Official Qobuz Issues Thread

[PAR]

My first posting here!

 

Yes , computer programs can be stupid.  However to help you it is necessary to know the search terms that you have entered into the Qobuz search engine. As you should have noticed the results start to build as you type into the search box. So for Foerester  you will first see everything with "F" then everything with " Fo" etc. Eventually you complete " Foerester" and will see everything that has any relationship with Foerester. However that, as you have found out, is not necessarily the composer, Foerester. Qobuz contains huge amounts of metadata about tracks which the search engine accesses ( click on the "i" in a circle to see track level information).  So you may be shown albums that have one track that has been  ,say, engineered or produced by a Foerester or have compositions by some other Foerester. Which is great if you want to find tracks engineered by Foerester! There may also be results from the program's use of fuzzy logic. So it might suggest tracks from "Forester" as well.

 

You need to become familiar with the search engine and the best way to use it. One essential thing is to provide it  with the best information. So instead of searching " Foerester", try, Josef Bohuslav Foerester. You should then see something like the screenshot below ( subject to local catalogue provision). There are other tricks to using the search engine successfully, for example  if you fail to find what you want searching, say, by artist name then try  the conductor associated with the work you are trying to find. Then try the Orchestra. You can even search using the record label.

 

This screenshot  is from my UK account so I do not know if the same catalogue is available to you.

 

Although the Qobuz catalogues are different from country to country, the software is basically the same AFAIK. So most of what I am saying should apply irrespective of the country of subscription.

 

Earlier in the thread  you have wondered if the Qobuz catalogue for the USA will grow in size sufficiently. When I joined Qobuz just after the new owner  Xandrie took over, the catalogue left by the previous owner for the UK was pretty sparse in many respects such as recordings of British composers (other than Elgar). Within around 9 months Qobuz had added a huge amount to this genre including works from many of the lesser known composers such as Moeran, Foulds and so on. Of course no streaming service will ever offer everything.

 

As for your technical difficulties with getting the Qobuz player to function properly for you , which one were you using? The browser or the desktop? 32 or 64 bit?  I have even been able to successfully listen to 24/96 tracks via my Samsung Galaxy 7 phone ( obviously using the Qobuz Android phone app) whilst out in the wilds of the UK where I only had a 7 mbs connection. I expect that I could have even played even higher resolution files were it not for the fact that 24/96 is the limit of my portable DAC.

 

Just persevere for a while as you get used to using Qobuz.

 

[PAR]

It is using fuzzy logic to try to provide results should you have  mistyped Schobert for Schubert.  Now although  I like the idea of the Qobuz search engine acting like Google and providing a " Do you mean...?" response, if you didn't you then need to tell the engine what you did mean ( i.e. re-enter the search term ).  So that adds a stage.  You could have the engine ask the question while continuing to display the potentially wrong matches ( as Google does) or not to display any matches at all until the question has been answered.  Already it is potentially becoming more complex.

 

The Qobuz search engine definitely requires some improvement.  It is not "broken" or unusable but it comes up with many results which seem to have no relationship at all to the search term even if others are exact matches. It doesn't even necessarily place the exact matches first. It is the seemingly random "noise" of unrelated results that concerns me.

 

As an example before writing this I entered a search for John Faulds ( British classical composer).  I chose "all releases" for results and Qobuz provided exact matches for the first two results ( i.e. reading the thumbnails left to right and top to bottom);  two albums or orchestral pieces by Faulds. The next 67 (!) results seemed to have zero relationship with the search term even given the idea of fuzzy logic. Albums by Deodato followed by Charlie Mingus etc. etc. none of which were titled "John Faulds" or had any contributors called John Faulds ( or Fowldes or Fields) which may at least have provided an explanation until we get to results 70, 71 and 72 ( lots of scrolling to get to them) which, again, were exact matches with the search term ( piano works etc. by John Faulds).

 

There seems to be  something very wrong with the algorithms that the engine uses. I can well imagine that writing them is a complex piece of analysis but some revision is needed.

 

I have raised this with Qobuz over here in Europe and I will let you know if I get a response, it usually takes several days.

[PAR]

1 hour ago, David Craff said:

 

Hi, this feature will arrive soon.

 

You can use quote to get better result : 

Query "Johann Schobert" (with quote) give better result than query without quote.

When you use quote, the search  engine answer with result where all world can be find in the product

David, do you have different search engine software for the USA service compared to e.g. the UK service? Obviously the USA one searches a different database but do they use different criteria? I am a UK subscriber and just tried your "use quote" advice with a search for John Faulds as per my earlier post above. Rather than a better result it actually It produced  zero  as is shown in this screenshot:

 

[PAR]

Oops . That explains a lot. How did I manage to do that? 🤔. Thanks. Yes folks "search term" does work.

