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Qobuz

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GoMrPickles

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Simplest way to achieve variable sampling rate would be upgrading to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Pulsaudio in this Ubuntu release is configured to support automatic sample rate switching out of the box. I found it working pretty well here.

Note that Qobuz only streams in lossy MP3 format to all Linux web browsers (same is true for pretty much all other streaming services as well) and they do not have a Linux desktop app. This may explain why your DAC display always shows 16/44 regardless of the original track sampling rate. Qobuz web interface does not reflect the fact that they stick to MP3 in browsers. This is rather misleading and I have filed bug reports several times before with them but nothing seems to have changed so far.

But you can install UPnP renderer (e.g., Gmediarender) and then use a control app like BubbleUPnP or mConnect. This should work with Hi-Res streams. Oh, and it looks like VLC version 2.0 also has support for UPnP/DLNA. Never tried it myself though.
Pulseaudio has now *stopped* switching, and resamples everything to whatever rate the last application left it in, unless I cycle the power on the DAC. Fun times in Ubuntu land.
 

JoachimStrobel

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I'm trying out Qobuz, to see if it can unseat Spotify. Qobuz has "better audio quality," or might, if it worked. I didn't see a thread via search that this was appropriate for, but if it should be moved, NP.

Linux - Linux subsystem can't handle variable bitrate streams? OS limitation, not app, but limits the value vs Spotify.
iPhone/Airplay - limited to 44.1 KHz / Marantz AV8802A noise? Again, not Qobuz's fault, but limits value due to existing hardware.
Windows - App won't open most times, and when it does, it won't play most times. When it *does* play, using the computer (Core i7 with 16 GB RAM) interferes with the steam, which gets staticky or goes into half-time. This *is* Qobuz's issue.

When it doesn't open, I get this:
View attachment 84184

When it does open, I get this when trying to go to WASAPI mode:
View attachment 84185

I've filed support tickets with Qobuz, but I figured I'd post this here in case anyone was considering.

For more money per month than Spotify, it offers a substantially worse experience, with (IMO) inexcusable software issues across platforms. The audio quality is better than Spotify, but the library is smaller, there are no custom playlists based on artists I <3, etc.

If there's an approach to take with Qobuz that a longtime Spotify user wouldn't know about, I'm all ears... also happy to know of any solutions to the problems posted here. Said problems also occur immediately after a restart with no other program open, so it isn't a (non-startup) application conflict.

Cheers / TIA.
I have Qobuz in high res on 3 Win PCs with the app, on an iPhone, two iPads, 5 Raspi4 and two Roon installation. Always worked flawless. The Jazz library is endless, the sound seems good. Via Roon it is a bit heavy on the data rate, with 3Gbyte per evening everything else than unlimited is no good idea, without Roon it is ok as it allows download of music to be played offline.
 

ahofer

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The Jazz library is endless

Tidal has more jazz titles than Qobuz, IMO. Searching in Roon for "James Carter" right now, I see two albums that are only in Tidal, but every other one is in both services.
 
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GoMrPickles

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I have Qobuz in high res on 3 Win PCs with the app, on an iPhone, two iPads, 5 Raspi4 and two Roon installation. Always worked flawless. The Jazz library is endless, the sound seems good. Via Roon it is a bit heavy on the data rate, with 3Gbyte per evening everything else than unlimited is no good idea, without Roon it is ok as it allows download of music to be played offline.
I agree that the classical and jazz selections are very good. That's definitely one of Qobuz's strengths. I tried Tidal a while ago and the UX wasn't enough to get me past the trial period.

However, I listen mainly to other genres, and so it's just not a big selling point for me. The breadth of Spotify's catalog is hard to beat; when something's not available *there*, then I consider buying it from HDTracks, Bandcamp, Amazon, etc. I would estimate Qobuz had about half of the tracks that I searched for.

Qobuz is working better now, but even on Windows, it will regularly drop from 96/24 to 44.1/16, which (in addition to some pops from the SMSL SU-8) reduces the audio quality. Once it does drop down, I have to restart Qobuz to stream at higher bitrates. If this issue is my home wifi, Qobuz should at least inform me of that; plenty of apps have inline bandwidth monitors.

Audirvana did seem to improve on the Qobuz experience; I forget if that was suggested here or on the other forum.
 

