Official Qobuz Issues Thread

[Balthazar B]

18 minutes ago, left channel said:

If you log out of the app then you lose your offline cache, which seems to me a normal consequence because now the app cannot know if you still have a current account.

So this begs the question as to whether the user gets logged out if the phone (Android and/or iPhone) is either soft or hard restarted. Or is the current login state cached, and will it get re-estalished when the app is booted up? And then does it matter whether the Internet is accessible or not in that case?

[Balthazar B]

35 minutes ago, Mark Dirac said:

I didn't notice that elephant. What did it look like? When was it it stumbled into the room?

Just google qobuz piracy reddit. That'll give you a taste of the elephant's nether regions.

[Balthazar B]

@deho, how are you feeding the digital data into the SU-R1?

[Balthazar B]

1 hour ago, deho said:

I'm not having a judgement about Qobuz which is my main source of music for several years ... I'm just trying to understand what can happen in my reading problems : why is it working seamlessly with standard resolution songs and not with high resolution ones ?

 

My hypothesis would be that one of the Technics subsystems is broken when it comes to handling high-res content from its network interface, since this occurs with both Qobuz and Tidal streaming services. While you may not be able to determine the specific root cause -- particularly since the manufacturer seems to be unhelpfully shining you on -- you could isolate it to some degree by simply providing the feed from Qobuz running on your computer (the Mini?) via S/PDIF or USB-B (preferably try both with proper cables). If it can handle high-res through its digital inputs, then the issue is almost certainly with their network interface and how they're processing incoming data.

 

Have you looked elsewhere on the web for others experiencing similar issues on the Technics box using the network interface?

[Balthazar B]

10 hours ago, David Craff said:

 

Hi,

 

In fact, no HiFi brand currently offers Qobuz Connect, although it is now under development. If you have any questions about this project, I'm the person in charge, even Dan Mackta doesn't know everything as well as I do :D

So to give you a quick update, we're making good progress on the project, and this month we'll be finalizing the minimum necessary for HiFi brands to start integrating the Alpha/Beta version.

 

Regards

 

Hi, David. Would it be a fair assumption that if one were interested in testing Qobuz Connect through a CE manufacturer (WiiM, say), providing feedback, etc.,  that one will do so through that OEM's beta program -- in concert with a Qobuz subscription, of course -- and the communication channel would be through that manufacturer? Or will you/Qobuz wish to have -- and therefore provide -- a more direct channel with beta testers using a variety of devices from your CE partners?

 

Cheers!

[Balthazar B]

7 hours ago, LoryWiv said:

I access my QoBuz Sublime subscription and stream via HQ Player desktop and client on PC , UAPP app. on my android DAP. Both work very well. Is there any additional advantage that QoBuz Connect will confer for these use cases?

 

The main advantage is that you would use the native Qobuz apps as your controller, which are likely to provide both a richer and more functional interface than any third-party application built on top of the more limited API available. And that will progressively be the better-developed and -supported method going forward, assuming CE manufacturers and other third parties jump on board, as I would expect them to.

[Balthazar B]

23 hours ago, David Craff said:

 

Qobuz Connect operates as a communication protocol that orchestrates the interaction between the Controller (Qobuz application), the Receiver (Qobuz Connect SDK integrated into Hi-Fi equipment), and the Server (dedicated Qobuz Connect server). It enables users to control and enjoy their music seamlessly while maintaining a robust and secure channel for communication between the application and the Hi-Fi equipment.

David, do you expect that this SDK will be available to and supported for third parties for integration into software solutions, e.g., Volumio, Moode, LMS, etc.? Maybe even a Qobuz flavor of Raspotify for dedicated ARM and Risc-V SBC streamers?

[Balthazar B]

2 hours ago, Cebolla said:

Open source Librespot based Raspotify is probably not the best example to use, given that it is not officially supported by Spotify themselves!

Sure, and Spotify could move the goalposts and break things if they wanted. But given that Raspotify requires authentication to a Spotify Premium account to be useful, and to the extent it makes it relatively inexpensive from a hardware standpoint to provide a high-quality streaming experience via Spotify Connect and thereby encourages subscribers, I have a feeling that Spotify is more inclined towards de facto approval of this access method, and won't break it unless absolutely necessary for other reasons. 

 

I hope Qobuz finds this a compelling-enough use case as well to enable getting Qobuz-specific streaming devices into their subscribers' hands.

[Balthazar B]

On 10/4/2023 at 1:53 PM, thegios said:

Spotify (that has Spotify Connect on Marantz) is close to putting live a HiRes plan, so you'd better hurry up 😁

 

And of course Spotify is hoping you'll be willing to pay considerably more than you do today, and more than Qobuz costs, for the privilege of listening to anything better than their crappy lossy content. And it also assumes Spotify doesn't muck up the HiRes/CD quality content in some way, which is a risk.

 

Qobuz needs Connect and a few other tweaks to its UX and functionality, but at least it already has the highest quality content playback, IMHO, which is the most important thing also IMHO.

