Official Qobuz Issues Thread

[#Yoda#]

1 hour ago, dmackta said:

@#Yoda# We do have a department. They spot check. And check issues reported by users. Can you guess how many albums we receive from labels each week?

@dmacktaGiven that we are talking about HiRes files and the impression that perceived at least 90 % of all new releases, except Classical and Jazz, are in minimum HiRes 24/44.1 or /48 anyway, not really so many.

In my experience most upsamples are typically from a handful of labels, upsamples in Classical and Jazz are rather rare, IMO.

 

There are efficient server based automated tools available to preselect suspicious HiRes files transmitted by the labels to support your department.

 

I wonder what Qobuz is doing when you notice an incorrect labeling of a delivered HiRes file. I know from my own proven complaints that your customers get a compensation, but in my experience the upsampled HiRes files usually still stay in your catalog without replacement or any hint to your customers.

For some time now, it is not possible any more to write a comment to an album to advice other customers about possible resolution issues.

[Jud]

22 hours ago, PAR said:

However some people seem to like the effect and even upsample their own local files. 

 

Pardon the brief OT: You almost certainly upsample as well, it's just that the chips in your DAC do it internally.  🙂

[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.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

Both the label and I reported it to Qobuz and .... nothing was done. I haven't checked those albums in years, but if you have old BIS recordings in 24/96 - they're fake. BIS started recording in 24/96 in 2006.

Update: I don't remember all the recordings involved - there were several dozen as far as I recall. I do remember 2 specific Shostakovich recordings, and I'm happy to report that they are now at Qobuz "only" at the original rate of 24/44.1 and not as fake 24.96. So apparently Qobuz  has since sourced them from a different (honest) distributor. 

Still if you find any old BIS being sold as 24/96 - it ain't. 

[Patatorz]

Hello, I just discovered through Facebook that Tidal was proposing some family subscription (6 connexions on the same account). Since more than one year I asked 3 times to Qobuz in France about such commercial option. The only answer was « this is a good idea. While we are thinking about that you can open subscription to your children ».....

I spend so much time to chase my 2 « terrors » to stop Qobuz on their iOS device in order I can listen during my travels that a family option could be great.

 

qobuz is (always) late : is it something taken into account in the near future at least to be aligned on competition and what the other platform are doing (Netflix etc...) ?

 

thanks 

[rando]

FB and Tidal pull your family apart while Qobuz brings you together?  

 

Persistence may pay off eventually.  After three "non" from HQ already this year.  It may be they're tied up in creating infrastructure and new markets instead of letting any other streaming/download service dictate to them.  

 

Cause for reflection on meaning of the French terroir.  In the sense of examining all conditions impacting growth.  

[asdf1000]

On 4/2/2019 at 2:32 PM, dmackta said:

Hi everyone

 

Couple notes on recent subjects. 

 

Qobuz Connect is not a protocol, right now it's an area of the app that houses Airplay, Chromecast etc. 

 

As you know our UPNP/DLNA support is spotty at best. Unfortunately, due to limited engineering resources it's not likely to improve massively any time soon. Some hardware works, some doesn't. There are workarounds for just about every kind of system, it's not perfect, but you know what they say: Pobody's nerfect. 

 

 

Hi @dmackta / @David Craff

 

Just wanted to ask if you can share a UPnP update, since this April update.

 

Is a working solution close or still a while away?

 

[Jim Sylva]

14 hours ago, asdf1000 said:

 

Hi @dmackta / @David Craff

 

Just wanted to ask if you can share a UPnP update, since this April update.

 

Is a working solution close or still a while away?

 

+1

[dmackta]

No update on UPnP

[mourip]

Any update on streaming with Apple CarPlay?

[shadowlight]

@dmackta @David Craff @David.. Qobuz, Hi-Res Music Evangelist

 

Does Qobuz have any plans for family plan for cd quality or better?  Kids are involved in music and currently we use Spotify but I would like them to enjoy Qobuz also.

