What Can't You Find on Qobuz USA Yet That You'd Like to See?

[Jud]

I'm not seeing this yet, but:

 

- It's brand new.

 

- Qobuz USA is still in beta and hasn't completed its catalog.

 

- But this is very beautiful; I'd like to know in general whether Qobuz USA will have Hyperion label recordings, and this one in particular, or whether I ought to go ahead and purchase elsewhere:

 

 

[Jud]

I was thinking that although it's a bit premature until Qobuz USA comes out of beta, this thread might serve as a place to list things you're not finding that you'd like to see, or at least know if there's a chance they'll be available on the service.

[sockpit]

Andris Nelsons’ three recent recordings of Shostakovich with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  They are stunning SQ, and Qobuz in Great Britain has them in the catalogue.  I’d like em on this side of the pond,

 

This could be a deal breaker 😉

[Hugo9000]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

I'm not seeing this yet, but:

 

- It's brand new.

 

- Qobuz USA is still in beta and hasn't completed its catalog.

 

- But this is very beautiful; I'd like to know in general whether Qobuz USA will have Hyperion label recordings, and this one in particular, or whether I ought to go ahead and purchase elsewhere:

 

 

I thought Hyperion was holding firm to zero streaming services for their releases.

[Musicophile]

4 hours ago, Hugo9000 said:

I thought Hyperion was holding firm to zero streaming services for their releases.

I think it's not only zero streaming, but they even keep the download sales restricted to their own website.

 

I've not yet seen any Hyperion release on Qobuz' French shop. 

 

[Jud]

Thanks, thought it might be something like that.

 

People will have their own ideas of what's best for business.

 

Regarding downloads, aren't Hyperion releases available on eClassical as well, or is that another label (besides BIS)?

[Musicophile]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

Thanks, thought it might be something like that.

 

People will have their own ideas of what's best for business.

 

Regarding downloads, aren't Hyperion releases available on eClassical as well, or is that another label (besides BIS)?

Eclassical has Harmonia Mundi and some smaller labels. I haven’t seen any Hyperion there.

[charlesphoto]

Umm, EVERYTHING is missing - because they won’t open up their %^&* beta yet! (And yes I emailed). 

[phosphorein]

12 hours ago, Jud said:

I was thinking that although it's a bit premature until Qobuz USA comes out of beta, this thread might serve as a place to list things you're not finding that you'd like to see, or at least know if there's a chance they'll be available on the service.

 

Peter Philips and the Tallis Scholars.

 

Both Qobuz and Tidal need to hire true database experts. For example, try searching on Qobuz for Bach Collegium Japan and only a handful of albums are listed. But they are there however are indexed under a variety of artist names. My experience is that one often has to search under a variety of terms to find the desired album.

[Jud]

27 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

Umm, EVERYTHING is missing - because they won’t open up their %^&* beta yet! (And yes I emailed). 

 

I emailed 2-3 years ago and the US beta was opened to me a week or two back.  So patience, good things will come.

[Jud]

5 minutes ago, phosphorein said:

Both Qobuz and Tidal need to hire true database experts. For example, try searching on Qobuz for Bach Collegium Japan and only a handful of albums are listed. But they are there however are indexed under a variety of artist names. My experience is that one often has to search under a variety of terms to find the desired album.

 

Seems like not so much a lack of "true experts" (in hi res audio metadata? not sure those are common) as consistency.  Don't know if you get that without someone looking through tens or hundreds of thousands of tracks, and I imagine any normal human's eyes start to cross before that point.

 

However, this doesn't mean it can't be corrected. My guess is Qobuz wants to make it easy to find what we're looking for, so we should report instances of inconsistent cataloging when we find them.

[Hugo9000]

27 minutes ago, phosphorein said:

 

Peter Philips and the Tallis Scholars.

 

Both Qobuz and Tidal need to hire true database experts. For example, try searching on Qobuz for Bach Collegium Japan and only a handful of albums are listed. But they are there however are indexed under a variety of artist names. My experience is that one often has to search under a variety of terms to find the desired album.

Yes, it's a colossal mess.  Even Spotify is better, at least they tend to least more of the artists (conductor, ensemble, all soloists individually, etc).  On Qobuz, it seems to be one "artist" chosen for the work, and sometimes that's the conductor, sometimes it's the ensemble.  More irritatingly, they also do linked "artist" names, e.g. Herbert von Karajan and Berliner Philharmoniker.  I think it was the cellist Truls Mørk who is listed with each combination on an album separately, so there are over a dozen "artist" names with him and whatever chamber partner or ensemble.  When trying to find albums that are in my CD collection, I can manage, as I have a very good memory for my 3000 or so CDs.  But for searching to see if there is an interesting gap in my collection, it is useless.  For example, perhaps I'd like to look at every recording featuring the Vienna Philharmonic.  I can try searching under that name, also under Wiener Philharmoniker.  The problem is, many albums don't list the orchestra as an "artist" at all, but are listed with just the conductor as an artist.  Regarding operas, I can guarantee you that far more opera fans will go by the lead soprano than by the conductor or the orchestra.  Yet the vocal soloists are often not listed as artists.  lmao

 

Qobuz might be the best for classical in the sense that the sound quality is lovely, but their tagging is complete garbage for classical.  I wonder what's going on with that IDAGIO streaming service.  Qobuz search is essentially like doing a google search, where one might have to know a subject fairly well to obtain a useful result.  They need to have it work more like arkivmusic.com than amazon.