[PAR]

😊

[PAR]

I said earlier that I had asked Qobuz in Paris about the search engine. I had a response today that they " are working on it, sorry for the inconvenience". So that happily ties in with David Craff's  posts.

 

So hopefully it won't be too far away, but who can tell? Meantime all I need to do is learn how to spell Foolds, Fields, Fellds, Fowds, Fulds, .....

[PAR]

It's difficult to know what to add to your post at this point in this thread.  David Craff of Qobuz has said that Qobuz are aware of the problem , are developing a replacement search engine which is targetted for release in September.  As a UK subscriber I approached Qobuz in  Paris ( where customer services for the UK is ) and they replied  broadly along the same lines though without specifying the release target.

 

David Craff has also suggested for the time being to enter quotation marks before and after the search term. I suggested using the full name of the composer instead of just their surname.  I did the above and got the result below, first try,  which I would think a success.

 

Yes you are right about the threat looming from Amazon. Aside from any concern about the search engine (and Amazon's normal search engine can produce unexpected results), Amazon have said that they want to come in at $15.99 per month. That alone would surely cream off many subscribers from Qobuz and Tidal if achieved. I am reminded of an interview with Klaus Heymann ( Naxos) a couple of years back when he predicted that the costs of running a streaming service are such that only huge companies who can effectively bundle the music service as part of their general offer will succeed ultimately.  I could imagine  that a $15.99 monthly subscription for hi-res could well be underwritten by Amazon's other profit centres. However there are other  developments that are of even greater concern if the music business follows the example of what is coming up from the movie business where the studio no longer licences its movies to third parties but runs its own online streaming. 

 

[PAR]

In order to try to help we need to know what your " New version of Qobuz" is. Is it a browser version. Is it a desktop, if so is it Windows or Apple? If Windows is it a 32 or 64 bit version?  Or is it a mobile app, Android or iOS? Or is it a player from a third party Qobuz partner such as LMS or Melco, dCS, Sonos  etc.etc. ? Could you also expand a bit on what you mean by Qobuz not wanting to start on most tracks?  Do you mean that after selecting the album when the play page appears in Qobuz' own app that when you click on a track or the play album button at the top left that it doesn't play at all or does it make an attempt then hang?

 

With Qobuz' own players you need to tell the player in your account settings what sample rate you want.  It is not automatically set.  So you can pick up to 24/192, up to 24/96, CD 16/44.1 or even MP3s  depending on the circumstances. For example   the DAC you are using at a given time may be limited to 24/96 or you may be using a data limited ISP connection ( for example listening to streams on a phone) where you want MP3.

 

Of course the maximum streaming resolution Qobuz can send  is limited to the maximum file resolution that has been released by the record company. If the record company has only put out 16/44.1 then that is all you can expect. You cannot get everything in 24/192. That is the maximum available resolution. Many files will be hi-res ( i.e. 24 bit) but the sample rate can be 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192 and even 44.1. Note this is actually a good thing as it indicates that you are getting the native file rate supplied to Qobuz by the record label and that they are not upsampling in order to play a numbers game. Incidentally most digital mastering is not done at 24/192 in any case. That is comparatively rare.  if hi-res is available then my guess is that 24/96 is the most common format, at least for classical music. For pop/rock , however, there are an awful lot of 24/44.1 recordings still being made.

[PAR]

No, it is the Dragonfly  that is downsampling. Its "ceiling" ( to use AQ's own wording) is 24/96.  The colour represents the  resolution it is playing rather then receiving ( as with the Red). I believe that when it is rendering MQA higher rates may be available but it is unclear.  Have you looked at p.8 in your manual? That explains it. BTW the correct colour for 96 kHz is magenta. So if you send it a 192kHz file it should show a magenta light. Blue represents 48kHz. AQ recommend (if possible) that you send the Dragonfly files that are multiples of 96 where higher resolutions are involved. That is try to send it 192 kHz files rather than, say,  176.4 kHz.

 

Having said that the Qobuz apps offer the ability to set a  limit to the resolution that you want . So the apps can be set only to deliver a maximum of MP3 or CD resolution or 24/96 or 24/192. Of course these are subject to the highest resolution that was provided by the record label to Qobuz. The settings are found in your Qobuz account management  section.

[PAR]

4 hours ago, Gus141 said:

It is the manual that needs to be corrected.

One rare time when  RTFM doesn't work!

 

I am surprised though that such an unprofessional error could be made by a long established company like AQ.