Bamyasi

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Pulseaudio has now *stopped* switching, and resamples everything to whatever rate the last application left it in, unless I cycle the power on the DAC. Fun times in Ubuntu land.
How come it stoped switching if you are saying it resamples "to whatever rate the last application left it in"? That implies your sample rates are still being changed by the applications, isn't it? I am a bit confused, maybe you can describe a particular usage scenario as an example?
 
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GoMrPickles

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How come it stoped switching if you are saying it resamples "to whatever rate the last application left it in"? That implies your sample rates are still being changed by the applications, isn't it? I am a bit confused, maybe you can describe a particular usage scenario as an example?
Sure. In the case I was referencing:
Spotify was operating at 44.1 KHz
I switched to YouTube and the DAC switched to 48 KHz
...and then got stuck there. No program I opened or ran would get the DAC off of 48 KHz. I eventually booted into Windows to use Audirvana.

Since then, a few reboots appear to have fixed it; if it recurs, I'll see what I can do to replicate it.

I also realize that I'm using a non-LTS version of Ubuntu, and *man* do I miss so many things about 16.04. This forum is not the place for that, tho. :)

Returning to the subject of the original post, I don't think that Qobuz is worth it for me. The problems with the app, on Linux and Windows, outweigh any benefit from improved audio quality. Audirvana is better, but adding another $15/month and a new app purchase on top of Spotify (currently on family plan) for a sub-par UX doesn't may any sense. Both the official Qobuz CS and a private channel with a product manager only got me a "ok, we'll look into it."
 
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GoMrPickles

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Net result: Ubuntu 20 was unusably slow - all 4 CPU cores pegged at 100% all the time - so I have downgraded to Ubuntu 16 and cancelled my Qobuz trial subscription. I received acknowledgment from Qobuz that they had received my support requests, but they only responded to one to say that they couldn't help and had no plans to.
 

pacdpm

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Does anyone know where Qobuz..7digital..prostudiomasters et al..get their sources? Are they merely taking the digital signal from a CD and 'upping' it to 24/96 or 24/192 etc? just curious as to where these HiRes files are sourced
 

Frank Dernie

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I'm trying out Qobuz, to see if it can unseat Spotify. Qobuz has "better audio quality," or might, if it worked. I didn't see a thread via search that this was appropriate for, but if it should be moved, NP.

Linux - Linux subsystem can't handle variable bitrate streams? OS limitation, not app, but limits the value vs Spotify.
iPhone/Airplay - limited to 44.1 KHz / Marantz AV8802A noise? Again, not Qobuz's fault, but limits value due to existing hardware.
Windows - App won't open most times, and when it does, it won't play most times. When it *does* play, using the computer (Core i7 with 16 GB RAM) interferes with the steam, which gets staticky or goes into half-time. This *is* Qobuz's issue.

When it doesn't open, I get this:
View attachment 84184

When it does open, I get this when trying to go to WASAPI mode:
View attachment 84185

I've filed support tickets with Qobuz, but I figured I'd post this here in case anyone was considering.

For more money per month than Spotify, it offers a substantially worse experience, with (IMO) inexcusable software issues across platforms. The audio quality is better than Spotify, but the library is smaller, there are no custom playlists based on artists I <3, etc.

If there's an approach to take with Qobuz that a longtime Spotify user wouldn't know about, I'm all ears... also happy to know of any solutions to the problems posted here. Said problems also occur immediately after a restart with no other program open, so it isn't a (non-startup) application conflict.

Cheers / TIA.
I have been using Qobuz without problem for several years.
I have used it with their own programme, integrated with Devialet Spark and integrated with Audirvana.
Works great each way.
I have been trying it out lately using airplay to my Marantz 7704 and this seems to work fine too.
The original contract I had gave discount on higher res downloads but when I decided these were unnecessary I changed to Studio, a slightly cheaper annual charge.
Generally i like it but I listen to classical 80% of the time and for that it is about 100 billion times better than Roon, which I had free for a few months but abandoned as useless for me.
 

Frank Dernie

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Does anyone know where Qobuz..7digital..prostudiomasters et al..get their sources? Are they merely taking the digital signal from a CD and 'upping' it to 24/96 or 24/192 etc? just curious as to where these HiRes files are sourced
I don't know where they get them, presumably from the original source since when one looks at the price list when buying a file the "high res" version on offer may be anything from 24/192 to 24/44.1 (!) so I think they are providing the file as supplied to them. Some are 16/44.1 max.
I, personally, can't hear any difference on music of higher bit or sample rates, so I am content.
 

