Qobuz Studio Premier

[HepcatWilly]

Well @Dan from Qobuz I put Qobuz through the paces tonight, outstanding! The catalog is really rich now. What changed? When?

Some of the stuff I found:
Yonder Mountain String Band's Dancing in the Moonlight
Patra's Worker Man
Flatt & Scrugg's Let the Church Roll On
Proclaimers Throw the R Away
General Public Hand to Mouth
Goldfinger 99 Red Balloons
Jean Paul Samputu Kareme Mwane
Agent Sasco Winning Right Now
Herb Ohta Paniolo Country
Brenda Fassie Vuli Ndlela

Big Hugh Masekela catalog here, even one song I've been looking for since the 80s.

Other great musicians: Parno Graszt? Zluty Pes? Buty? Vrattina? Sol Hoopili? All there.

I am really, really impressed with the catalog! Wow!

 

[Olson_jr]

Well @Dan from Qobuz I put Qobuz through the paces tonight, outstanding! The catalog is really rich now. What changed? When?


I am really, really impressed with the catalog! Wow!

I have Roon and both Tidal and Qobuz feeds right now. I have not yet found one recording that is not available on both services.

I wish I could find a method to search Qobuz for their Hi-Rez releases.

 

[Kpatch]

If Qobuz was around when I was plodding my way through the universit(ies) I might not have made a class. I just found out that Qobuz has a huge chunk of the CTI catalog. When CTI was in their heyday, I was particularly ‘poor’ without that stuff called ‘money’ which when I did have it I had to spend on stuff called ‘food’ and ‘rent’ and occasionally ‘beer’. Oh, and ‘girlfriend’, I had to spend ‘money’ on ‘girlfriend’. My stereo consisted of components retrieved from the curb or given to me by friends. Thank goodness for Jazz FM radio.

I know what I’m going to be doing the rest of the weekend. Loves me some Qobuz!

 

[airdronian]

If Qobuz was around when I was plodding my way through the universit(ies) I might not have made a class. I just found out that Qobuz has a huge chunk of the CTI catalog. When CTI was in their heyday, I was particularly ‘poor’ without that stuff called ‘money’ which when I did have it I had to spend on stuff called ‘food’ and ‘rent’ and occasionally ‘beer’. Oh, and ‘girlfriend’, I had to spend ‘money’ on ‘girlfriend’. My stereo consisted of components retrieved from the curb or given to me by friends. Thank goodness for Jazz FM radio.

I know what I’m going to be doing the rest of the weekend. Loves me some Qobuz!

I'm still quite disappointed with the manner in which Qobuz has flip flopped on Canadian service. Once announced that it would be launched after the US, to being "not on the roadmap" in a brief tweet from the company isn't great communication. There's a blocking page at Qobuz.com if you're not in the service area - it allows you to enter your email for updates, but no option to contact directly. I supplied my address a long time ago, and there's been crickets since. I will have to contact them another way, but have little confidence there will be a reply.

Our @Dan from Qobuz made a post on October 12, but no other posts since that time. He's visited as recently as this week but hasn't responded/doesn't know about the alerts that happen when his username is quoted.

It's too bad, I was all ready to jump ship from Tidal.

 

[Dan from Qobuz]

Canada is still slated to be the next market we launch in, but technically not on the roadmap yet. We just don't know when we will have licensing in place and the resources to open in another market.

 

[airdronian]

Canada is still slated to be the next market we launch in, but technically not on the roadmap yet. We just don't know when we will have licensing in place and the resources to open in another market.

Thanks for the reply, Dan. There's definitely interest up here, I'm looking forward to when it launches.

 

[MikeyFresh]

Parsing through various Android music player apps, in addition to the aforementioned Mconnect, and BubbleUPnP, I now count a third with excellent Qobuz integration, the great USB Audio Player Pro (aka UAPP):



Because it is both my favorite Android app and a veritable Swiss army knife (local library playback from a microSDXC card, local network server playback via UPnP, and now cloud-based playback with Qobuz), UAPP will remain my default player for music on-the-go with a portable device.

 

[Phillip Jeffries]

I signed up a couple days ago. After listening a few hours, I’m kind of disappointed with the sound quality. I’m using the Qobuz windows program, asio mode. But, even the 24/192k stuff doesn’t really sound as good as my cd’s or MP3’s via upnp server & media monkey. Are there any tweaks needed to get the service working better?

 

[MikeyFresh]

I signed up a couple days ago. After listening a few hours, I’m kind of disappointed with the sound quality. I’m using the Qobuz windows program, asio mode. But, even the 24/192k stuff doesn’t really sound as good as my cd’s or MP3’s via upnp server & media monkey. Are there any tweaks needed to get the service working better?

How is Qobuz connected, straight USB from the Windows computer to the DAC?

The Qobuz CD quality and hi-res tracks sound great on my setup, though when directly compared to what I believe is the exact same mastering found on my local storage, I do feel the local version is maybe just a tad better sounding, but not by very much. I stream Qobuz via UPnP.

Your post says you are using UPnP for the locally stored CDs (and MP3s), so that's what you need to use as an apples-to-apples sound quality comparison when streaming Qobuz. Unfortunately the UPnP function within the Qobuz app itself is still in beta "experimental" form and does not yet work, so you have to stream Qobuz from a different UPnP enabled app to get that function.