[Balthazar B]

56 minutes ago, 111MilesToGo said:

Thank you for your feedback. Any case of positive or negative feedback by others might help Qobuz to get a grip on this.

 

Let me ask you, please: What bitness/sample rates did you look at?

 

Why don't you and @jhwalker cross check the sources that are behaving differently for the two of you? It could indicate whether there may a problem with the way different source material was encoded by the publishers before they provisioned the content to Qobuz. Or since your iPhones are of different generations, it could be something with the hardware and how iOS17 interacts with each of them.

[Balthazar B]

On 11/21/2023 at 1:32 AM, 111MilesToGo said:

But then: Why did everything Gapless work perfectly with the Qobuz iOS App on this iPhone 14 Pro Max (bought in June 2023) of mine until some time around end of October, then all of a sudden failed completely for me?

 

I am not aware of anything I could have done wrong. All I did was:

- Follow the iOS updates during the late 16s quite instantly

- Sit out on iOS 17.0 (released September) to let Apple mature it

- At this time in October, Qobuz gapless did work fine

- Start checking out Dolby Atmos on Apple Music early November

- Install iOS 17.1 early November only, just a day or so after getting into Atmos; got iOS 17.1.1 soon thereafter

- Then notice the Qobuz Gapless issue; but I am not sure whether it first occurred to me when on 17.1 or 17.1.1

I mention these steps without claiming any logical causes for the failure. I updated the Qobuz App instantly whenever a new version was released on the AppStore.

 

I‘m sort of lost.

 

No, you didn't do anything wrong. But given the timeline you provide, it points to Apple breaking something with one of their iOS updates. Either across all their hardware, or with the hardware you're using because it wasn't properly tested against it. Or it was and Apple figures anyone who's affected by it and cares can simply purchase a new phone from them if that's where it gets fixed.

 

While I haven't done an exhaustive search, it seems to me that I've seen chatter elsewhere about problems with iOS 17 and audio. But as I don't use Apple devices, it's a little outside the gravity of my motivation to do much focused research.

 

Now if Apple sent around a developer alert well in advance to the effect of, "We'll be making a change in iOS17 that will miserably eff up audio streaming in all kinds of ways for all our content 'partners' and here's what you have to do to fix it because we can't", and Qobuz ignored it, only then the problem's on Qobuz. But somehow I don't think it happened that way.

[Balthazar B]

22 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

Always believed, the problem can be traced to the newest item in in the reproduction chain. 95% of the time, that is the issue.

 

 

In my experience, more like 99% of the time. With all things mechanical and technical, true coincidences are very, very rare.

[Balthazar B]

@111MilesToGo, it does seem like Qobuz is buffering the following track when there are gapless metadata flags embedded in the content. Given your observations earlier about when this happens, I'm just curious:

• How much free storage do you have on your iPhone? I'm wondering about the root cause for the apparent difficulty to completely buffer large following tracks.
• What's the bitrate/resolution on the Beethoven 5th recording that you tested?
• What's the nature of your network connectivity? How much bandwidth is available to your phone, and what's the speed of transmission between you and the Internet?

[Balthazar B]

3 hours ago, 111MilesToGo said:

Hi David, to be clear: I suppose you are referring to the keyword metadata in your statement. AFAIK, there is no "gapless" indicator in the metadata. And I suppose any player app is strictly required to put the last sample rate of track 1 at position n into its play buffer, and the first sample of track 2 into position n+1.

 

Well, if the CUE sheet data was properly preserved from the original pressing image of the recording, then, among other things, gap-related information will be available to the playback system. This wiki article discusses the subject a bit. Obviously we don't know how Qobuz (or anybody else) is processing playback/streaming, or even whether the digital source content has been consistently and properly packaged by the various music publishers before delivery to streaming services, but if you're getting true and complete gapless playback though one signal chain, it should be available for other chains as well, so long as every component is not introducing something untoward.

 

The buffering David describes should work well to prequeue the content on your local device, although you may have discovered a situation (large content file) where the gapless transition is interrupted if that large file has not been completely queued at the time it needs to begin playing, in which case it is restreamed from Qobuz after the conclusion of the previous track, causing a gap.

[Balthazar B]

6 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

In most cases tracks start playing long before the entire track is downloaded to the local device. Thus, the size of the track doesn’t matter. Could be 30 seconds or 30 minutes. The same small bits and bytes will trickle in when needed. 

 

Thanks, David. Then it will be interesting to figure out why there's an unwanted gap being introduced during the transition between the 3rd and 4th movements of Beethoven's 5th symphony with the recording that @111MilesToGo reported a few messages ago. It sounds like what I thought might be a possible root cause isn't it. Cheers!

 

FWIW, even though I can't replicate his situation with an iPhone 14, I'll try out the playlist he posted on my own devices (Android, Mac, and WiiM via their app) and will let you know what I hear. But I'm guessing he's experiencing a very specific (and rare, I hope) problem with the way iOS and your app interact. Maybe some config/setting changed?

