I’m contemplating subscribing to Qobuz, taking advantage of their lower price promotion.
A few years ago, I use to subscribe to Spotify Premium, but never really used it, so I cancelled it. Other than Spotify, I have very little experience with streaming, relying on my local library. I like collecting physical media, but that’s becoming more difficult as the streaming market grows.
Those of you with experience, any thoughts or suggestions you can share that might help me decide?
I checked with Qobuz about what happens if I pay for a year to save money and end up canceling part way through. They said they do not give prorated refunds and I would have access through the remaining period, at which time the subscription would end.
I hate to spend $150 and not end up using it much, but like the idea of saving a bit on subscription costs. There is the 30 day trial period, but I’m afraid that may not be enough time for the novelty to wear off.
I was with Tidal for a few years and recently left to sign up with Qobuz, after I did a 30-day trial. The main reason that I left Tidal was that streaming consistently at CD level while driving around the Bay Area was just abysmal. Furthermore, their customer service plain, sucks!
Qobuz doesn’t suffer from the same issue, I find their streaming just sounds a bit better, and they actually have customer service! A final bonus is that it is cheaper than Tidal.
I also much prefer playing local files but have had Tidal for quite a few years and more recently Qobuz.
Even if you don’t stream much having either Tidal or Qobuz integrated into Roon allows you to discover a lot more music. The streaming was a secondary thing for me.
Go the trial and see what you think. You can always pay by the month for Qobuz and I would be surprised if you stopped using it - especially if you are using Roon as well.
It seems to me it should be simple enough to decide if you want to stream high definition music from Tidal and/or Qobuz. I have had nothing but good success with both. I have a one year Qobuz subscription and a 6 month Tidal subscription. I may drop Tidal when it expires because Qobuz is only $12.50 per month if you pay for a full year at $149.99.
Last I saw, the opportunity to get Qobuz at the reduced price ends 1/31/2020. If that’s still the case, I would not hesitate to sign up before then.
This is why these thing offer trials, and honestly, how long does it take to decide? Recently a load of cliff hangers got burnt by Roon increasing their lifetime price, and then the complaining started… “I trialed it for 3 years, and was just about to buy lifetime, and now this!” . Start the trial, and use it to decide if you want to commit, this is the function of a trial. Otherwise cancel and move on. No drama!
In the perpetual comparison between Tidal and Qobuz, my 2 cts.
Had a Tidal account for many years and liked their large music collection although their preferred music taste is definitely not mine :). But due to their larger collection, that’s 1-0 for Tidal.
After some Qobuz trial, I noticed that I picked up more new music due to their pre-selections. So now I use also Qobuz as in the end, this hobby is about finding and hearing music you like (at least for me).
So that makes it 1-1.
Lately I did some improvements in my setup (better DAC and pre-amp) and now I also notice a difference in sound quality when streaming over Roon. For instance, yesterday I played Supertramps ‘Fools overture’ and noticed that the soft piano play at the start of the track sounded somewhat distorted and there was some shifting going on in the 3D location of the instrument. I noticed that Roon had selected the Tidal track. Switching to the Qobuz track made these problems disappeared, the piano sounded fine again and was firmly located in the 3D scene. Both 16/44.1kHz tracks.
Maybe it has something to do with the server location (I’m in Europe), used compression technique or master tape used, not sure.
In the past, I did not notice such a large difference in sound quality using a headset comparison. As I had no Roon in that time, I used their apps.
So overall is Qobuz the winner for me at the moment.
Qobuz every time for me. FLAC Hi-Res instead of Tidal’s MQA offering is superior IMHO. Customer service is much, much better and your streaming library is stable in terms of rights issues. I was always losing albums in my Tidal streaming library. Hope this helps
I’ve not yet received an answer from Qobuz, but poking around a bit on their website, I found this;
So, 30 day free trial periods are only offered on monthly plans. No free trial period is offered on annual plans.
So it’s either try out Qobuz with little $$$ risk by signing up with a monthly plan (more expensive over time), or risk $150 ($30 less expensive for a year) on an annual plan.
… one if my downfalls when it comes to spending $$$.
