Samuel T Cogley Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 If someone has information on the prevalence of UMG audible watermarking on Qobuz vs. Tidal (i.e., Qobuz has less or none), I'll drop my Tidal subscription right now. Otherwise, what's the point? The material will sound just as awful on Qobuz. crenca 1 Link to comment
Samuel T Cogley Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 15 hours ago, left channel said: I've seen reports that UMG albums on Qobuz do not have watermarks. That's very good news! Can you point me to any additional information? Link to comment
Popular Post Samuel T Cogley Posted February 19, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted February 19, 2019 12 minutes ago, left channel said: Here's the most recent report I've seen comparing UMG albums for watermarking on the two services: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/qobuz-lossless-streaming-service-thread.856101/page-26#post-14752580 And here's a comparison of an album from another label:https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55468-tidal-or-qobuz-which-sounds-better/?tab=comments#comment-923891 Well, thank you so much for this. Just signed up with Qobuz! That Yuza Wang title is clean sure enough! Goodbye Tidal! Don Blas De Lezo and left channel 2 Link to comment
Popular Post Samuel T Cogley Posted February 19, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted February 19, 2019 3 minutes ago, firedog said: Mark me a skeptic on this one. Hard for me to believe that UMG is watermarking albums it sends to one streaming service, and not to another. Maybe it will be true for a handful of albums - and possibly not intentionally - but not as an overall phenomenon. Blind test a large amount of them and pass the test, and then maybe I'll start to believe it. UMG has not fessed up to actually doing this. I'm still spot checking Deutsche Grammophon titles on Qobuz (titles I ended up purchasing the CD for in exasperation) and haven't found a watermarked title yet. FWIW, here's why I think the UMG watermarking debacle has flown under the radar for so long: Very easy to spot using headphones (mostly what I use), sometimes not obvious from speakers UMG has thus far made zero public comment on the practice Uncompressed streaming still not widely adopted by audiophiles People don't want to believe they're paying $20/month for adulterated media The one thing that Qobuz seems to have over Tidal is a genuine desire to advocate for their customers. While Tidal has vaguely acknowledged the existence of the watermarks ("as the label intended"), all they've done is shrug. Qobuz markets themselves as an audiophile service and audible watermarking is antithetic to audiophilia, so Qobuz apparently made a business decision to not taint their library with that stuff. I'm still checking for watermarking... left channel and crenca 1 1 Link to comment
Samuel T Cogley Posted February 19, 2019 Share Posted February 19, 2019 1 hour ago, crenca said: Given how they showed no backbone to 2L (not even just a tiny, itsy bitsy bit), I don't see them doing anything at all with the likes of UMG. They market themselves is the operative word here. I'm with @firedogif Qobuz is not streaming the watermarked albums it's because somebody somewhere made a mistake. A quote that I remember from the heyday of spammers: "Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice". I'm aware that 2L apparently gave them all MQA versions of their catalog. No idea what happened there. But I still haven't found any watermarked material on Qobuz. If incompetence is the reason, I'll take it! crenca 1 Link to comment
Samuel T Cogley Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 2 minutes ago, mrvco said: Is it possible that Qobuz's UMG library has a newer implementation of the MarkAny technology that is less audible? Interesting. What information do you have on this new "less audible" version of MarkAny? Link to comment
Samuel T Cogley Posted February 26, 2019 Share Posted February 26, 2019 12 minutes ago, mrvco said: None other than it seems to be enough of an issue that I can hear the warbling on a pair of $150 headphones through Tidal. I was assuming this issue was only now surfacing on higher bit-rate / lossless streaming services and it would need to be addressed , but apparently it has been reported on various streaming services since 2012. Regardless, it does seem odd that it would be evident on Tidal and not Qobuz. I'm in the US so I've only recently been able to access Qobuz, but is it possible that UMG is phasing out the use of audible watermarking and Tidal's library has yet to be refreshed? I'm trying not to make any assumptions on why I can't find the watermarking on Qobuz. I'm just happy their catalog seems to be (mostly) clean. Link to comment
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