Qobuz not what I expected

Qobuz, if used within Roon, makes streaming and discovery of music, both well known and totally unknown, extremely easy, adventurous, and an absolute joy. (So much so, I have added probable 200,000+ songs that were totally unknown to me). Until Qobuz, i didn’t hardly stream at all, and now I’m a stream-a-maniac!

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Yes, I know, and I’ve done that a couple of times. But for me Qobuz downloads are much cheaper (Sublime+ subscription).

But how are you discovering music? They have no discovery tools (in the US at least), so if you aren’t using the playlists and new releases lists, you have to already know what your’e looking for to find it. (Roon Radio aside. Even Qobuz support seems to kind of quietly agree that without Roon there’s really nothing on the discovery front…) But I haven’t seen the original EU/UK apps…it might be a lot more interesting there?

Their playlists are certainly all hip hop or “urban” oriented. I dislike their playlists overall. Qobuz’s are definitely better, but they’re so few and far between. But with Tidal I mostly use the recommendations engine and radio features which work out well. (and Roon Radio for both.) Yes, you do have to scroll past the hip-hop to get to the recommendations, though. Through Roon, though, it’s all irrelevant if you don’t seek out the hip-hop front page in the Tidal tab. Neither really allow browsing the whole database. If it’s not in a playlist or a recommendation you won’t see it. I’m not a hip-hop fan so I have no interest in it all, but it doesn’t really get in my way despite being “there” either.

What kind of Spotify recommendations come out superior to Tidal? People always rave about Spotify having the best algorithms, but for me, I’ve always found it to be excessively repetitive. It may find some deeper tracks than any other service but it forces you to listen to the same thing ad nauseum to do so.

This is simply not the experience I have observed over the past two years and I think it is incorrect to suggest otherwise without backing up what you say. Both Qobuz and TIDAL provide a rich and diverse music experience and the choice should largely come down how well each catalogue fits personal preference.

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Well, one option I do is to go to an Artist page in Roon, scroll down and review the “Influenced By”, “Similar to”, “Collaborated With”, or “Associated With”. And then just use those links to weave a web going from artist to artist.

Well good for you. Wasn’t my experience at all and one reason I switched from Tidal to Qobuz was the endless parade of trap and rap (won’t even call it hip hop) releases in the new releases column.

Now why Roon can’t feature all of the new releases from Tidal or Qobuz at the top I don’t know, but one does have to dig down to individual genres or risk missing out on something. Qobuz is lacking in some titles for sure, but personally at 55 I’d rather visit a ‘snobby record store’ than the contents of some teenager’s phone every Friday.

I have use Qobuz sublime+ during one year so I know it, the features to discover music are not their strong point. Absolutely nothing wrong with te “sprit of a record store”. Simply two different services for different audiences.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, perhaps the reason the Tidal recs in Roon never seemed to change for me is I never used the Tidal app itself, and there’s no backward compatibility with Roon as far as likes go. So perhaps if one spends time on the Tidal app it changes its algorithm to more reflect what one is into? Same with Qobuz?

I think TIDAL adapts according to what you stream whether that’s done in a native app or Roon. I’m streaming around 10,000 tracks each year so maybe that is why my experience is positive.

That said, I tend to discover new music directly in Roon: Radio and Similar To, Influence By etc.

Your analysis of the different streaming services shows an excellent knowledge of them. My opinion is exactly the same. Spotify’s recommendations are often boring and repetitive, and much less sharp and demanding than those of Tidal

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You’re largely right. Though what I meant was when you first sign up, the defaults preset for all those sections are all hip-hop. If you’ve already been a member, then it starts filling it with your own preferred content. The “new releases” “videos” popular playlists" etc in between will of course always been their more standard content, though part of why Qobuz lacks that in the push is A) They let you pre-filter the entire interface by genre rather than a standard page everyone sees, and B) It’s in the “popular/trending” sections because it’s popular/trending…Tidal has a younger audience of concert goers so more of their users are feeding that populariety, while Qobuz has…the Roon Community forums and probably not many others :wink:

That definitely is a part of it. I have a support thread open here and Roon confirmed it seems to be an issue on the Tidal side (I have a ticket in with them for it) that Roon doesn’t seem to update the play detection in Tidal (it seems to work for some people and not others), and the Tidal app doesn’t reflect what you’ve been doing in roon as it should (Tidal confirmed it should.) So yes, if you haven’t been using Tidal’s app, your recommendations and such are still stuck on the hip hop oriented presets without adapting to your usage. Since I started using Roon my My Mixes don’t refresh daily as they were when I used the Tidal app daily. The more you interact with recommended for you, my mixes, because you listened to, recommended new tracks, etc, the more it adapts the lists to your preferences. It’s pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good. I find that + Roon Radio + Tidal’s own radio gives a whole lot of discovery. Qobuz’ “new releases” in some of the off-genres do find other stuff that those discovery tools seem to miss though. Especially world and electronic. Tidal has it all, but it’s not putting it in front of me.

Like you, I hated Tidal with a passion. Probably even more than you. When I evaluated it vs Deezer I almost actively tried to hate it. I was really just biding my time until Qobuz arrived. When that disappointed me and I reluctantly went back to Tidal I started spending a lot of time with it…once it started adapting I started realizing I actually prefer it to Deezer due to superior recommendations and discovery despite having a smaller catalog. (Deezer integrated with Roon would be a different result, though, possibly.) Apple…honestly I like nothing about Apple’s service but they have some catalogue I want and nobody else has, and their Radio is definitely better than Spotify’s and Deezers.

You still can’t get rid of hip hop in the fixed “trending/popular” rows in the interface because those are what’s trending and popular…and you can’t get rid of it in the interviews/celeb curators/videos sections because that’s the part of the industry they’re choosing to cover, though Qobuz doesn’t even have those features beyond some celebrity curated playlists, which while not hip hop, I find their celeb curators equally off-putting :slight_smile:

Someday Qobuz will have discovery, or so they say, so who knows if that will turn the tide (pun intended) again. If they ever do really add it.

When Tidal sold to Jay-Z’s company in 2015 it became very hip-hop, R&B, “top 40” focused compared to previous years and less focus on great recordings. I cannot help but believe this has a lot to do with the group of artists who now known Tidal. This group of owners, over their years of ownership, has pushed exclusive content through the platform with very limited success. Additionally, “Tidal Rising” was a heavily curated selection of artists from around the globe to highlight lesser known artists. I believe Tidal also paid these artists far less than the mainstream artists and I was finding a lot of the Tidal playlists were heavily populated with the “Rising” artists. During that time it really felt like Tidal was trying to reduce costs by shoving artists I had never heard of into every playlist they could. At about the time Tidal implemented “My Mix” they also removed “Tidal Rising” and I have seen a shift towards a significantly focused line-up that matches my listening preference. In fact, some days “My Mix” is significantly more interesting as a playlist than Spotify’s “Daily Mix”. However, the “New Album” section in Tidal still highlights a significant number of albums associated, either by artist or label, to the owners. They have work to do here as I still feel their “ownership” is showing.

As far as Qobuz goes I’m finding a significantly better mix of albums that show-up in both the “New Releases” section as well as the “Grand Selection” portion of Roon. In fact, darn near everything I’ve played out of “Grand Selection” has really impressed me with the recording quality of the album. When I want to find a well produced album I’ve never heard before I look for something in Grand Selection.

I’m finding value in both services for different purposes. I do wish I could dump one because my monthly subscription to music streaming services is mildly ridiculous (still have SiriusXM radio subs as well). But… I’m pretty much touching every service I subscribe to at least every 3rd day. So I don’t know. I expect if Qobuz ever populated their catalog as deep as Tidal I’d dump Tidal but it appears that is happening at a much slower pace than the communication from Qobuz during the beta launch led us to believe.

I believe they still have Tidal Rising. It’s still on my front page. I’ve never used it, but it’s there.