[PAR]

 

I I would point out thatHiFi+ is a magazine. The Qobuz subscription option is called Sublime +. There is no option in  Qobuz called " Favouriting Artists". There is a "Favourites " option but this does not allow the selection of artists per se. It allows you to select and add your favourite albums or tracks. If you haven't added them yourself then the list should be empty. However that point relates to the Qobuz apps. I cannot comment on what Qobuz via Roon integration is providing.  So the Roon Community website ( where Roon/Qobuz problem postings are frequent) may be a more appropriate place for your question.

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/c/roon/qobuz

 

 

 

 

[PAR]

OK, I just ran through the procedure that you outlined. I entered an artist name into the search box. In this case Beatles. I then selected " See all artists" and from the results selected The Beatles. This produced the artist page (with a  very good little essay on the Fab Four BTW). Without selecting an album from the menu I just hearted The Beatles. Then I went to my Favourites page.  The artist had transferred to my Favourites ( Artists) but only , effectively, as a link which if then clicked took me back to the artist page where I can "unheart" them and they disappear from Favourites.

 

Is this roughly what you are experiencing except for the fact that you have hundreds of artists in Favourites that you have never selected as a Favourite?

 

Are the artists shown in the Favourites linked in any way to your choices in music or are they completely random perhaps with artists in genres that you don't use? Has anyone else got access to your device which has the Qobuz app installed?

 

Maybe David Craff from Qobuz will pick up on this thread. Alternatively and if there is  no chance that these artists could have been added inadvertently, I would contact Qobuz customer services as it may be a problem at their end. It certainly has no equivalent over here on the UK version as far as I am aware. I have found only one small clue to what might be happening as I found an artist ( only one) that I have never" favourited" in the artists list. When I clicked on the artist name in the list Qobuz took me to a page which showed an album that I think I may well have added to my Album favourites a year or so ago. So it looks as if there may be a glitch where favourite albums can or could somehow be mistakenly added as artist favourites ( for clarification in the favourites view only the artist name appears, only when it is  selected does the album show).

 

I still wonder if there is a connection with your uses of Qobuz via Roon. The Qobuz apps appear to reflect changes that you have made across all apps irrespective of where  you may have opened Qobuz using your account.  So if I, say, add an album to favourites on the phone app it will also appear on my desktop app or in the Qobuz part of dCS Mosaic.  So something that may have happened when using the Roon integration with Qobuz ( which still seems a little flakey from reading the Roon community posts) may affect  a stand alone Qobuz app that you also use.  I am just speculating.

 

The important thing  is that if Qobuz customers services do pick up on this e.g. via a complaint from you they should be able to remove all of the unwanted favourites . I agree, a thousand "unhearts" is impractical.

[PAR]

I am no expert in interpreting such graphs but to me it appears that the energy spectrum I would expect from a 44.1 KHz ( or rather 44.1 KS/s)  sample rate is shown and extends to circa 22 K.  Then there is additional  energy shown after a margin without activity extending to 40 something kHz. Are we looking at an upsampled track? Perhaps someone with more technical expertise than me can comment.

 

The subject of ECM upsampling their catalogue in order to provide hi-res issues has been a subject in at least one previous thread on Computer Audiophile ( as was) in 2013:

 

I agree with the point that Qobuz simply put on their servers whatever the record company provides them with. Any concept of them being able to validate recordings first is unrealistic given their claimed catalogue of 40M tracks ( perhaps not yet all available in the USA) and the hard business reality of their reliance on the cooperation of the record companies in order to stay in business.

 

Do upsampled tracks sound better than the native res original? Well there is certainly no additional musical information created. However some people seem to like the effect and even upsample their own local files. 

[PAR]

Sometimes the case ,sometimes not, given DACs that either do not upsample (NOS) or where it is a selectable option. Otherwise I guess we may possibly be entering that old classic  semantic discussion of oversampling v. upsampling 🤔.

 

I was really thinking of people using the DSP options in e.g. JRiver or Roon in a conscious decision to upsample as the term is colloquially understood.

[PAR]

If you download within the app then your purchase can only be played via the app. So I always download to my hard drive (select the green download bar option).  I then copy my purchase to my backups and to my Melco music library (used as NAS).

 

There may be slight differences in the way that the music download is presented by the Qobuz download shop depending upon the format you select. I normally buy FLACs. There is a choice of all of the music downloading in a single TAR folder, which is my normal choice, or one can download a track at a time.  There is also  a separate cover art JPEG download ( although as I buy FLACs this is superfluous as the cover art is embedded within the FLAC as part of the ID3 file) and a booklet JPEG ( livret numerique - there are still odd items from the Paris server that remain untranslated) .

