Qobuz Feature Requests

[Jud]

40 minutes ago, dmackta said:

Anyway, I've got a feeling '21 is gonna be a good year. 

 

https://genius.com/The-who-1921-lyrics

[Jud]

On 5/19/2021 at 5:49 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

That’s what they all said when Amazon HD came out. 
 

Apple isn’t a master of the universe. It flubs many products. Anyone remember Apple’s Ping?

At this point, anyone remember Apple’s full size HomePod? 🙂

[Jud]

16 minutes ago, mindhead1 said:

Qobuz Connect is a much desired feature. 3rd Party clients are sub par. 

 

I very much like Audirvana Studio in any system able to utilize UPnP/DLNA streaming. But for anyone who can't or doesn't wish to use Audirvana, I certainly understand the desire for Qobuz Connect.

[Jud]

13 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Just saw a reminder from Dan at Bliss about backing up one's music collection. Yes, this should always be done. But then I thought, it's time to remind Qobuz that some of us would love the ability to upload our local libraries to Qobuz and create the an awesome integrated solution / service. 

 

It would be like Roon, but for Qobuz and in the cloud. Mobile Fidelity, Audio Fidelity, Analogue Productions, etc... are "never" coming to streaming services. 

The extra storage space could be a bit costly for Qobuz and for us. But look at this example of a company using a decentralized peer to peer solution that might work, at least if users have fast connections: https://www.storj.io/

 

(I believe this has also been known - perhaps in an open source version? - as Tardigrade.)

[Jud]

In the meantime, Audirvana Studio integrates Qobuz seamlessly, and Hqplayer does so with slightly more fiddling. Studio integrates Tidal as well if you'd like to compare. Both players provide the opportunity to have a listen before you decide to plunk down payment.

[Jud]

7 hours ago, Nkam said:

 

i would like to have Qobuz have an exclusive mode as that is what Audirvāna has, Roon , and ugh Tidal.   
i don’t want to go back to Tidal. 
 

those others have it for a reason. 
 

and I haven’t heard a response from Qobuz so far. 
that’s not the best 

I mean come on.  
we are here because we love Qobuz.  
 

we wouldn’t be asking for something if we didn’t like it 

 

cheers 

My impression is that exclusive mode is for the purpose of not having you hear other sounds from your computer during listening (for example, if you have an audio signal for incoming mail). If such sounds are not interrupting your listening, or if you want to hear such alerts, then no problem. So I don’t think it’s a matter of sound quality during normal listening.

[Jud]

9 hours ago, Uncoy said:

Audirvana has always had a light DSP on it to sweeten the sound. The DSP makes the sound slightly less thick and more crisp.

 

While what you hear from your system is of course indisputable, it's difficult to affirmatively attribute this to DSP in Audirvana unless there's access to the source code.

 

OK, back to Qobuz - happy listening!

[Jud]

36 minutes ago, Uncoy said:

many years ago Damien conceded that there is some very light processing for better clarity. I think the conversation was in French (I'm a fluent French speaker).
 

 

Are you certain he wasn't talking about lighter processing than is usually done by OS drivers and players? That would certainly fit with his white paper, "Beyond Bit Perfect," where he discusses techniques to minimize distortion while maintaining bit perfect reproduction; and his invention of "direct mode," an audio driver for MacOS that uses lighter processing than the built-in Core Audio driver.
 

36 minutes ago, Uncoy said:

The playback engine is supposed to have stayed the same all that time.

If one looks at the new version announcements, it appears the playback engine has indeed changed multiple times.

[Jud]

48 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I test at the input of the DAC. I make no claims to anything else. 

 

There are players, including Audirvana, that are capable of bit perfect reproduction, but can be configured to do things such as oversampling and delta-sigma modulation that would otherwise be done inside the DAC.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Uncoy said:

 

So tell me is the goal "Bit perfect" or sweetened? You can't have it both ways. The audio is either bit perfect or sweetened.