I agree, though, just in the last 6 months or so I’ve seen Tidal shift dramatically and really remarkably improve. I believe they were responding heavily to Qobuz’s arrival. They seem to have a pattern of stagnating until competition arrives. They did the same when Deezer went HiFi, bugs that were around for years finally got squashed almost overnight and the whole app overhauled.

I agree about “New Albums” being incomplete in Tidal and better in Qobuz, I agree. That’s the issue keeping me looking at Qobuz at all. If I look at the Qobuz New Releases and filter for world music alone, there are many albums there that do not appear on Tidal’s New Albums at all. Yet Tidal does have the album. (and in multiple cases, Masters versions.) They’re doing themselves an injustice not highlighting all the new content they actually have.

I can relate! I also have SXM, Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer, Spotify AND Apple right now. Spotify goes out the window. Apple, Tidal and SXM are indispensible. Apple for some albums genres no one has, SXM for mostly Symphony Hall, though they’ve become repetitive (Bolero…again…like clockwork…) , I’d be lost without RAD’ Vox and Millennium programs. I should probably drop Deezer now. I like it, but it’s too much overlap, and now that I have Roon I won’t use it much, though I’ll miss some things. I’d like to drop Qobuz. The new releases and the fact that it’s in Roon keep me interested though. I probably don’t need HifFi though, whatever I discover in their release lists I can just play from Tidal. $99/yr for album recommendations…hmm. . Without Roon I wouldn’t touch Qobuz at all, where Tidal would still be enjoyable.

I also agree about what Qobuz PR said versus the reality not matching. The way they talked I imagined full non-beta release by April with a catalog approaching Spotify/Apple more than “half of Tidal.”

Thanks for the answers. Makes sense. I’ll have to have a look at Tidal again.

Of course the one thing any streaming service can’t provide - the time to actually listen to even a minuscule portion of what they have to offer. Even if Qobuz US supposedly only has half of Tidal, that’s still more music than I’d ever listen to in several lifetimes. We’re spoiled.

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The damn will break on lossless streaming when Amazon offers their hires service late this year.

Spotify, Apple ,Goggle will all be forced to offer at minimum a lossless streaming tier.

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My first year with Qobuz expires this weekend.

I’d say it’s exceeded expectations for me. It’s come into its own since added Roon. Before that it wasn’t worth the expense of the high res service.

It’s slowed down my purchase of CDs, but I’ve carried on buying vinyl. There’s lots of albums I’ve been interested in that aren’t available on Qobuz. So all in all, it’s probably increased my overall spending on music.

Still undecided whether to renew due to cost. I may try living without it for a little while to see how much I miss it.

Roon Radio starting from a track I’ like wanders through lots of territory on Qobuz, that’s how I’ve found a lot of interesting music I had no idea existed.

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Yeah that definitely fair. I mentioned I really got interested in Roon after every time i talked to Qobuz support they pretty much told me Roon was the only way to get discovery… Id of course heard of Roon for years in other forms, but never really paid much attention to what seemed like just another music player that happens to make your local library look looks a streaming service. Qobuz pushing radio finally piqed my interest, and here I am! Qobuz sold me Roon, but I’m not definitely sold on Qobuz.

But with Roon, both services really have the same interface, so if you don’t touch the native apps or the tidal/qobuz page itself inside Roon they are identical beyond who had the bigger catalog (and who loudness adjustments actually work with…)

I’ve done some roon radio with qobuz seeds and it definitely finds good stuff. It’s just that basically everything it finds it would find on tidal also, and then it finds tidal stuff that’s not on qobuz. That’s with the US catalog of course. It’s certainly possible EU/UK has content Tidal doesnt have.

I’m not giving up that they can get much better, but that looming Amazon thing does worry me.

By the way, i forgot to ask what gaps you’ve found qobuz filling for Tidal? I realize it’s a uk catalogue example, but it still may be somewhat useful for me.

There is more to it than catalogue and 24/192. Tidal is built on fraud: - see https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/tidal-fake-streams-criminal-investigation-underway-over-potential-data-fraud-in-norway/
When the supreme court ordered them to hand over the logs, they said they had deleted them.
The only ethical choice left in Roon is then Qobuz.