Qobuz News and Correspondence [closed thread]

That is also true for Qobuz.

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If this is really the state of their catalog, they’re going to have a hard time competing with Tidal in the US!

1 album for Gary Peacock, 1 for Jack Dejohnette, 1 for Jan Garbarek and most amazing, only 9 for Chick Corea? These are major jazz artists who have been around for decades.

I’m not sure where Qobuz gets a good reputation for their jazz curation. Tidal seems to be far better.

But what I still don’t understand is if they have over 100 Chick Corea albums available for download purchase, why wouldn’t they have them for streaming as well?

Thanks

I’m afraid no one here knows. It could be due to separation of ownership of download rights from streaming rights or to implementation by Qobuz or some other unknown reason.

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That‘s what I would‘ve thought/said, too.

With my Qobuz sublime subscription (not plus) in France I get all 79 albums from Chick Corea for streaming, both in the Qobuz IOS app and in Devialet Spark (control SW of Phantoms).

Some time ago it was said that the “France” subscription has it all.
Many people tried to get one.
I am a sublime subscriber because I can stream with 24 bit and buy at good discounts.
I buy a lot because I think that streaming does not do financial justice to the artists.
If I like something on Qobuz streaming I buy it.

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but not the Roon’s UI.

OK, maybe that explains it.

I’m in the US, where Qobuz is not yet released. I used a VPN based in Great Britain in order to buy a 30 day trial to check Qobuz out.

Maybe when they are ready to enter the US market in mid 2018, their streaming catalogs will match their download catalogs?

Thanks

To follow up, when I access my Qobuz account through my VPN (based in Britain), or if I log in from a VPN in France, I find the exact same skimpy streamed offerings.

But maybe logging in through a VPN is not the same as having an account in France.

Isn’t the VPN only needed for opening and account and subscribing? I’m using Qobuz in Denmark (not officially) and can use the IOS and desktop apps without going through any VPN.

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Hi Julio, Yes, that’s what I used for opening the account. I was just curious if I would get a better catalog of streamed music if I went through Britain or France via the VPN for streaming. But the streamed albums available are still identical whether through the VPN or not.

But I don’t know enough about VPN’s to know if that means anything regarding this issue or not…

My experience so far is that what matters is where you have your account. Mine is with Qobuz France. Abroad, in EU and Switzerland I can access through this account the same library, independent of my travelling location. Outside of Europe I have not much experience. Due to high roaming fees I did not stream in China or USA. Hotel wifi normally is not suited for using bandwidth, so I limited to playing locally stored tracks.

I guess the country is locked when you first setup the account. Once you created the account via VPN, reportedly actual streaming does not require VPN, even from a non-supported country.

So am I locked in to the country I set the account up through on the VPN, Britain? Or am I locked in to my home country, the US?

I have Qobuz Sublime - in the UK - and I can see 70+ Chick Corea albums to stream. Also 20+ for Jan Garbarek

The limited selection may have something to do with the trial account.

Or, while you used a UK VPN, did you use a US billing address?

That’s good to hear. I’m still trying to get Qobuz to explain it to me. I’ll wait until they’re online in the US to do a proper trial, I guess.

It will really come down to whether I think their is a meaningful audible difference between Tidal/Roon 16/44 and MQA and Qobuz 24/96. Another advantage to Tidal/Roon might be that I can eventually use, when I get around it, the Accurate DSP with Roon’s Convolution engine, which I’m thinking could have a far greater sonic impact than extra bits and resolution.

I just wiggled my way into a Qobuz trial. Within a few minutes I found 3 albums I had in my want queue. 1 not available at all on Amazon and 2 that were priced way higher on Amazon.

I think I’m sold.

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Did you get a trail through which you can listen to their 24-bit streaming? Are you in the US?

Trials are limited to 16/44.1

@Will_Connor I rechecked the results above using Lumin app - I am using a Sublime+ test account in country GB, with no VPN access from Hong Kong. VPN is required only for account creation in a non-supported country, but not needed for streaming.

(As for whether the bandwidth is fast enough for HiRes streaming to a non-supported country, this is a different issue. Everyone tends to assume that if their own bandwidth is fast enough it’d be no problem - this is wrong, especially in the discussions about a certain controversial format. It involves the service provider server capacity and content distribution network infrastructure, which costs money. Not all companies have the resources and money Netflix and Google do.)