You can do that with Audirvana if you have that program on your desktop computer, or alternatively, via various iOS and Android apps detailed in earlier posts that offer both Qobuz and UPnP integration from a tablet/phone.

 

[MikeyFresh]

A recent article in What Hi-Fi? contained an interview with Benoît Rébus, Qobuz's Head of Global Innovation and Partnerships.

In the piece he indicates the Qobuz Studio Premiere subscription plan U.S. pricing of $14.99/mo. is no longer a limited time offer as it was originally billed, that price tier is now permanent, and they wish/plan to roll it out in additional markets too as best they can get it negotiated with the record labels on a country-by-country basis.

With that, and the blessing of the OP @jhoyt , I have revised this thread's title to Qobuz Studio Premiere.

 

[jhoyt]

Very cool. This makes it the best value in streaming music, IMHO.

 

[S0und Dragon]

At that Price, I am inclined to give it a try....again.

 

[MrEd]

My wife got me years subscription for Christmas.
I like it so far.
Compared to Amazon HD I think it sounds a slight bit better.
I like some of the Amazon features and Amazon seems to have more of the music I search for.
Kind of a toss up.

 

[MikeyFresh]

Holy cow, Qobuz on Audirvana 3.5 sounds fantastic.
Listening to Van Morrison's Thee Chords and the Truth, and it's splendid.

The Audirvana app as UPnP Control Point for Android is also likely best of breed, though it doesn't work stand alone like BubbleUPnP and Mconnect HD do. The Audirvana app for Android requires a licensed instance of Audirvana 3.x running on your computer, the app itself is only a Control Point, but a very polished one at that:



2017 50th Anniversary Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 24-bit/96kHz Giles Martin remix, from the original Abbey Road multi-track tapes.

 

[NSBulk]

I tried the 30 day free trial and was sold on it in about 30 minutes. At the end of the trial I signed up for a year and really enjoy the service. I'm using it with Roon and the integration is terrific.

 

[MikeyFresh]

I tried the 30 day free trial and was sold on it in about 30 minutes. At the end of the trial I signed up for a year and really enjoy the service. I'm using it with Roon and the integration is terrific.

Me too, though only for month-to-month commitment, but I I should migrate to the annual $150 (or $12.50/mo.) to save just a bit.

In the meantime I continue to find old favorites that I don't actually own on any digital format:



I only ever had this title on shitty reissue vinyl, some eons ago.

 

[Juncers]

FYI for UK residents.

Qobuz in now offering Studio Premier for 14.99 starting today. One month free trial, then CC charge with option to cancel. Offer good until 31 May.

Ray

 

[MikeyFresh]

FYI for UK residents.

Qobuz in now offering Studio Premier for 14.99 starting today. One month free trial, then CC charge with option to cancel. Offer good until 31 May.

Ray

Thank you Ray!

So what was originally misreported by What Hi-Fi? in early November 2019 has now come to be, with a full press release from the Bristol show, this is now a go for any U.K. resident looking for the best deal in hi-res streaming.

Perhaps that earlier What Hi-Fi? report was indeed a "wishful misunderstanding", or they just jumped the gun by a few months.

I'd be curious to hear your take on the catalog depth in the U.K. should you decide to try this service, it does differ by country due to the record labels issuing different rights to different recordings by geographic region.

 

[Juncers]

Thank you Ray!

So what was originally misreported by What Hi-Fi? in early November 2019 has now come to be, with a full press release from the Bristol show, this is now a go for any U.K. resident looking for the best deal in hi-res streaming.

Perhaps that earlier What Hi-Fi? report was indeed a "wishful misunderstanding", or they just jumped the gun by a few months.

I'd be curious to hear your take on the catalog depth in the U.K. should you decide to try this service, it does differ by country due to the record labels issuing different rights to different recordings by geographic region.

You're very welcome.

I actually tried it in 2018 for a few months. I liked it but preferred Tidal. I'll try it again in May when my free intro to Tidal ( my third!) and Amazon HD expire. I reproduce my original review below, when Q & T were the same price and Q was only 16 44 (redbook) quality. I didn't rate Q's customer service or their attitude, but back then you had to call France.


Ray

================================================================
My take on Qobuz v. Tidal:

I did like the sound quality of Qobuz in the UK, but preferred Tidal MQA.

Qobuz had many more "dropouts" than Tidal.

One quirk of Qobuz was that if you wanted to listen to the same album twice in the same session, you had to sign out then sign back in. I don't know why ( neither did they). They said it was my setup ( maybe, I'm not an expert).

Qobuz had more new French and German studio recordings of classical music than Tidal.

Overall, I'd give it to Tidal by a nose.

YMMV,
Ray

 

[MikeT.]

Qobuz is it for me, finally. I’ve been going back and forth for about six months and cancelled my Tidal today.
Number one reason, I like the way it sounds, IMO better than Tidal.
Number two reason, the recommendations Qobuz makes for new music are MUCH more relevant than
the ones Tidal makes.

Actually, numbers one and two are interchangeable. But number two probably is the REAL number one reason.