Official Qobuz Issues Thread

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, dmackta said:

Hello gents. Cuneiform is one of the GREAT independent labels and I've worked with and known Steve the owner for many years. He does not allow his catalog to be streamed. Period, end. I gave up trying to convince him. 

 

One weird thing about Qobuz -- although we are working on it -- is that if we sell music in the download store, it appears in the streaming service, regardless of whether we are permitted to stream it. When we don't have the streaming rights, you see greyed out tracks that only play 30 second MP3 samples. 

 

You can stream Cuneiform titles on Qobuz that you have purchased, this goes for anything in the download store which may not have streaming rights attached. Purchase on Qobuz, it shows up in your purchased music in the apps, stream away. 

 

Hope that's helpful. 

Thanks Dan!

[Tinnitus Andronicus]

8 minutes ago, dmackta said:

Hello gents. Cuneiform is one of the GREAT independent labels and I've worked with and known Steve the owner for many years. He does not allow his catalog to be streamed. Period, end. I gave up trying to convince him. 

 

One weird thing about Qobuz -- although we are working on it -- is that if we sell music in the download store, it appears in the streaming service, regardless of whether we are permitted to stream it. When we don't have the streaming rights, you see greyed out tracks that only play 30 second MP3 samples. 

 

You can stream Cuneiform titles on Qobuz that you have purchased, this goes for anything in the download store which may not have streaming rights attached. Purchase on Qobuz, it shows up in your purchased music in the apps, stream away. 

 

Hope that's helpful. 

 

Agreed, Cuneiform is a great label that's released uncompromising music for decades. Likewise the online and mail order retailer associated with the label, Wayside, from whom I have purchased many CDs over the years.

 

The rest of your explanation makes perfect sense, and resolves the matter. Thank you.

[Ran]

BubbleUPnP has a cool feature that allows you to hide albums that only offer snippets and are not really stream-able. 

[Tinnitus Andronicus]

17 hours ago, dmackta said:

Hello gents. Cuneiform is one of the GREAT independent labels and I've worked with and known Steve the owner for many years. He does not allow his catalog to be streamed. Period, end. I gave up trying to convince him. 

 

 

What Steve doesn't understand (or agree with) is that streaming can lead to purchases. Last week I wanted to buy a John Cale album as a Qobuz download and after streaming about eight other Cale albums I bought three in addition to the one I was after. Listening to a 30 second sample is not going to make me buy either of those Mother Mallard albums. However, if I were to download a shared folder by some unlawful means using a p2p filesharing app and be given the chance to listen to the whole album, I might definitely choose to buy the download if I liked it (and I would delete the illegally obtained files after listening whether I decided to buy the recordings or not). Of course, the money earned thru a streaming license is going to be next to nothing for a small label like Cuneiform.

[EP]

Hi, I registered an account to post in this thread. I have a Win/Linx dual boot PC connected via USB to an SMSL SU-8 DAC and a Topping L30 HPA. I am a longtime Spotify/FLAC file listener and I am trying Qobuz on a trial. I also stream to a Marantz AV8802A.

 

Thus far I have not been impressed.

 

Qobuz has fewer artists and albums available than Spotify. Fine.

 

Airplay/Linux systems appear to be limited 44.1 KHz. Fine. Not Qobuz's issue. I upgraded from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.05 in order to try it; my complains about Ubuntu 18 are not Qobuz's fault. Fine.

 

The Qobuz Windows app, on first install, would only open after I double-clicked it 3-10x. Each instance would remain open in the background, sucking up CPU, and I'd have to close it in task manager. I filed a support request and never heard back.

 

When it did open, it would default to the lowest quality. WASAPI exclusive mode would usually not work. When it did work, music would play in half-time, taking a 96 KHz file and slowing it to 48 KHz. When WASAPI would work, the music would get choppy if I used the computer for anything else. It's a dual-core i7 with 16 GB of RAM, so I really don't think it should be struggling to play music and open a web browser at the same time.

 

I uninstalled and reinstalled the app, at which point it opened reliably for a day. Now, however, whenever I click to stream any music file, it crashes.

 

Actually, I take that back. Qobuz has now reverted to refusing to open.

