Official Qobuz Issues Thread

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On 10/29/2019 at 1:56 PM, Polyglot said:

 

What I don't understand is why this thread is on the Equipment section of the forum. Shouldn't it be in Music > Music Downloads & Streaming?

 

Streaming services, apps, and other parts of the "plumbing" are here along with the hardware, while content is over there. Or at least that's how it makes sense to me. The Tidal issues thread is here too.

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On 10/18/2019 at 8:52 AM, dmackta said:

can you post some examples of what you aren't seeing. The gaps should really not be that glaring at this point, we've been adding 10,000 albums a day for the last several months.

 

I see much progress indeed! But just off the top of my head, there are these:

Radka Toneff: all five releases are missing in the USA. Three original albums and two compilations. (I'll just live with Fairytales being an MQA CD, if the Qobuz app is upgraded to stream the containers properly.)
 

Bruce Cockburn: this list has improved, but in the USA 20 of 31 streaming releases are still missing, including his most popular hit album Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws which is available only in sample clips and for sale as a download.

 

Tough examples of course, as neither artist is American. And on the other hand, in some cases I see more albums than over on the T-word.

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7 minutes ago, Polyglot said:

Thanks for your suggestion. I could never get that to work though. Guess I'll have to stick with Audirvana. It isn't cheap nor is the interface more useful than Qobuz or Tidal's own software, however unlike them it plays flawlessly.

 

We'd be happy to help over on the slimdevices forums. But there are times the DIY aspects require more attention than just enjoying the music...

 

7 minutes ago, Polyglot said:

Qobuz and Tidal aren't hardware. It doesn't seem logical to me that they should be in the hardware section, specially considering there is another section expressly named as 'Music > Music Downloads & Streaming'.

 

True, software and services aren't "Equipment". But they're not "Music" either. So maybe an entirely new high-level category for "Services"? That could properly contain posts about Qobuz, Tidal, Amazon MHD, Spotty and so on. Or maybe we should just let Chris have a day off! 🙂

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On Tidal, "Reggae/Dancehall" is a genre tag offered under Explore. Clicking on it brings up an organized display of Reggae playlists, new tracks, new albums, essential albums, etc.

That feature doesn't break it down further into subgenres. It does offer a great many broad genre tags though, including Classical, Rock/Indie, Hip-Hop, R&B/Soul, Gospel/Christian, Latin, Jazz, and more.

 

 

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2 hours ago, David Craff said:

 

New release 5.3.0 is online on web player with the new UI search

 

Just received the 5.3.0-b005 desktop app update. The new Search worked immediately, and I'm enjoying it. I'm on Windows 10 here, and after the update I encountered some trouble with the ASIO4ALL driver. It reset its ASIO Buffer Size back to its default 512 samples, which is too small for Qobuz streams. But after a few tries and restarts of Qobuz it obeyed me and stayed at 2048 samples. ASIO4ALL seems to have this problem with every new Qobuz installation. The Qobuz app does not have the same problem with ASIO drivers distributed by DAC manufacturers. WASAPI Exclusive also works fine.

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I've just received an update to the Android app. I don't use it often so I don't know how new this is, but the search results and artist pages appear similar to the new 5.3 desktop version.

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Just updated again, JS version only, to 5.3.0-b007. The overall desktop version remains 5.3.0-b005.

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3 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

@dmackta

 

Bonjour from France
The new Dylan Bootleg Vol.15 streams only in 16/44 instead as advertised 24/96.
Saw it first in Audirvana, then confirmed it via ROON (see screenshot), not sure it is only a loacal french problem, but if so, you may forward it to your collegues.

Best, Tom

 

@dmackta same in the USA: noted at 24/96, streams only in 16/44.1, and not available for download.

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@dmackta here's another: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

8 albums and 5 EPs on Tidal, though oddly they don't have the single I found on Qobuz

(Found my way there because Jade Castrianos is on the Echo in the Canyon soundtrack.)

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14 minutes ago, dmackta said:

That's a weird one with the artist in our db 2x. You can see the rest of the catalog here https://open.qobuz.com/artist/271128

These issues are being cleaned up with a new 3rd party data integration -- by the end of the year (?) should be much better. 

 

Ah-hah! Understood, thanks. Still missing the EPs, but this is much better, and now I understand why I get lost like that sometimes.

While looking at that, I have a UI suggestion, sorry: nice to know about the tribute single by Charlie Peck tacked onto the album list there, but I feel it should be separated under a section titled "Composer" or something like that. And this goes many times over for an artist like Bruce Cockburn, where the album list includes many many items that should be listed under "Composer", "Appears on", and maybe other categories.

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Just received another update, JS version 5.3.0-b008. Hope that solves the new issues reported above.

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1 hour ago, rickca said:

My latest update says JS version 5.3.0-b009.  What is the JS version anyway?  If I'm using the Windows 10 desktop app, where does JS come into play?

 

One of my Windows 10 instances is very stripped down by using getblackbird.

https://www.getblackbird.net/documentation/

 

On that instance, I get a JS error at Qobuz startup, but then everything seems to work.  I'll capture a screenshot next time I boot to that instance.  So I'm mystified why things apparently work just fine despite this JS error. 