 

I have never downloaded to the app so cannot comment if what you experience is normal.

[PAR]

I am a UK subscriber so it it possible that there may be differences to the USA service.  I will try to clarify what I mean. When I buy an album the store offers two alternatives for the download. One is "Download with Qobuz for Mac/PC". I believe it follows the download path as per the one set in "Downloads"  in your Qobuz player account.The default path for this is to the Qobuz player app . The  alternative is " Download My Music" and this follows the download path that is the preference set in your browser's download manager.

 

You should be seeing something like :

 

 

And:

[PAR]

55 minutes ago, firedog said:

In any case, that’s not what I asked about. I asked about the album art files and why the downloads through the app don’t include them, or at least working versions of them. I prefer separate album art files to embedded ones. 

Which is why I included a second screenshot where you can see that there is a JPEG file of the cover art ( and of the booklet).  BTW, the JPEG file shown contains data - I just verified by downloading it.

[PAR]

39 minutes ago, jacobacci said:

if Qobuz were to put a protocol at their disposal. UPnP will be very difficult to get beyond "barely useable", because the standard is too loosely defined to allow for realiably smooth interworking.

Much like Roon have done with RAAT to make devices Roon Ready.

If I understand your point correctly Qobuz do this by providing an api ( allocation programming interface) to various manufacturers so that Qobuz is accessible from their devices. Examples include Innuos,  dCS , Sonos NAD, Bluesound, Linn and many others. Very much an expanding roster currently.

 

However as far as I am aware the api does not allow access to some of the added value aspects of Qobuz such as much of the textual content, nor,  at least on the examples that I have seen, is there a "buy" button as there is in Qobuz' own applications.

[PAR]

1 hour ago, jacobacci said:

I am looking for a way to use the qobuz app on android or iOS (not PC) to control a rendering device i

 This is partially available but it is rendering device specific. For example my rendering device is a dCS Network Bridge. It is controlled ( including access to Qobuz ) via the dCS Mosaic Control app installed on either an Android or ios device. It certainly supports gapless replay. However not all of the Qobuz text items can be accessed, though full track data is. This is not a problem in reality ( see my concluding paragraph). Various alternatives to dCS with similar attributes in this respect  exist of course as per my earlier posting.

 

The Qobuz mobile app does allow access to more of the text data ( for example CD booklets are accessible) but replay is limited to the mobile device. However as the mobile version of the app is functionally similar to the desktop app in most aspects it would be feasible for Qobuz to add a "return channel " ( I'm sure there is a technospeak word for this) to allow the mobile device to control  a renderer ( e.g. the Qobuz desktop app) connected to the same LAN. I thought David Craff of Qobuz mentioned some months ago that something along these lines is on the Qobuz to do list so that there would then be remote control for their desktop apps.

 

Incidentally the fact that the remote controller of my renderer or the mobile app does not display all of the Qobuz text information is not a problem in practice. It displays all that it necessary for navigation and replay purposes including  access the Qobuz playlists . For me that is all that is required as one does not need or even want to read the missing text items or purchase downloads all of the time that one is listening. They are occasional requirements. As you are not restricted to a single app for Qobuz  ( though you are to only a single music streaming connection at a time)  , for  buying  a download or reading a Qobuz article,  I simply go to the desktop player app on my computer to do this as and when needed.  It is also preferable for reading as the screen is much larger than on my i-pad or phone.

 

 

[PAR]

1 hour ago, jacobacci said:

I have a dCS Rossini and from the Qobuz Windows Desktop App I can stream via UPnP. It works, but

I am now not too sure what you really want to do. Perhaps I am just being dumb. You have  a Rossini  and use Mosaic to control it. Accessing Qobuz via it is fine.

 

You also have Qobuz desktop on a Windows PC and stream from this using UPnP but this is not successful. I am unsure what you are streaming to. Is it the Rossini? If so then I would just say use the right tool for the job which is Mosaic ( which actually uses  a type of UPnP which apparently is not strictly standard protocol and is really a dCS proprietary development ).

 

Now it is well known that the UPnP option on the Qobuz desktop is not great and it is a Beta version that Qobuz have been trying to improve for the last six months at least so far seemingly  unsuccessfully. Many postings on this thread from David Craff refer.

 

So I think that you are just at a poor point in Qobuz' development for what you want.  At least they are aware of the problem and are trying to deal with it. As your linked posting indicates, the maximum number of favourites and the metadata issues seem to lie not with Qobuz but with their partner users of their api.  Of course if your requests to them are not echoed by sufficient numbers of other users then those companies  will not put any resources into meeting them. I would imagine that for the majority a list of favourites consisting of of over 500 albums and metadata suitable for classical music are not priorities.