 

Having tried multiple installations across three platforms (iOS, Linux, Windows), filing unanswered support tickets, and now posting across multiple forums in search of CS, I have to admit that this has been a very poor experience.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, EP said:

Hi, I registered an account to post in this thread. I have a Win/Linx dual boot PC connected via USB to an SMSL SU-8 DAC and a Topping L30 HPA. I am a longtime Spotify/FLAC file listener and I am trying Qobuz on a trial. I also stream to a Marantz AV8802A.

 

Thus far I have not been impressed.

 

Qobuz has fewer artists and albums available than Spotify. Fine.

 

Airplay/Linux systems appear to be limited 44.1 KHz. Fine. Not Qobuz's issue. I upgraded from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.05 in order to try it; my complains about Ubuntu 18 are not Qobuz's fault. Fine.

 

The Qobuz Windows app, on first install, would only open after I double-clicked it 3-10x. Each instance would remain open in the background, sucking up CPU, and I'd have to close it in task manager. I filed a support request and never heard back.

 

When it did open, it would default to the lowest quality. WASAPI exclusive mode would usually not work. When it did work, music would play in half-time, taking a 96 KHz file and slowing it to 48 KHz. When WASAPI would work, the music would get choppy if I used the computer for anything else. It's a dual-core i7 with 16 GB of RAM, so I really don't think it should be struggling to play music and open a web browser at the same time.

 

I uninstalled and reinstalled the app, at which point it opened reliably for a day. Now, however, whenever I click to stream any music file, it crashes.

 

Actually, I take that back. Qobuz has now reverted to refusing to open.

 

Having tried multiple installations across three platforms (iOS, Linux, Windows), filing unanswered support tickets, and now posting across multiple forums in search of CS, I have to admit that this has been a very poor experience.

 

Do you think this is specific to you? I haven't seen many complaints like this. 

[EP]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Do you think this is specific to you? I haven't seen many complaints like this. 

I have a very vanilla Win10 installation, updated regularly, and a very common DAC connected via USB, so I am surprised at those problems.

 

Most users, installing an app and having a bad experience, would not register forum accounts or file multiple support tickets describing their problems. They'd just keep using Spotify or Tidal.

 

That said, I am in a trial period to determine whether or not to subscribe, so the depth and breadth of problems - for what I thought was a mature product - is suprising.

 

 

[Tinnitus Andronicus]

I had multiple performance issues with the Qobuz desktop app for Windows that never got resolved. On the suggestion of another user, I paid for Audirvana and used that to stream Qobuz and now I am a happy listener. The only time I open the Qobuz app is to do certain artist searches where I get too many unwanted results in Audirvana. So I paid $75 one time for Audirvana and monthly $15 for Qobuz Studio. I filed too many support requests and forum complaints for too long without any of the issues ever getting fixed, the Audirvana purchase was well worth it.

[The Computer Audiophile]

17 minutes ago, EP said:

I have a very vanilla Win10 installation, updated regularly, and a very common DAC connected via USB, so I am surprised at those problems.

 

Most users, installing an app and having a bad experience, would not register forum accounts or file multiple support tickets describing their problems. They'd just keep using Spotify or Tidal.

 

That said, I am in a trial period to determine whether or not to subscribe, so the depth and breadth of problems - for what I thought was a mature product - is suprising.

 

 

Just trying to help and narrow down causes and solutions. I will install on my Windows 10 machine as see what happens. 

[EP]

10 minutes ago, Tinnitus Andronicus said:

I had multiple performance issues with the Qobuz desktop app for Windows that never got resolved. On the suggestion of another user, I paid for Audirvana and used that to stream Qobuz and now I am a happy listener. The only time I open the Qobuz app is to do certain artist searches where I get too many unwanted results in Audirvana. So I paid $75 one time for Audirvana and monthly $15 for Qobuz Studio. I filed too many support requests and forum complaints for too long without any of the issues ever getting fixed, the Audirvana purchase was well worth it.

That's good to know. However, from a customer acquisition perspective, "pay for this other product so you can pay for our product" is a tough sell.

