Qobuz THX Spatial Audio

Some people couldn’t see the Soundiiz integration last week which I could. Something odd with Qobuz me thinks. Can’t find any mention of spatial stuff at all on my iPhone.

It says: “Qobuz subscribers can now listen to 24-bit tracks mixed in new spatial audio technology through any pair of headphones”

  • Is this only for headphones?

My understanding is that it is only meant for headphones

They certainly make it hard to find!
It is in the UK. I had to find it via a Qobuz blog post!
Link below:

Listen to the playlist THX Spatial Audio by Qobuz USA on Qobuz Open Qobuz

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In Germany you can find in Qobuz direct.

My big Q: When playing the tracks, how do Qobuz know that I am using my headphones?

PS: Sound is great :slight_smile:

I just checked and Qobuz doesn’t know, so it would be up to you play the spatial audio tracks with headphones. In other words the tracks can be played through speakers or headphones.

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I listened to a couple and while they were OK, they still were very much in my head rather than out of it. I had far better luck listening to binaural recordings, but they require original recording with the correct kit rather than mixing post hoc

It is funny that Qobuz is offering this despite David Solomon actively disliking the technology and describing it as a gimmick :joy:

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Very interesting. I think it is great that Qobuz is getting into spatial audio. I haven’t read of any plans beyond these three tracks, but it’s an exciting new feature.

I won’t get too excited yet, though. Listening to these three tracks, I am not impressed. When I listened through Roon on speakers, they sounded poor to me, worse than your average recording. I didn’t know the tracks, so I didn’t know how much to attribute to THX.

Later, I listened to them on good headphones, again through Roon, and they sound much better. When I can focus on music, I always go for speakers, and I just use comfy earphones for outdoor walks or runs, so it’s hard for me to compare these against regular recordings on headphones… But I don’t see a spatial effect that I don’t get on my speakers with non-spatial recordings.

There’s a fourth track now, at least where I am (US) and it’s the best of the bunch, IMO. It’s “Maggie” by Jeremiah Fraites. Piano and strings. I did detect a spatial “effect” in one instance on this track, but none of the others. The Anat Cohen track is the only other one that I even find listenable. The other two sound god-awful to me. I’m listening on Denon’s TOTL headphones (9200’s), which are fantastic and replaced my beloved Focal Clear Mg’s.

Well listened to these tracks finally. Colour me unimpressed. Sorry but this does nothing for me at all happy to stick with stereo please. The jazz track is the only one that seems to use it to place instruments at height the others try to have a wider sound field. It doesn’t wow me at all and mostly feels like the stereo wide button that ghetto blasters had. To me this is like 3d in TV a gimmick we really don’t need.

I like Dinosaur Jnr but spatial audio isn’t something they need to use imo.

WE just published this: Qobuz THX Spatial Audio

The demo tracks we included don’t sound very impressive to our ears. Does anyone have suggestions on other tracks to try?

I wasn’t impressed either. Frankly, they didn’t sound much different than other good stereo mixes.