Sukie

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I don't know where they get them, presumably from the original source since when one looks at the price list when buying a file the "high res" version on offer may be anything from 24/192 to 24/44.1 (!) so I think they are providing the file as supplied to them. Some are 16/44.1 max.
I, personally, can't hear any difference on music of higher bit or sample rates, so I am content.
The label provides a Hi-Res version of the album. This can be streamed via the likes of Qobuz, but it can also be purchased as a download from various sources.

Obviously not all albums, even new albums, are released with Hi-Res versions. The actual resolution also varies considerably. New Hi-Res releases usually range from 24/44.1 - 24/96.

I remain unconvinced that my 47 year old ears can tell the difference between Hi-Res and CD, but I am more than happy with the general usability of Qobuz.
 

Frank Dernie

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I remain unconvinced that my 47 year old ears can tell the difference between Hi-Res and CD
Quite.
I can hear to 14kHz so there can be nothing on a higher sample rate that i could possibly hear plus I have never come across music, even big orchestral pieces, with a dynamic range of 96 dB (even 70dB is rare) so 16-bit is more than enough too.
The only difference would be if they were distributed as a different mix, with the lower res compressed for earbud and car use and the higher for listening at home. Not sure it is done this way though...
 

Thomas savage

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I don't know where they get them, presumably from the original source since when one looks at the price list when buying a file the "high res" version on offer may be anything from 24/192 to 24/44.1 (!) so I think they are providing the file as supplied to them. Some are 16/44.1 max.
I, personally, can't hear any difference on music of higher bit or sample rates, so I am content.
Well listening to the issues that came from trying to offer hi rez downloads even the lables don't know what is what so categorising it must be a nightmare.

It just never was a thing before, it was on a CD . End of .

What people in general don't 'get ' is the level of ignorance, and the way big business works . You don't worry about anything until it starts costing you money.

So what format something is in and people who might understand that were not needed .
 

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I’ve been using Qobuz next to Spotify for a couple of months now. I really dislike the user experience! The OSX app is quite slow but workable. The iOS app works very badly with both Chromecast and airplay. In both cases when you switch to another app and back, sync is lost and strange things happen. Tried Roon, which improved the experience, but why pay even more?

Now I’ve setup Linn Kazoo with BubbleUPnP, streaming to a Pi/DSP and finally DAC. Kazoo is kind of a simple interface, but it works reliably.
 

Sukie

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Now I’ve setup Linn Kazoo with BubbleUPnP, streaming to a Pi/DSP and finally DAC. Kazoo is kind of a simple interface, but it works reliably.
I use Bubble UPnP android app to stream to an RPi4 (Moode Audio). This works very well with Qobuz.
 

StevenEleven

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If you don’t obsess going over 44.1 / 16 you can pretty much stream from anything to anything using anything, IME. In my case it’s most usually an iPad over WiFi via Airplay to whatever is closest to me in the house. Love Qobuz for classical music and production / mastering credits and disc and artist information. Love Spotify for automated discovery and to share one subscription with an in-house family of five. Love Amazon for lossless with lyrics and great selection. Love YouTube Music as part of a gimmie with YouTube Premium (YouTube with no ads) with all the extra content uploaded by users. Once you start obsessing over bitrate and sample rate and bit perfect, rather than enjoying your music, that’s when you go down the rabbit hole, IME. And I’ve been down the rabbit hole. :)
 

KeithPhantom

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I use their marketplace to buy lossless copies of single songs I really like, I find it pretty useful and prices are fair as well.
 

Sukie

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Once you start obsessing over bitrate and sample rate and bit perfect, rather than enjoying your music, that’s when you go down the rabbit hole, IME. And I’ve been down the rabbit hole. :)
Just finished listening to an album that was streamed at 16/44.1.

Over the past few days I've listened to lots of 24/44.1, 24/48 and 24/96 albums. My listening experience this evening was not lessened in the slightest by the lower resolution.

It's all about the music.
 

Harmonie

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Just finished listening to an album that was streamed at 16/44.1.

Over the past few days I've listened to lots of 24/44.1, 24/48 and 24/96 albums. My listening experience this evening was not lessened in the slightest by the lower resolution.

It's all about the music.

Funny,

I agreed and stated about the same in another Topping D10S thread :

Whatever source ... I regard a good and natural recording as the foundation

BTW, if you are interested >>>

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...j-master-file-giveaway-for-asr-members.16286/
 
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