[The Computer Audiophile]

@EP I just installed the Qobuz 64 bit Windows app on Windows 10 build 19041.508 version 2004 and can't' reproduce any issues. I don't have virus threat protection or firewall & network protection enabled though. 

[EP]

Thanks for checking.

 

My Win system:

Version    10.0.19041 Build 19041

Hardware Abstraction Layer    Version = "10.0.19041.488"

 

Qobuz (just tried again) works upon a new installation. If you're interested, please do try and run the app again over the next day or two. I uninstalled and reinstalled again, and now it opens, streams music, and connects to the DAC over WASAPI exclusive.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, EP said:

Thanks for checking.

 

My Win system:

Version    10.0.19041 Build 19041

Hardware Abstraction Layer    Version = "10.0.19041.488"

 

Qobuz (just tried again) works upon a new installation. If you're interested, please do try and run the app again over the next day or two. I uninstalled and reinstalled again, and now it opens, streams music, and connects to the DAC over WASAPI exclusive.

Do you have anything with ASIO drivers installed?

[EP]

49 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Do you have anything with ASIO drivers installed?

Not that I'm aware of. I do have the XMOS USB DAC control panel installed, for the SMSL.

 

It's certainly possible that some installation or project over the past few years left some audio detritus.

[David Craff]

15 hours ago, EP said:

Hi, I registered an account to post in this thread. I have a Win/Linx dual boot PC connected via USB to an SMSL SU-8 DAC and a Topping L30 HPA. I am a longtime Spotify/FLAC file listener and I am trying Qobuz on a trial. I also stream to a Marantz AV8802A.

 

Thus far I have not been impressed.

 

Qobuz has fewer artists and albums available than Spotify. Fine.

 

Airplay/Linux systems appear to be limited 44.1 KHz. Fine. Not Qobuz's issue. I upgraded from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.05 in order to try it; my complains about Ubuntu 18 are not Qobuz's fault. Fine.

 

The Qobuz Windows app, on first install, would only open after I double-clicked it 3-10x. Each instance would remain open in the background, sucking up CPU, and I'd have to close it in task manager. I filed a support request and never heard back.

 

When it did open, it would default to the lowest quality. WASAPI exclusive mode would usually not work. When it did work, music would play in half-time, taking a 96 KHz file and slowing it to 48 KHz. When WASAPI would work, the music would get choppy if I used the computer for anything else. It's a dual-core i7 with 16 GB of RAM, so I really don't think it should be struggling to play music and open a web browser at the same time.

 

I uninstalled and reinstalled the app, at which point it opened reliably for a day. Now, however, whenever I click to stream any music file, it crashes.

 

Actually, I take that back. Qobuz has now reverted to refusing to open.

 

Having tried multiple installations across three platforms (iOS, Linux, Windows), filing unanswered support tickets, and now posting across multiple forums in search of CS, I have to admit that this has been a very poor experience.

 

 

Hi EP,

 

Sorry for the issue you get with our Windows application. Can you contact me in private so we can try to find a solution.

 

Regards

[David Craff]

15 hours ago, Tinnitus Andronicus said:

I had multiple performance issues with the Qobuz desktop app for Windows that never got resolved. On the suggestion of another user, I paid for Audirvana and used that to stream Qobuz and now I am a happy listener. The only time I open the Qobuz app is to do certain artist searches where I get too many unwanted results in Audirvana. So I paid $75 one time for Audirvana and monthly $15 for Qobuz Studio. I filed too many support requests and forum complaints for too long without any of the issues ever getting fixed, the Audirvana purchase was well worth it.

 

Hi,

 

We have corrected and improved the performance of the application. However, there is still a long way to go and we are fully aware of this. Application performance is one of our top priorities. We hope to greatly improve it with each new version.

 

Regards

[EP]

5 hours ago, David Craff said:

 

Hi EP,

 

Sorry for the issue you get with our Windows application. Can you contact me in private so we can try to find a solution.

 

Regards

Hi David,

Thanks for reaching out. I did hear from someone in support, so I will let you know how that goes.

 

After a couple of uninstall/reinstall cycles, Qobuz launches reliably, so we're moving on the the downstream issues.

 

Does this forum have private messaging? If not, I will contact you via LinkedIn.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, EP said:

Does this forum have private messaging?

