Three Cheers for Qobuz App!!!

[sockpit]

I dumped Tidal for Qobuz a few months ago after I managed to VPN in to France to open a streaming account.  I'm very happy with their classical and jazz library, their curation, their website, and especially their newish app for iPad and Mac Desktop.

 

These apps are just VERY well executed.  I've tried Roon, but don't have a large stash of local digital file to manage.  Nor do I want to spend the extra dough on their stunning interface.  Nor does Roon yet accommodate Qobuz users.

 

But for my streaming purposes the Qobuz app (streaming to my mRendu via Shairport) is more than adequate.  It sports a beautiful and very functional interface.  It has yet to crash or have a glitch.  It provides the liner notes on many of its offerings.  The search functions works great.  Saving favorites and building playlists is a breeze.

 

My benchmark for comparison on all this is Kazoo and Lumin.  Qobuz app is much more intuitive and easy to use.

 

As for SQ, perhaps theoretically (although I don't know), DNLA on the mRendu is supposed to be better than Shairport.  But I'm not hearing it at all.  Nor did Roon sound any better than Qobuz streaming over Shairport.  There is a 2 second latency, but I can live with that.

 

Upshot: if you subscribe to Qobuz and are still controlling this through Kazoo or Lumin, give Qobuz tablet or desktop app a whirl!

[jhwalker]

20 minutes ago, sockpit said:

I dumped Tidal for Qobuz a few months ago after I managed to VPN in to France to open a streaming account.  I'm very happy with their classical and jazz library, their curation, their website, and especially their newish app for iPad and Mac Desktop.

 

These apps are just VERY well executed.  I've tried Roon, but don't have a large stash of local digital file to manage.  Nor do I want to spend the extra dough on their stunning interface.  Nor does Roon yet accommodate Qobuz users.

 

But for my streaming purposes the Qobuz app (streaming to my mRendu via Shairport) is more than adequate.  It sports a beautiful and very functional interface.  It has yet to crash or have a glitch.  It provides the liner notes on many of its offerings.  The search functions works great.  Saving favorites and building playlists is a breeze.

 

My benchmark for comparison on all this is Kazoo and Lumin.  Qobuz app is much more intuitive and easy to use.

 

As for SQ, perhaps theoretically (although I don't know), DNLA on the mRendu is supposed to be better than Shairport.  But I'm not hearing it at all.  Nor did Roon sound any better than Qobuz streaming over Shairport.  There is a 2 second latency, but I can live with that.

 

Upshot: if you subscribe to Qobuz and are still controlling this through Kazoo or Lumin, give Qobuz tablet or desktop app a whirl!

 

Thanks for this - I use Qobuz myself (for several years now), and really enjoy it, esp. with their great depth of content in the classical space

[jaaptina]

I'm using Bubbleupnp to play Qobuz music with microRendu in DNLA mode. Usually I select a few albums as favorites in the Qobuz app. They will appear in Bubbleupnp as Qobuz favorites too. That way your mobile is not in the chain (just the controlpoint). From Bubbleupnp you can also search for music in Qobuz directly (text search only).

[MrUnderhill]

I use Logitech Media Server via mR Squeezelite - excellent SQ.

 

I host LMS server on a Raspberry Pi 3 running piCorePlayer.

[arcman]

What are the steps I need to take, in the US, to subscribe to qobuzz. I emailed and they will not let me subscribe

[SWL3600]

54 minutes ago, arcman said:

What are the steps I need to take, in the US, to subscribe to qobuzz. I emailed and they will not let me subscribe

Ah.....so you're the one.

[arcman]

On some other forums, people mentioned how qobuz will let you sign up if you are mail. I contacted their "contact us" link and got  He general " not available yet in your area". The Apple App Store still has their app available for download. 

[sockpit]

@arcman.  I downloaded a free vpn app called tunnel bear.  I set it to a server in Great Britain.  Then I went to Qobuz British site and signed up using a gmail account.  It let me pay with pay pal.  Every month I'm chargesd about 25 bucks.

 

Once you have an account you need not vpn in to use it.  Just type your user name and password into the qobuz app, or kazoo, or lumin, or A+, and you are good to go.

 

emailing them begging in my best French got me nowhere.  This did the trick

 

[arcman]

I tried TunnelBear and tried Britain and France. Cleared cookies, new Gmail, etc...no luck..bummer

[sandston]

Tunnel Bear worked for me as well.