[Balthazar B]

An update:

1. On my Android 14 device (a Pixel 6 Pro), the transitions between the tracks on the playlist play perfectly without gaps. BTW, a few of the tracks aren't available in the United States due to licenses.
2. On my Macbook M1 laptop, ditto.
3. However, interactions between the Android WiiM app/devices and Qobuz streaming have suddenly gotten weird, and this must have started within the last two days. I don't know whether it's something with the WiiM app, the WiiM backend, the Qobuz APIs, or something else, but it's definitely not right. I posted on the WiiM forum to see if it's just me or an issue affecting other users. OK, rebooting all my WiiM devices seems to have resolved the issue. And as with my phone and Macbook, all the transitions played properly without gaps.

[Balthazar B]

1 hour ago, David Craff said:

- DLNA / UPnP: never, and even more so now that we're working on Qobuz Connect.
- Bit Perfect support via USB for Android: planned
- Qobuz Connect with Denon / Marantz: this is probably the most important brand for Qobuz and this project, so we're working closely with them to get it done as quickly as possible.
- A little UI Overhaul: This is underway, we have a new design system that will be gradually rolled out to all applications.

Thanks for the update, @David Craff! 

 

I hope WiiM is right up there as an important brand as well. 😁

 

Can certainly understand if the Android 14 bitperfect output will take a while, since from everything I'm reading, it's not clear when it will become generally available from Google. And if it will be available on all recent Android devices. But I'm very interested, not least of all because it may make it simple to add to some Android devices that are already or can be connected to home audio systems. Just as some people today use old iPhones as dongle inputs to play bit-perfect Apple Music on their stereos. Because Apple doesn't seem to care enough about developing/releasing a Connect type functionality of their own. 😉

[Balthazar B]

1 hour ago, JCW6 said:

Using the Qobuz App on iPhone:  Are there detailed instructions somewhere?

 

I've installed the app on my iPhone 13 Pro since I got some Bluetooth earbuds for Christmas, and I'm hoping to load up a few albums for our upcoming 4-hour flight.  (I'm subscribed to the "Studio" plan.)  What's the most efficient way to do this without actually "purchasing" the albums?

 

I see the "Imports" button at the bottom of the screen, which seems to contain various tracks that I've played in a "offline library" but no whole albums.  I also see an "Import" button next to "Play" in the "..." menu of any album I select in "My Qobuz," but trying that now appears to run rather slowly -- something comparable to real-time over a good wi-fi connection? -- even for only CD quality.  And I don't know if I'll have to pay to effectively purchase the album, or if that only applies to permanent and/or "Hi-Res" downloads.

 

Also, is there a convenient way to check the amount of data stored in the phone's cache? -- JCW6

 

So I'm using Android, but let's assume the interfaces and functionalities are very similar, if not completely identical. 

 

Before your travels, create one or more playlists to contain all the music you want to take with you. Find the music and add it to the playlist(s). Then go into each playlist and tap the download icon (downward arrow on my phone). That's it. Then when you're offline, on the Home screen, select the Imports icon -- they should really call it Downloaded -- and play away. 

 

You can download at full resolution or something less. Hi-res uses lots of storage, and frankly you won't benefit on earbuds, so CD quality would be sufficient, and really overkill. Run some tests and see if you can distinguish between bitrates on the same tracks. And of course the higher the res, the longer the tracks will take to download.

[Balthazar B]

Hi, @JCW6. Assuming the iPhone app is similar to the Android app, you'll see under Imports on the Home screen that the breakdown includes Releases (aka albums), Tracks, Playlists, and Artists. If you download a single track, selecting Releases will present the parent album, but not any other tracks from it you haven't downloaded. If you pull up an album and tap the download icon (downward-facing arrow), it will download the whole album and it will show up under Imports/Releases. 

 

On Android there are lots of utilities that can provide info on downloaded data, but it's been ages since I've used and iPhone, so I don't know what Apple provides end-users in that regard.

 

There are icons on the Edit screen of audiophilestyle that let you select justification and indentation of paragraphs.

[Balthazar B]

3 hours ago, Jacco said:

I seem to be having trouble with the latest Qobuz Beta on Android.

I hope you screenshot something and reported the issue through the beta app. That's probably the more effective way to report it to the development team.

[Balthazar B]

@Superdad, why not a very inexpensive WiiM Mini, particularly if his amp includes a DAC he likes and supports Toslink? The WiiM Home App supports a useful subset of functions from Qobuz, including creating playlists and adding to them (but not heavy editing, but the Qobuz mobile, desktop, and web apps work for that). And when Qobuz Connect is released, I believe WiiM will be one of the earliest, if not the first platform that supports it.

 

If his amp doesn't include a DAC, and he wants higher audio quality than the Mini's DAC provides, he can get a WiiM Pro Plus, which has an excellent DAC and analog out setup.