Qobuz support - or lack of

[Anastasius]

Has anyone been successful in getting any sort of response out of support ?

I emailed them on Sunday asking why they were inserting gaps in between tracks in classical music or whether there was a setting at my end (I don't think there is). It's a tad annoying to say the least.

[jayne lee wilson]

Has anyone been successful in getting any sort of response out of support ?

I emailed them on Sunday asking why they were inserting gaps in between tracks in classical music or whether there was a setting at my end (I don't think there is). It's a tad annoying to say the least.

I use Qobuz Studio every day as a kind of personal radio station & New Release Service - no problem here at all, certainly not of that kind, now or in the past. They certainly don't insert gaps, or at least I've never heard any. Which recordings are they? I'll check them if you want. I used Qobuz HiFi from 2016-18, never any problem there either. All in the Audirvana+ Player of course. Super-stable.

It could be your playback system.... which is?

From time to time you get a glitch (extraneous brief noise etc.) or something on a file, I tell them and they usually thank me for it. But it can be down to the record company to correct so isn't always swiftly done.

On the few occasions I had a faulty download, they refunded it and offered me a free album....

[Dave2002]

Just testing right now.

I recall one or two downloads which didn't work for me, so could be a source of problems for a streaming site. I think one was a set of variations by Boris Blacher, which just fell apart when I tried to listen, so I ended up buying the CD. Qobuz has a couple of versions of the Paganini variations, and they seem to play OK - https://open.qobuz.com/track/30439008 and https://open.qobuz.com/track/57838709

Of course these may not have been set up as separate tracks, so not necessarily the best to try to trip Qobuz up, but they were the ones I thought of first on reading the opening post.

Can you let us know what you were trying to listen to which generated the gap issue?

[Anastasius]

Many thanks for the quick reply, Jayne.

I use the basic service play.qobuz.com CD quality. Streamed on my MacBook and then via a DAC to the amp. My hearing doesn't warrant anything more sophisticated ! The latest 'errant' was RVW Symphony 5 - Bryden Thomson - Chandos.

I've also noticed that on another Mac, but listening to pop LPs such as Rattle That Lock - Dave Gilmour, that there are often very very long delays between tracks...to the extent that one gets out of the chair and trundles over to check that the internet hasn't died.

[Anastasius]

Crossed post, Dave !

[richardfinegold]

We took a car trip two weeks ago. My wife is a big Neal Diamond fan and the driver gets to determine the music in the car. The Qobuz app on my android phone kept playing the same track over again from a multi cd album ("Solitary Man" became 'Solitary Song'). I have an Amazon Prime app on my phone and played the album for her with that without a glitch. My email to Qobuz for this went unanswered.
Back at home I was searching for different versions of Chopin Etudes than my long time favorite of Pollini on DG. I tried Murray Perahia on Qobuz (via the Bluesound Vault2 streamer) and then remembering that I had burned that cD to my NAS, then streamed it from the NAS via Bluesound--same input on the DAC. Without question, Qobuz sounded veiled in comparison to my NAS. I emailed Qobuz ,wondering if I was getting less than the Premium service that I am paying for or to ask if if there was a problem with the Qobuz-Bluesound handoff, and again no reply.

[jayne lee wilson]

Many thanks for the quick reply, Jayne.

I use the basic service play.qobuz.com CD quality. Streamed on my MacBook and then via a DAC to the amp. My hearing doesn't warrant anything more sophisticated ! The latest 'errant' was RVW Symphony 5 - Bryden Thomson - Chandos.

I've also noticed that on another Mac, but listening to pop LPs such as Rattle That Lock - Dave Gilmour, that there are often very very long delays between tracks...to the extent that one gets out of the chair and trundles over to check that the internet hasn't died.

Just checking that VW5 in Audirvana+...haven't played the whole thing, but all seems normal at movement junctions... the atmosphere continuing between movements, as it should....(except for a true silence before the Lark..)...lovely sound I must say!

Where were the unwanted gaps?
(EDIT.... just tried first few tracks in the Gilmour...no problem, each followed swiftly & naturally upon the other.... not for me musically though!)

As I keep saying, Qobuz does sound much better through the dedicated Audirvana player compared to direct offsite playback - and Qobuz/Audirvana is perfectly (and I do mean perfectly) stable too. I can note slight differences in sound-character between my CD transports, natively stored downloads or streaming via USB asynchronous etc., but via the highly-revealing T&A DAC8, they are very close in actual resolution of sound, detail or acoustic.

A problem with some DACs is a lack of evenhandedness in how they treat various inputs, coax/usb/optical etc won't necessarily be of the same quality.
Even different USB outputs on the same Mac can sound different. Very obviously so, as the Audirvana User Guide says itself.

[Anastasius]

I've just played it. At the start, when you hit Play...you see a pale blue bar across the bottom of the screen gradually appear from left to right. Once it's got to the end, then at the extreme left, a darker blue bar overlays the pale blue and it starts to play.

At the end of track 1, I had to wait until the pale blue bar had meandered over to the RH side before it deigned to play track 2 (ie the dark blue bar started it's journey across the screen). In fact, even that was not without hiccups as I saw it progress about 1" with no audio and then it reset itself and started again but playing this time.