[David Craff]

On 8/19/2019 at 1:52 AM, shadowlight said:

@dmackta @David Craff @David.. Qobuz, Hi-Res Music Evangelist

 

Does Qobuz have any plans for family plan for cd quality or better?  Kids are involved in music and currently we use Spotify but I would like them to enjoy Qobuz also.

 

Family plan is in progress and will arrive before the end of 2019.

[David Craff]

On 8/13/2019 at 2:55 PM, mourip said:

Any update on streaming with Apple CarPlay?

 

In progress but no date to be communicated.

 

Sorry

[shadowlight]

6 hours ago, David Craff said:

 

Family plan is in progress and will arrive before the end of 2019.

Thank you, looking forward to it.

[firedog]

Hi-

Recurring issue when I buy downloads and download in the app: no album covers. I get two files that are labelled as small and big covers, but they are 0 size png files - nothing is there. 

Is this a problem with the app? Should I download outside the app?

[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.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, PAR said:

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).

Not sure what you are trying to say. When I purchase an album, it asks me if I want to download with the app. If I click, it downloads the file to the place on my HD drive I've chosen and the file isn't restricted to play with the app. 

Maybe you are referring to saving - downloading music to the app for local play/streaming instead of purchase? That is something different. 
 

[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:

[firedog]

20 minutes ago, PAR said:

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:

 

No, it has nothing to do with me being in Qobuz US. I’m seeing exactly what you are, and when I click “Download wth Qobuz for MAC/PC”, the files download and have no restrictions on playback. I just played some directly from that download folder with Foobar2000. The download folder can be chosen in Qobuz settings, so it’s not the player app folder for me. You apparently set yourself up so your use of the files is restricted to the app.

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. 

[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.

[church_mouse]

Whether one uses the external method descibed by @PAR (which is the method I usually use), or the in-app method being used by @firedog, the artwork should also be downloaded. I get the jpeg cover art if I use the external method, or a png (with a valid image) with the in-app used by @firedog. The in-app method should automatically download the music files, the artwork and any pdf booklet. The external method requires the artwork and booklet to be downloaded as specific separate choices.

 

I have no idea why @firedog seems to be getting blank pngs. 

 

It may be worth @firedog going back to the downloads section of his Qobuz webpage and, using the external option described by @PAR, seeing if proper jpegs are there which he can then select to download and save to his hdd location.

[jacobacci]

On 4/2/2019 at 5:32 AM, dmackta said:

Qobuz Connect is not a protocol, right now it's an area of the app that houses Airplay, Chromecast etc. 

 

Aha, I was under the illusion that Qobuz connect was the protocol that Sonos had implemented to allow control of their devices from the Qobuz app.

I would think that equipment manufacturers would jump at the ability to make their devices "Qobuz Ready", 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.

[Jud]

"Download with the app" has actually never worked for me (though as I think about it I may have tried on Linux, so that might explain it), so I've always wound up downloading the tar file.

[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.

[jacobacci]

17 hours ago, PAR said:

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.

 

Yes you have understood correctly.

I am looking for a way to use the qobuz app on android or iOS (not PC) to control a rendering device in order to have all the metadata at and functionality my disposal. There are several ways to do this. Unfortunately all of them have significant shortcomings:

• Chromecast is not gapless. Roon solves this issue by building a continuous gapless stream on the Roon Core Server. In theory Qobuz could do the same thing by streaming a continuous gapless stream from the Qobuz Servers. This would be a solution to the problem
• Airplay has limited quality
• UPnP is only available on the PC and Mac versions of the app. The android and iOS apps do not have UPnP (at least I have not found it). Qobuz UPnP works well with some devices and not so well on others. So if UPnP were available on tablets, device manufactureres could possbly adapt their UPnP renderer to cater for the peculiarities of the Qobuz UPnP implementation

I am wondering if Qoubuz would deem one of these two solutions doable?

 

The notion of the mythical Qobuz Connect protocol came up in the context of Sonos. Qobuz had mentioned them as being an example of Qobuz Connect implementation. Now that it is clear that "Qobuz Connect" is a generic name for third party protocols being used, it seems to me that in the Sonos case it may have been Sonos direct control being used.