Official Qobuz Issues Thread

[jhwalker]

9 minutes ago, Dr Tone said:

 

I just searched on the web interface for your exact phrases and it brought back a list of albums as you wanted.  The desktop apps are just a wrapper for the web player as far as I can tell.

 

Right.  I've used Qobuz for years and there's never been an issue searching for albums, as far as I know.

 

 

[jhwalker]

12 minutes ago, left channel said:

Back on topic: Qobuz has a new logo and a new color scheme across all apps.

 

Some users report problems with the iOS app. Android seems OK but I don't use all the features there. My Windows app is behaving normally.

 

The DLNA / UPnP beta is still in there tantalizing me with a list of all my devices, but no joy even with MPD on the ultraRendu. They all receive track metadata from Qobuz, but no audio.

 

 

 

I know - I was excited to try out DLNA / UPnP with either my iOS device or my Mac, but neither Qobuz app even SEES my microRendu   Fingers crossed for more updates soon

[jhwalker]

3 minutes ago, shadowlight said:

Question for the group in general.  I am looking at the subscription information on the Qobuz Great Britain website and I see the following options for subscription:

 

Hi-Fi (FLAC 16-bit / 44.1 streaming)

Sublime (which is Hi-Fi, with option to download music at steep discount)

Sublime+ (24bit FLAC up to 192Khz + discounted download for Hi-Res)

 

I did not see an option for just Hi-Res streaming?  Is that correct?

 

 

That's their model on the original French website, as well.

 

Look at it this way - with Sublime+, you pay for high resolution streaming and get a steep discount on downloads for free  

[jhwalker]

10 hours ago, rickca said:

I'm using the Qobuz desktop app on Windows. 

 

I set the genre to Classical only.  In Discover, I see two rows of New Releases.  If I click 'See all new releases', the app just displays one additional row.  I have to click 'See all new releases' a second time to actually see all new releases.

 

@David Craff is this behavior intentional?  I find it irritating.

 

Just a comment - the Mac client does not work this way.  A single click expands to all available new releases, though as you scroll down, more are loaded dynamically to fill the available screen space.

[jhwalker]

46 minutes ago, firedog said:

I don't think there is a set discount - it varies from album to album. Usually substantial, even approaching 40-50%. If you buy a fair amount of downloads, I think the Sublime+ will easily pay for more than the extra it costs you.
Price comparisons are always good. Generally among the several well known hi res download sites, at least one will have the same album for substantially less. This is especially true with classical music, where the differences between sites can be 50% for the same album.

 

Agreed - it's substantial.  Buying from the Qobuz France site, the price for a hi-res release is typically about 9-10 Euros, and the same release at HDTracks is generally $18.

 

Can be more / less for single releases, but that's a good ballpark number.

[jhwalker]

2 hours ago, rickca said:

I'm confused.  Are a lot of the hi res albums on Qobuz just 'hi res transfers of older standard-res masters'?  Does that mean they are just upsampled?  If so, buying the hi res download at CD prices with Sublime+ isn't really a bargain.  

This question is for @David.. Qobuz, Hi-Res Music Evangelist.

 

Their library is very similar to all the other hi-res sites; i.e., some are remasters of older material (e.g., classic rock remastered to 24/96, etc.) and some are new releases recorded in 24/48, 24/96, etc. 

 

I've bought well over 1,000 albums from them in the past several years, and 90%+ are new, hi-res releases.

[jhwalker]

1 hour ago, left channel said:

 

To do that, you'll have to ask Qobuz Support to move your account. They'll probably advise you to first copy your playlists and favorites with the Soundiiz service.

 

This is what I did - worked great

[jhwalker]

I've resisted posting about this for some time, because maybe it's just me, but ...

 

EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND, the shopping cart functionality on Qobuz.com is broken!  That is, you can put albums in the shopping cart, but when you go to checkout, it takes you back to the main page; i.e., the one that offers you a subscription (even though you already have one).  Come Monday morning, this is usually "fixed" and works until Friday afternoon (or so).

 

This is very frustrating, and I'm assuming it drives folks away from purchasing, so maybe something to look into?

 

A couple of other website issues, while I'm at it:

 

1. Even though I click "remember me" on the login page, it seldom does; i.e., I usually have to login each time I visit the site (multiple times / week).  This functionality works for MANY other websites, so I know this is not just a settings issue on my side.
2. Many times, when I attempt to add a favorite, it tells me I must be logged in ... though I clearly AM logged in, since my account (jhwalker) is clearly shown in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

 

All of this sounds like poor cookie management, but darned if I can find any reason (on my side, at least) it should be happening - I've given full rights to the site (more than I do for any other site), but still a problem  🤷‍♂️

[jhwalker]

6 hours ago, 111MilesToGo said:

@David Craff Dear David, I would like to ask you whether your are aware of and working on recent issues with the Qobuz iOS App which potentially / probably are severe fallout from Apple releasing iOS 17 (Sep 2023). My observations come from an iPhone 14 Pro Max 512GB, which had iOS 16's til the last 16.7.2, then installed iOS 17 first as 17.1, now on 17.1.1.