Now at the end of Track 2, it took 40 seconds before track 3 actually started playing.

I guess the time has come for the parting of the ways from Qobuz.

Any recommendations ?

[jayne lee wilson]

c

I've just played it. At the start, when you hit Play...you see a pale blue bar across the bottom of the screen gradually appear from left to right. Once it's got to the end, then at the extreme left, a darker blue bar overlays the pale blue and it starts to play.

At the end of track 1, I had to wait until the pale blue bar had meandered over to the RH side before it deigned to play track 2 (ie the dark blue bar started it's journey across the screen). In fact, even that was not without hiccups as I saw it progress about 1" with no audio and then it reset itself and started again but playing this time.

Now at the end of Track 2, it took 40 seconds before track 3 actually started playing.

I guess the time has come for the parting of the ways from Qobuz.

Any recommendations ?

Well all that sounds like a problem of internet speed/stability really, locally or otherwise ...I never have to wait for playback/buffering like that.... I don't think it is inherently the fault of Qobuz, but....impossible to diagnose from here really.... but part of the problem using direct offsite stream/replay is it will probably be busier than a dedicated player on your own server/computer. Is it better at certain times of day? That usually indicates an ADSL problem.

I would suggest trialling Audirvana, or you'd need to try streaming the recording at the same resolution from another player/streaming source...check your internet speeds first though.

I've been on a long journey with Computer Audio since 2011, and almost every problem (dropouts, slowness etc) was down to internet speed/stability...
... as I moved up through the various BT Options, these improved hugely, then with BT Infinity, fell away....

When I first downloaded a 24/96 album, about 70' long, from Chandos back then, it took over an hour to complete....now the stream plays instantly. But this is a good internet location.

[Dave2002]

Don't think I can test that David Gilmour album - not at my basic service level, but the VW5 sounds OK to me. I tested a few movement ends - into the pick up of the next movement. Some of the movements have a quite long quiet lead out, but I'd estimate total time to be around 10 seconds, which seems appropriate for the music concerned, and at concerts I might expect even longer gaps. OTOH if there are CDs with tracks which should be gapless between joins, then even a 2 second gap is too much. That's why I was looking for versions of several variations.

Even this ALW set seems OK - https://open.qobuz.com/album/0002894203422 Apologies if you don't like the music.

I've been using the Qobuz application in MacOS - High Sierra. Have you tried using a browser version instead? Does seem that you might have an interface problem.

Re your blue bars - that indicates the progress through each track I think. I don't get anything like the 40 seconds delay before it flips on to the next track.

[Anastasius]

Ah...just trying Firefox and that starts off differently ie plays almost immediately and doesn't wait for the pale blue bar to reach the RH side. But then again this is Firefox on my iMac. I use Firefox on my elderly and very out of date OSX MacBook and which is where I noticed the problem. So perhaps it is browser related.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ah...just trying Firefox and that starts off differently ie plays almost immediately and doesn't wait for the pale blue bar to reach the RH side. But then again this is Firefox on my iMac. I use Firefox on my elderly and very out of date OSX MacBook and which is where I noticed the problem. So perhaps it is browser related.

You update Firefox regularly? Hope so.
It is very good, I use it on that very 2014 Mac Pro running Audirvana as music server....and for Radio 3 Sounds too...

[Anastasius]

c

Well all that sounds like a problem of internet speed/stability really, locally or otherwise ...I never have to wait for playback/buffering like that.... I don't think it is inherently the fault of Qobuz, but....impossible to diagnose from here really.... but part of the problem using direct offsite stream/replay is it will probably be busier than a dedicated player on your own server/computer. Is it better at certain times of day? That usually indicates an ADSL problem.

I would suggest trialling Audirvana, or you'd need to try streaming the recording at the same resolution from another player/streaming source...check your internet speeds first though.

I've been on a long journey with Computer Audio since 2011, and almost every problem (dropouts, slowness etc) was down to internet speed/stability...
... as I moved up through the various BT Options, these improved hugely, then with BT Infinity, fell away....

When I first downloaded a 24/96 album, about 70' long, from Chandos back then, it took over an hour to complete....now the stream plays instantly. But this is a good internet location.

I don't think it's my internet feed TBH. The aforementioned Firefox is playing it perfectly. So I think it's that cruddy Safari.

A 2014 Mac Pro ? That's modern compared to our 2009 machines !

[jayne lee wilson]

I don't think it's my internet feed TBH. The aforementioned Firefox is playing it perfectly. So I think it's that cruddy Safari.

A 2014 Mac Pro ? That's modern compared to our 2009 machines !

Easy to believe, see above cross-posted.... happy future listening...!
(And maybe check the Applestore refurbished pages....)

[Dave2002]

I don't think it's my internet feed TBH. The aforementioned Firefox is playing it perfectly. So I think it's that cruddy Safari.

A 2014 Mac Pro ? That's modern compared to our 2009 machines !

Have you bumped those 2009 machines up to Sierra or High Sierra? I have some machines which may be from that period, and I think Sierra may be the limit for some of them. I still have one running Snow Leopard, but I've not turned it on for some while now.