 

Talking of favourites I would mention that although I do keep such a list it mainly consists of new releases that I want to investigate. If I find any of them are genuine favourites  by wanting to stream them three or more times then I buy them and add them to my local files. Why? Because I cannot be certain that either myself or Qobuz will be around in 5 years time. If I am and Qobuz isn't then I still want access to my real favourites and owning them is the only way I can guarantee this.

 

 

[PAR]

25 minutes ago, jvvita said:

Never tried with dcs Mosaic

I think that you should find the experience with Mosaic superior to bubble upnp.

[PAR]

1 hour ago, mourip said:

This may have been covered previously but what is the story if I click on an album from a Qobuz curated playlist which seems to be available  but once the tracks show it says that they are "unavailable" and trying to launch them confirms this.

 Qobuz licenses tracks from the record labels. Not all tracks can be licensed for all of the territories that Qobuz serves. The playlists itself may , however, be available to more than single territory. So the compiler may have chosen tracks that are available in his/her territory but which are not in yours. Or the licence for the particular track has been terminated since the playlist was compiled.

[PAR]

"

hello,

 i signed up for the studio subscription and my paypal was charged 249.00 dollars. when i play the music it only plays for 20--30 sec. i contacted customer support they said i needed to select a plan, if i do that i'll be charged again. paypal won't delete the original transaction, on 9/1/19, because it's a subscription service.

any suggestions?"

 

So you were charged for a subscription to Qobuz on 1st September  and you have been listening to 30 sec excerpts ever since?

 

Further, you say that you paid $249 for a Studio subscription? No, it is $24.99 a month which will be automatically debited from your bank account month by month until you cancel it .  Further there is normally 14 days free trial so you haven't even exceeded that yet. If you tried to open the account on 1st September no money will yet have transferred. Or did you open the account in August? Paying for Studio is selecting a plan. NB: You cancel a Qobuz subscription by going to the Qobuz app and to "My Account"  (see top of app) and doing it there.

 

I can only advise as a European Qobuz subscriber ( UK) and USA may be a bit different, but once your payment was accepted by Qobuz  you should have received an email welcoming you . Did you have something like that? It will contain a link to a page where you set up your login. Once done your login will open the application and you will probably be offered to click on a link to a tour of the Qobuz app so you can learn how to use it. Once you have done this then Qobuz will be fully open.

 

I have to say that at first sight if you are correct about the $249 then PayPal may have paid Qobuz an incorrect sum ( or you have authorised PayPal to do it). As it doesn't relate to any of the Qobuz plans then Qobuz may not know what to do with it and haven't either opened your account or sent you the welcome email. How does that scenario sound?   Normally Qobuz will not debit your account until any free period has concluded and you haven't cancelled during it. Has any money actually been debited from your account? have you checked any credit card  or bank statement?

 

If Qobuz have been advising you to open a plan to deal with your problem my guess is that you think you have opened a Qobuz account but actually haven't.

 

Just one small point. Sometimes Qobuz will post an album that has not yet been released. In that case you may only be allowed 30 sec clips as a taster until it is actually released. I suppose that you may have been trying pre-release albums exclusively until now which would explain things ( if unlikely). Similarly if a hi-res version is available sometimes the record label will embargo it until the initial release period has expired and only allow CD resolution during that period ( a bit like movie companies who "window" access).

[PAR]

3 minutes ago, left channel said:

@PAR in the USA Studio is $24.99 per month or $249.00 per year: https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/music/streaming/offers

 In the UK we only get it as a monthly option ( £24.99). How come we don't get the chance to save £50? The only annual sub is for Sublime +. ( £299.99 ; obviously £300 would be totally out of the question 😉).

 

Thanks for the link to the US webpage. If I try to see Qobuz pages in the US from the UK I am normally automatically redirected back to the UK.

 

I now really think that the OP has either not opened his account by creating his login or that his application to join has not, for some reason, been actioned.

 

Agreed, the more that he can tell us the better.

[PAR]

4 hours ago, church_mouse said:

All 3 Qobuz UK plans on the website show a discounted price for a 12 month subscription.

Thanks church_mouse.  You are, of course, correct. Unfortunately Qobuz show this information on their  home page in light grey type against a white background.  Sadly I suffer from vision impairment which means that I can't easily see such graphics.  I only found it by your kindly bringing it to my attention. 

 

Still, I won't gain anything already being a Sublime + member  ( in my second year of this level and I expect I will carry on with it in the future as the download discounts are very useful for me).