 

The fallout from iOS 17 to several music players is seen and reported by several people on the web. Some potential fallout started a bit earlier in the 16s, maybe when Apple released some things before 17. From surveying these reports, and from my own experiences, the issue areas concerned comprise:

• Gapless replay broken
• Sample rate handling to the extent of
  • (a) iOS not exposing the sample rate capabilities of outboard (USB) DACs to an app correctly, and
  • (b) the music player app not performing the appropriate sample rate switching as required by the audio file
• Music player app losing internal 64-bit capability (if present)

This list might still be incomplete.

 

Two remarks: Qobuz is my dearest music streaming service. And an iPhone is quite a good and convenient digital audio transport device, thus it's valuable also to a demanding music lover.

 

 

My observations with the Qobuz iOS App on my a.m. iPhone:

• Very severe: Gapless replay is completely BROKEN. This issue occurs for:

1. Any streamed and any offlined (imported) audio tracks
2. Any input bit depths / sample rates
3. Any output, out of which I tested
   • iPhone speaker output
   • Output to outboard USB-DACs via the Lightning port into the DAC USB ports, in my case to Chord Hugo 2 and Cayin RU7 using various adapters
   • Output via Bluetooth (AAC) to a Sony WF-1000XM5 TWS IEM

• Sample rate setting and switching seem to be okay, as far as I can tell from the sample rate indicators on my two USB-DACs. This was tested for the same three sets of circumstances given above under gapless. Unfortunately, I cannot see the output bit depth ...

I find these failures and successes to be reproducible in a number of test repetitions. Of course, the usual precautions and checks were done, like fully update iOS and the apps, do reboots, check with several outboard DACs and cablings as mentioned above.

 

I suppose you don't need any hinting at appropriate audio tracks, but anyway ... any recording of Beethoven Symphony No.5 Movement 3 going into Movement 4, Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, and almost every proper concert recording with applause etc. spanning across track transitions.

 

 

I should expand a bit on other music player apps in order to point you towards further potential issues in the Qobuz iOS App:

• Neutron Music Player on iOS:

1. Sample rate handling is severely broken, which means
   • (a) Neutron doesn't get to see the outboard DAC rate capabilities correctly, and
   • (b) it does an incorrect or even no switching of outgoing sample rates
2. DSD handling is broken
3. 64-bit internal processing is broken

The "Neutron and iOS 17" stuff is found at https://neutroncode.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6919&sid=9e320a24678c8e9ddbdd3c8383508414 (don't be irritated by the thread title, in fact it collects all iOS 17 related issues further down).

• Apple Music (standard app and Classical) on iOS receives a mixed bag of reports of proper functioning as well as myriads of failures, amongst them gapless replay being broken. Myself, I have seen both proper functioning, but also some - even irreproducible - errors.

 

In addition to all this, I checked the behavior of the Qobuz Android App today - everything is fine and well-behaved.

 

Thus, I would like to ask other Qobuz iOS App users for their experiences, and I would be grateful if you @David Craff could give feedback here.

 

 

PS: David, I don't know precisely what your preferred Qobuz Issue Report Channel is. Thanks for kindly letting me know. Sorry if this channel here lets you invest more of your time than desirable.

 

Just a quick note: gapless playback is not UNIVERSALLY "completely broken".  Works just fine for me using the Qobuz app on my iPhone 15 Pro, both playing back locally on the phone and via AirPlay to my receiver.  Sample was the recent "Rachmaninoff 150" release from Berlin Philharmonic / Kirill Gerstein, using the "Variations on a Theme of Corelli" tracks, which should play back seamlessly, without interruption - they do.

 

Also confirmed via Chicago Symphony / Pierre Boulez recording of the Firebird Suite, which is spread over multiple tracks as well, and plays back flawlessly.

[jhwalker]

2 hours 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?

 

I didn't do exhaustive testing, just these two quick examples from my Qobuz "favorites" section I knew should be examples of gapless playback.

 

The Rachmaninoff is 48/24 and the Stravinsky is 44/16.

[jhwalker]

6 hours ago, 111MilesToGo said:

I did a quick first check with your two albums. Both do suffer Gapless breakage for me. Until now, just playing through the iPhone speakers. Hope I picked the correct ones:

http://open.qobuz.com/album/p94wgztr2znha

http://open.qobuz.com/album/kc8ejui0lf7kc

Correct in both cases.  And I just validated they still work fine for me ;)

 

I will note I'm always on the latest Developer Beta release level of iOS, which is 17.2, beta 3, using the latest version of the Qobuz iOS app, and none of the tracks are saved locally (i.e., pure streaming from Qobuz).

[jhwalker]

21 hours ago, 111MilesToGo said:

… besides the a.m. iPhone 15 vs. 14 difference.

 

I also have an iPhone 11 on iOS 17.1.1 and NO issue with gapless playback on either device.

 

... so I'm thinking it has nothing to do with iOS version or iPhone rev. level, etc.