Yes. 

[EP]

On 9/23/2020 at 6:36 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Yes. 

Found it, thank you.

 

David, I sent you a PM.

[Richter Di]

On 6/15/2020 at 11:19 AM, David Craff said:

 

Hi,

 

This is not yet available for Germany's Store but will arrive.

 

Here come some playlists from the Hi-Fi Audio Partners for US Account. You can listen them but may have some tracks not available :

- https://play.qobuz.com/playlist/3314272

- https://play.qobuz.com/playlist/3191147

- https://play.qobuz.com/playlist/2845368

- https://play.qobuz.com/playlist/2693054

- https://play.qobuz.com/playlist/2692987

- https://play.qobuz.com/playlist/2200244

- https://play.qobuz.com/playlist/2317112

 

Regards

 

Some Hifi Partner playlists exist on the German Qobuz platform, but few compared what you posted here.
Is there a away to find out which additional playlists have become available with Qobuz US and my transport them to my Qobuz account, as I did with your lists? Many thanks!

 

[David Craff]

12 hours ago, Richter Di said:

 

Some Hifi Partner playlists exist on the German Qobuz platform, but few compared what you posted here.
Is there a away to find out which additional playlists have become available with Qobuz US and my transport them to my Qobuz account, as I did with your lists? Many thanks!

 

 

Hi,

 

Maybe you can create a US account without adding a streaming plan. You need a VPN to do that. Then with your US account you can connect to our application and navigate to the content. You can only listen for sample but this is not important as you just want to find content. 

[htbyron]

I've been a Qobuz subscriber for about 4 months now, in anticipation of the GPM shutdown.  I just found this thread, and I'm curious to know if Qobuz is continuing to work with labels for streaming in the US.  I really like a lot of what the service has to offer but I was suprised to see that some of my favorite artists -- including Drive-By Truckers, Front Country, and Brandi Carlisle -- have very limited releases available.  I'd like to stick with it, as I'm finding lots of good music in high quality source files for streaming, but I gotta admit that Drive-By Truckers might be close to a deal breaker...

[htbyron]

One other request/concern relating to the family plan.  I joined in May 2020, and asked if there was a family plan available.  Sebastien responded that there was no family plan at that time but one was being considered.  That sounded good so I stuck with it.  Then in June -- just a little over a month after I joined -- they announced a family plan.  Great!, I thought -- just what I wanted.  But I couldn't get an option for my wife and 2 sons to try the service on a family plan for 1 month free, even though new subscribers were offered this opportunity.  Sebastien(?) told me that it was a licensing issue.  Fair enough, I thought at first -- licensing is complicated (and I'm a lawyer).  But then I thought about it, and that makes no sense.  Why doesn't Qobuz just offer existing subscribers a $10 discount for the first month to try the family plan.  That shouldn't implicate licensing issues (OK, I'm not that kind of lawyer, but still!).  I still haven't pulled the trigger on a family plan because I find it very frustrating, even though it's only $10 for 1 month, and I'll probably do it eventually, since GPM is shutting down.  Just annoying on a customer service level.

[goon525]

Surprising problem listening to the Mozart C minor Mass, K427 in the Gramophone award winning BCJ Suzuki version. I listened this morning, only to find the (crucial, big aria for Carolyn Sampson) ‘Et Incarnatus Est’, track 11, missing in action. I’ve occasionally come across a new release briefly hobbled in this way, but this disc came out in 2016! Surely, Qobuz’s contract with BIS doesn’t allow them to do this long term? 

[firedog]

3 hours ago, goon525 said:

Surprising problem listening to the Mozart C minor Mass, K427 in the Gramophone award winning BCJ Suzuki version. I listened this morning, only to find the (crucial, big aria for Carolyn Sampson) ‘Et Incarnatus Est’, track 11, missing in action. I’ve occasionally come across a new release briefly hobbled in this way, but this disc came out in 2016! Surely, Qobuz’s contract with BIS doesn’t allow them to do this long term? 

No way to tell. Sometimes labels only allow certain tracks to be streamed. Don't know why, maybe they think that will encourage people will buy downloads.