 

The title of the piece and its content provide the goal - not merely bit perfect, but beyond that to minimize distortion, that is, to provide the most accurate rendering. In other words, there is more to accuracy than being bit perfect. How you get 'sweetened' (euphonically distorted) from this, I'm not sure. Of course one can discuss how successful the player is in achieving the goal, but this is the opposite of a statement that euphonic distortion is added.

[Jud]

I like to use players to control oversampling and sigma-delta modulation, rather than leaving it to the DAC. These links show graphs of noise/distortion levels vs. frequency for various resolutions fed to a couple of DACs:

 

https://community.audirvana.com/t/dac-delta-sigma-vs-r2r-which-do-you-prefer/36493/92

 

https://community.audirvana.com/t/dac-delta-sigma-vs-r2r-which-do-you-prefer/36493/95

 

Whether these measurable differences are audible is certainly open to question. So it's quite understandable if Qobuz subscribers (I'm a very happy one) would simply like to use the Qobuz app for playback.

 

Edit: I should note the graphs first appeared here at Audiophile Style. It was just easier for me to locate them at another forum.

[Jud]

1 hour ago, davide256 said:

@David Craff  I saw this today as part of October T&C updates

 

" it is forbidden to use artificial intelligence tools when using Qobuz services."

 

Which seems poorly written or excessive overreach language for any contract ( ie if I'm using AI on a work computer, I can't listen to Qobuz at same time on my phone)

 

Can Qobuz revisit this language and make sure that the language is cleaned up? My assumption would be that Qobuz's intent is to forbid a user interfacing AI with their

running Qobuz application, not to make us all have to figure out which products use AI and shun them every time we use Qobuz.

 

 

 

 

 

I immediately thought the same. Blind people using screen readers? Translators to understand Italian opera lyrics? The language seems quite vague and overinclusive.

 

What is it that Qobuz doesn't want? AI to reverse engineer or develop competitive products? I would think language regarding prohibited purposes might work better. (I very much do not intend to tell your solicitors their jobs. It's just that this language seemed so broad and opaque that both @davide256 and I, and I'm sure others, noticed it immediately.)

[Jud]

25 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

That was my first, albeit uneducated and inexperienced, thought. 

 

Don't think individuals. Think competitors, current or potential.

[Jud]

2 hours ago, David Craff said:

 

Where did you find this sentence ?

 

It was contained in a September 29th email to me, @davide256, and I assume all other Qobuz subscribers, that was entitled "Update of Qobuz General Terms and Conditions."

[Jud]

2 hours ago, David Craff said:

 

Hi,

 

I got the answer from the legal team: "The sole aim is to protect the intellectual property of artists, by ensuring that files are not altered or modified for any use other than that for which Qobuz was designed: listening to music, or downloading it."

Thank you David for obtaining this response from the legal team.
 

It would certainly make me and perhaps other users more comfortable if the terms and conditions would simply and straightforwardly say something similar to what you have said, rather than the very broad and ambiguous prohibition of the use of AI. I gave two examples of things customers might commonly do that would violate the new express terms, but not what I think Qobuz’ intent is: The use of AI to read the screen by customers who are blind or otherwise visually impaired; and the use of AI to translate the words of an opera written in a language the customer doesn’t speak. Any chance at all the legal team might consider narrower, more precise language?

[Jud]

4 hours ago, David Craff said:

 

I've discussed it with them, but there won't be any change, sorry.

It’s OK, I was a lawyer before I retired, I know how they are. 😉

[Jud]

1 hour ago, Uncoy said:

Please give me the music as originally recorded, with high dynamic range, no compressed mixes please (which excludes almost all modern pop or rock and much indie, sadly).

 

Chris has noted several instances in which the multichannel version had quite a bit better dynamic range than the stereo version.

 

Even if you don't see a multichannel system in your future, it might be worth watching out for the occasional special recording in this category with the thought of doing a mixdown.