[bobbmd]

Someone on this forum or emotive ?? Talked me through it way back in 2012.

i did not use a vpn BUT I did ask very nicely in both French and English and received an account-they assigned me an address in New France which is what the North East USA would have been called if the French had won on the Plains of Abraham I always thought that was pretty cheeky of them

If this fellow who helped me I believe his monicker was audio bill or some such would come forward maybe he could help you folks I will not give out his phone # and maybe his advice to me doesn't fly anymore-but use PayPal for payment

 

I also think that new WEB PLAYER is very nice but I finally got it to be part of my dock on my Mac Mini-I was leary of trying to download b/o my 'location' but it has transferred all my playlists favorites etc and sounds great and I still have my account and use both older desktop app and new WEB Player sometimes PLAYER plays too'fast' -I have to slow bit rate down but IT plays QOBUZ's curated playlists whereas desktop app does not

bobbmd  

[Fyper]

Hi,

Just read on a French website that Qobuz will propose in May a new subscription called "Sublime+" which will do Hi-Res streaming (pcm from 24/48 up to 24/192) when available.

They'll also use Amazon Web Service to make sure the bandwidth will be good enough everywhere.

This will come with a cost though : €350/yr

Source (in French): here

 

Interesting times : Tidal wants to reduce its bandwidth with lossy MQA, Spotify goes for lossless 16/44 and Qobuz moves to Hi-Res...

[arcman]

I finally got in. I verified that my location was in UK thru google chrome and I was able to set up PayPal. Now everything works. I'll see how I like it during the free trial. 

[arcman]

Wow. I really like Qobuz. The classical selection is fantastic. I will upgrade to their sublime HI Rez streaming once I get the Bluesound Node2. That way I can run Hi Rez files to my DAC thru streaming. Although I can stream Hi Rez in my studio, I've been working mainly from my living room and listen thru main system thru AIRPLAY (16/44). I don't mind paying for multiple streaming services. however, if QB goes even higher stream (like someone mentioned above), I may dump Tidal. 

[arcman]

I hate to say this, Qobuz is superior in almost every way compared to TIDAL. The desktop app is really fantastic. Much better than iTunes. I went ahead and went SUBLIME. I made my first HI rez purchase and everything went flawless. The only advantage TIDAL has now is HI REZ (MQA) Streaming. If the above article is correct, there should be no reason for me to stay with TIDAL. I highly doubt MQA (which I hear is lossy) sounds better than "traditional" hi rez (above 16/44). MQA really seems too complex (although I understand it). "This unfolds this, that unfolds that, this only partially unfolds that, BUT..if you have THIS, you get 100 unfolded THAT".

 

I prefer: "Feed a 24/96 file into an easily available Dac and enjoy". Pretty simple. 

[sockpit]

Good to hear of your success.  Yes Qobuz is fantastic all around, I I no longer need to face Tidal's constant foregrounding of music I don't care about.

 

[arcman]

Qobuz has it going with newsletters, product reviews, plus updated "gobuz playlists". Oh yea, I forgot, GAPLESS. Outside of Roon, TIDAL still does not have Gapless. 

 

I believe TIDAL is probably has limited staff and tech people due to financial issues. Where as a new company has invested in Gobuz, who was bankrupt, and really pushing things forward. Gobuz expects to be profitable in 3 years. 

 

I would not be surprised if some entity purchases (Maybe qobuz parent company?) Tidal for their subscriber base (really, nobody needs their content). 

 

Apple has the luxury of built in subscribers due to their hardware. I think if anyone shakes out, it will be Google Music and Tidal.

[arcman]

One more thing. TIDAL cannot even place an MQA or MASTERS Icon by the actual albums in searches? No problem at Qobuz.

[sockpit]

Yep Qobuz has its game on.  Let's hope it survives and expands to North America soon.  Every week a new batch of music to sample.  Well organized, easy to make favorites and manage.  DNLA has only slight advantage over the app plus Shairport, in my system.  In fact, the app is as slick as Roon.  It just doesn't manage libraries. 

[arcman]

I agree. Even without Tidal, roon is great managing my own music library. 

[wwc]

I am currently with Tidal and Roon and am interested in Qobuz Sublime.   I like the Roon interface, but unfortunately Qobuz does not want join up with Roon.  

 

Qobuz doesn't currently allow a trial of Sublime and 24 bit streaming.  Does anyone have experience listening to their 24 bit streaming?  Is it significantly better than 16 bit streaming or downloaded 16 bit from a NAS?  And how does the streamed 24 bit compare to downloaded NAS?

 

And finally, I use the Lumin S1 network player and DAC.  Lumin does offer Qobuz on iPad, which is less than perfect particularly compared to Tidal/Roon on a desktop.  But I'm willing to suffer some for the best in SQ-- and I have the system to take advantage of it.

 

If anyone here is using the Lumin app and has suggestions for a nice way to organize favorite artists and their albums, please share!  I would like to organize by ARTIST>ALBUMS-- without having a long list of tracks for each album (until that album is opened up for playing).

 

Thanks!