 

I have the JS build 009 now too. The updates came one after another in rapid succession. If Blackbird is blocking scripts then I'm not surprised it's giving the Qobuz app a brief case of the hiccups, and if it doesn't cause other problems that's good luck. As to exactly how the app is developed, doubt we'll ever know.

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@dmackta and crew have been busy! @exdmd just alerted us to the news in another thread, so I looked it up:

 

Qobuz kills MP3, Offers High-Res and CD Lossless for $14.99
 

And this is now at https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/music/streaming/offers

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1 hour ago, rickca said:

I still don't get the reference to Superman's cape.

 

1 minute ago, Jud said:

Looking at the pricing in the industry, that would be Amazon.

 

As in something you don't do. Like mess around with Jim.

 

 

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43 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Or, we had it on the front page first :~)

 

 

 

 

Yes you did! And then it ricocheted around the internet, faster than Sheriff bing-bing-bing Ricochet Rabbit!

 

Many are now receiving emails about it too. But you had it first!

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14 minutes ago, al2813 said:

Can our dear friends at Qobuz explain how they can offer this while continue charging us faithful in Europe a whopping 24.99 EUR a month!!!!!

 

I expect they'll be rolling the new pricing out in more countries soon.  But of course they can't tell us until it happens.

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1 hour ago, Mark Dirac said:

I am still having some distractions following the new release(s) last week - I hear occasional short, not-loud clicks on some tracks. Perhaps 20 or 30 per track. Worse on hi-res tracks. Never happened before (this new release) in one year with Qobuz on 3 PCs and two DACs. Any ideas please?

 

Windows 10 application, WASAPI Exclusive Mode, 70Mbps broadband, recent good-quality i5-8xxxU laptop, SSD, Pro-Ject S2 Digital DAC via USB.

 

(I also experienced some of the other problems reported here - freezing, "not responding" - but those have since evaporated.)

 

No ideas, sorry. After adjusting the buffer of ASIO4ALL, the only problem I've encountered is an occasional skip at the beginning of a track, at which point I will hear a click too. But this is a known problem in which the whole app seems to reset within the first 10 seconds of a track and skip ahead a few seconds, only on some albums and not on others.

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5 hours ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

There was an announcement yesterday on What Hi-Fi? that seemed to indicate the new subscription plan was now available in the U.K. for £14.99/mo. or £149/yr.

Still more expensive than in the U.S. when adjusted for currency valuation, however that's likely the best you will do with it.

 

That was probably a mistake. Either they announced it too early and Qobuz isn't yet ready, or more likely they engaged in some wishful misunderstanding. I bet someone was handed the US press release, added UK prices themselves, and posted it without fact-checking. #FakeNews

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@Talisman what you are reporting is normal, and it seems to me you are making a feature request not a bug report. If you have selected "Allow applications to take exclusive control" and "Give exclusive mode applications priority" — which are the correct Windows system settings — then music apps that can do so will normally not release control until they are shut down.

It's great to hear that Audirvana will release control when Stop is pressed. That is a unique feature of Audirvana, and proof that you get what you pay for with an app like that. The Qobuz and Tidal apps, and all or most desktop music player apps, do not release control until you exit.

 

So basically what we're talking about here is a feature request. Yes? (Wow, it's getting harder and harder to find the old control panels via normal navigation...)

 

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2 hours ago, Talisman said:

Left Channel weighed in and surmised that expecting Qobuz desktop to match Audirvana’s Exclusive Mode release feature may have been too much to ask. I’m totally cool with that. I never bothered to regale readers with my particular PC specs, as I don’t need help on the hardware side. I was convinced it was a lack of a software feature, which was corroborated by other postings. 

 

I don't know that I'd say it's too much to ask. Maybe too much for the Qobuz dev team's to-do list right now, but certainly something I'd hope would a possibility, someday. It couldn't hurt to mention this on the feature request thread.

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16 minutes ago, Sal1950 said:

Remember, as heavy as the competition stands now, you could be the sole provider. 

 

10 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The sole provider to all four customers 😂

 

It's a small subset of the audiophile market, but partnerships with exaSound and whoever else makes multichannel DACs could help pull in another four or so every once in a while.

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And by that, I mean hashtag search in the desktop app, on the website, and in a third-party app (LMS/Squeezelite-X with the Material skin). 

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Interesting wide-ranging interview with the Qobuz exec in charge of Global Innovation and Partnerships, touching on Amazon and more: https://www.whathifi.com/features/qobuz-ceo-talks-amazon-music-hd-3d-audio-new-features-and-more

He indicates the USA $14.99/month hi-def streaming plan is now permanent, with no other tier available. That is indeed what I see on https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/discover

 

 

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@Tinnitus Andronicus @David Craff also if you are currently a Studio customer that page it will automatically subtract what's left of your current month. Finding that on the website was a bit of a chore: scroll scroll scroll down to the "Like to download?" section and click the "Subscribe to Sublime+" button here: https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/music/streaming/offers

Regarding Sublime+ discounts, I found this FAQ:
Sublime+ subscribers receive a permanent discount (from 30% to 60%) on purchases from almost all of our Hi-Res catalog. The albums eligible for this discount have a special price, called "Hi-Res with Qobuz Sublime".
https://help.qobuz.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026349772-What-does-Hi-Res-with-Sublime-mean-

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Apparently all the Qobuz dudes speak French.