.

I appear to have version 7.10.1 on both iPhone & iPad … I’m not aware of ever being offered an update and (thankfully, it seems) it hasn’t updated itself automatically.

Thanks for the warning...

[Anastasius]

Nick, you are a star! The version on the App Store is still version 7.10.1 and have downloaded it to my iPhone. I am a very Happy Bunny.

Make sure you go to Settings > App Store and disable auto-updates ASAP.