 

So with their lousy tagging and searching, it's hard to compare how full Qobuz's classical catalogue is compared to Spotify, for example.  Sound, of course, is much better in Qobuz than Spotify, but Qobuz seems to have issues with gapless playback, so it's not worth paying more for better sound that keeps getting interrupted while trying to play a whole opera for example.  I'll just use my CDs if they can't get that right.  I guess I'll see if it's working again today, yesterday I couldn't get anything on Qobuz to play gaplessly.

[Jud]

9 minutes ago, Hugo9000 said:

On Qobuz, it seems to be one "artist" chosen for the work, and sometimes that's the conductor, sometimes it's the ensemble.  More irritatingly, they also do linked "artist" names, e.g. Herbert von Karajan and Berliner Philharmoniker.  I think it was the cellist Truls Mørk who is listed with each combination on an album separately, so there are over a dozen "artist" names with him and whatever chamber partner or ensemble.

 

I've seen these on non-classical recordings as well, especially the latter.  Definitely something we want to bring to Qobuz' attention.  Perhaps the linked names are their way of allowing searches on associated musicians, orchestras, etc., but there must be a way to do this that doesn't make searches on the major artist a pain.

[Hugo9000]

It's not a deal breaker for me, personally, as I know what I want and will find it haha! 

 

However, I'm mostly using the trial to evaluate Qobuz as an option for family and friends who will never amass a wonderful collection like I have on CD, and they are not adept at searching or knowing what to search for.  As it stands, I'd have to make playlists for them and share those.  That's a lot of work in order for them to be able to have a virtual music collection to match my physical one.  I also don't want my email address on playlists I share, in case one of my friends or family decide they want to share one of my lists publicly at some point lol, so I hope they fix the user name issue on the U.S. platform!

[intermediatic]

Just noticed that there's no Robert Ashley. Also no Zoviet*France, which is less surprising. 

 

Well, at least they aren't ramming music I hate down my throat. 

[cgiammona]

On 1/28/2019 at 9:51 PM, sockpit said:

Andris Nelsons’ three recent recordings of Shostakovich with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  They are stunning SQ, and Qobuz in Great Britain has them in the catalogue.  I’d like em on this side of the pond,

 

This could be a deal breaker 😉

 

Qobuz shows this as available on 2/21/2019

[Ralf11]

 Soul Rebels* ‎– Power = Power Mixtape

[sockpit]

On 2/6/2019 at 8:05 PM, cgiammona said:

 

Qobuz shows this as available on 2/21/2019

Thanks.  Can I ask where you found that?  

[cgiammona]

9 hours ago, sockpit said:

Thanks.  Can I ask where you found that?  

On the Qobuz site when I searched and clicked on the album

[jhwalker]

This isn't a specific album, but ...

I'd love to see a true listing of ALL new releases by genre, not just what they choose to "select" for me

 

Right now, I'm not seeing ANY new releases on the Classical front page, but I've received email from several other sources (e.g., HDTracks, Presto Classical, ProStudio Masters, etc.) highlighting several new releases I'd like to check out on Qobuz.  Yes, I could search for each of them individually, but why can't I just select "Classical", "New Releases" and get a LIST of everything available in descending date order?

[cgiammona]

2 hours ago, jhwalker said:

This isn't a specific album, but ...

I'd love to see a true listing of ALL new releases by genre, not just what they choose to "select" for me

 

Right now, I'm not seeing ANY new releases on the Classical front page, but I've received email from several other sources (e.g., HDTracks, Presto Classical, ProStudio Masters, etc.) highlighting several new releases I'd like to check out on Qobuz.  Yes, I could search for each of them individually, but why can't I just select "Classical", "New Releases" and get a LIST of everything available in descending date order?

 

Hopefully, as Qobuz works its way through the Beta process towards a 1.0 version, these types of issues will get resolved.  I agree with you and would love to see a list of new Classical releases on the front page.  Right now, I do a lot of searching.

[sockpit]

9 hours ago, cgiammona said:

On the Qobuz site when I searched and clicked on the album

Thanks. When I search there for “Boston Shostakovich” I get one hit for the forthcoming album, but no hits for the recent two in the same series, one of which is the dark 10th, the SQ of which is stunning thanks to the BSOs recording studio in the concert hall.

 

So far Qobuz USA is missing a good number of my favorites on Qobuz in England. Another example: Ryan Adams, Fire and Rain.

[firedog]

A more complete Tower of Power discography, including their newest album, Soul Side of Town.

[phosphorein]

Jennifer Warnes, Famous Blue Raincoat.

[Jud]

6 hours ago, phosphorein said:

Jennifer Warnes, Famous Blue Raincoat.

 

Every audio store in existence had a copy of this back in the day.