Qobuz: Music & Editorial 4+

I have been a audio fan for many years in fact for 40+ years. Vinyl was the only medium then. So I spent far to much money on speakers amplifiers and phono cartridges. Then in 1982 music cd,s become available and us Hi-Fi enthusiasts got very excited indeed. No more pops and clicks when listening to our music, the sound was higher quality and to cap it all the storage required was a fraction of Vinyl. So when I started to read articles about streaming being offered by companies I was excited but sceptical to say the least. How could it ever sound as good as a CD but after a lot of research I purchased a Cambridge Azur 851N streamer and subscribed to Tidal. My thinking being if Tidal (who uses MQA) was the most expensive it must be the best. However MQA is not lossless and on some albums that were published as Hi Res clearly were not and lacked a truly realistic sound. Being an Audio file I fiddled, changed cables, changed setting on my amp and streamer, moved the position of the speakers.
So my thinking was perhaps what I had read was just snake oil. So I changed my streaming provider to Qobuz and an immediate difference was apparent. The sound quality that had been missing was back again and millions of songs and albums available to listen to. I am now building my playlists and back enjoying music again. For anyone reading this is also sceptical I recommend you give it a try by using there free introduction offer.

The music is good but the app is terrible which by default means Qobuz is very poor. The playlists are a nightmare. Half my playlists were downloaded to make available offline ( for on a flight ). I created some more after the most recent app update and despite saying they are imported they aren’t. No way to fix it. A name change on my Qobuz isn’t continued through to downloaded content. A deleted playlist isn’t continued through neither. Spent hours trying to resolve and research. A real shame. While I’m at it, the search function is awful I mean awful.

Just as an update to this. I bought a new iPhone 13 mini for work and transferred quobuz from the old iPhone 6s. On this new 13mini it transferred an old version of Qobuz which still has the ‘offline’ library rather than the ‘import’ library that the new version of Qobuz forces on you. The old offline version is great, the newer ‘import’ version is soooo bad. Tried deleting the new version and reinstalling but no joy. It’s almost unusable in the ‘import’ use. Can you please fix it. You promised you would but still waiting.

Edit. Recent update now shows release year and divides between albums and eps/singles in iOS app. Added a star for major improvement- thanks to developers!

Looking to move from Tidal as I don’t need the nastiest commercial hip hop pushed on me against my will and I want to see actual bit rate information more clearly. Qobuz wins on these points, plus the playlists and suggested tracks curation suits me very well. But there are some real annoyances with the interface. First and foremost, it’s slow, sometimes really slow, not just to load songs (which I would accept as they can be big files) but things like loading favorites, or loading the list of an artists albums. The wheel spins and spins, then there are glitches and time out errors. I don’t think this is on my end. My internet connection is reasonably good and besides, if I switch to Tidal there are no delays. Tidal loads playlists instantly, no spinning wheels ever over several months of use. Secondly, discographies do not show album year on iphone and iPad apps. So you have to click the album and then delve into the credits. Annoying. Also, discographies do not distinguish between albums and singles, so you have to open them to see what it is. I want to like Qobuz. The focus on sound quality, tasteful curation and repertoire make it seem like a more serious audio service. But I wish these issues would be fixed. I’ve sent in feedback already and will see how it goes over the course of my trial month..