Qobuz service added to Roon

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by StateOfTheArt, Jan 22, 2019.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. StateOfTheArt

    StateOfTheArt Beatle Know-it-all Thread Starter

    Location:
    Greenville, SC
    ds58 likes this.
  2. Bart

    Bart Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    Thanks! I was playing with the new TT and havent had Roon on for a day. I never really liked Tidal all that much, so never moved past a free trial. (Months and months ago when I tried it, I thought that their lossless sounded way worse than lossless from my home server via UPnP (pre-Roon))

    I'll do a free Qobuz trial if available and take it from there.
     
    StateOfTheArt likes this.
  3. StateOfTheArt

    StateOfTheArt Beatle Know-it-all Thread Starter

    Location:
    Greenville, SC
    It is amazing. I was soooo close on tapping out and just buying an MQA DAC. Almost. Bye Tidal. :wave:
     
  4. Ulises

    Ulises Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    StateOfTheArt likes this.
  5. StateOfTheArt

    StateOfTheArt Beatle Know-it-all Thread Starter

    Location:
    Greenville, SC
    Off topic question guys... is there a wireless endpoint that does 24/196 thats not RasPi?

    Using a Chromecast now that does 24/96>DAC
     
    gumsrave likes this.
  6. vinnn

    vinnn Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    I've been using Qobuz Hi-Fi for about a month now, got another 2 months to go on a trial.
    Good sound quality but the functionality and quality of library metadata is dismal, whether I use the Android app, the web interface or integrated into UAPP and Volumio it's just not good enough for a streaming platform imho.

    I've had a Spotify Premium account for some years now and before using Qobuz trialed Tidal for 3 months which again was ultimately disappointing (I don't dig Jay Z and chums and the app is unreliable at best) but miles ahead of Qobuz in pretty much every way other than the hi-res FLAC.
    Also trialed Deezer for a month which also support FLAC streaming before Tidal and didn't get on with it.

    Spotify's library, usability and personalisation is still miles ahead of the others, they just need lossless and I'd pay the extra to Spotify.
     
    StateOfTheArt likes this.
  7. gumsrave

    gumsrave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tokyo
    I'm guessing this would be a lot of people's motivation for using Roon and Qobuz together. The Roon interface is apparently great and Qobuz will just sit behind the scenes supplying streaming files.
     
    StateOfTheArt likes this.
  8. BayouTiger

    BayouTiger Forum Resident

    If their streaming is as limited as their download store. It's going to be very disappointing to a lot of switchers. The Tidal/Roon integration is so spot on, I will stick with Tidal for the foreseeable future.
     
    Myke Reid and Rolltide like this.
  9. vinnn

    vinnn Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    I would recommend that, whilst Tidal couldn't pull me away from Spotify it's a much better platform than Qobuz.
     
    BayouTiger likes this.
  10. SirMarc

    SirMarc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cranford, NJ
    I just picked up a Bluesound Node 2i, and I know its much more expensive, but it is vastly superior in every way to the Chromecast Audio it replaced. It decodes MQA natively, and will even pass 24/96 through the coax to a dac when playing MQA files to a non MQA dac on tidal. Most importantly, it sounds much better.

    I am considering Qubuz though. Anybody know what its going to cost here? 25 pounds is roughly 30 bucks US, not sure I want to pay that much...
     
    mds and BayouTiger like this.
  11. StateOfTheArt

    StateOfTheArt Beatle Know-it-all Thread Starter

    Location:
    Greenville, SC
    The Sublime+ tier will cost $299.99/year, which gets you full Hi-Res streaming and substantial (40-60%) discounts on purchases from the Qobuz Hi-Res (up to 24-bit) download store.

    The Studio tier costs $24.99/month or $249.99 annually for unlimited Hi-Res streaming.

    The company’s Hi-Fi streaming tier costs $19.99/month or $199.9 annually for 16-bit CD quality.

    Lastly, the Premium tier will cost $9.99/month for 320 kbps MP3 quality streaming ($99.99 annually).
     
    SirMarc likes this.
  12. vinnn

    vinnn Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    I guess but with Qobuz it's not really that simple.
    For example, I am using a DAP running Volumio which, as well as my own extensive offline library has Qobuz and Spotify integrated as well. I can play pretty much anything I want in Volumio with a quick search or browse whether it's on my NAS or streaming.
    Often I'll go to play an album from Qobuz and it won't play or will only play 30s samples of each track, switching to Qobuz's native app shows that Qobuz returns releases in searches that are not actually streamable or just samples of albums that are only available as downloads. If you're accessing Qobuz from other interfaces like Volumio, Roon, Kodi, UAPP etc. you will run into this a lot and it's not clear what will be playable or not.

    Roon's main USP is being good at gathering and unifying metadata for digital music libraries so the poor metadata and browsability of Qobuz should not be an issue but it's stuff like the above that just exists to annoy the user that other services do not have and it affects playback in any interface.
    There's plenty more annoyances in Qobuz (stuff like Qobuz only thinks there only exists 12 genres of music in the world), but that's one of them.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2019
  13. StateOfTheArt

    StateOfTheArt Beatle Know-it-all Thread Starter

    Location:
    Greenville, SC
    I would fully expect the Roon integration to be just like Tidal's integration. And no one said you couldn't do both.

    Edit: In fact, you can use both Qobuz for true 24/192. and if you like MQA, Tidal.
     
  14. vinnn

    vinnn Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Yes indeed, Qobuz has the better quality but it far from perfect for the price.
    Just thought I'd put it out there as Qobuz will be new to those of you who are in the US.
     
    StateOfTheArt likes this.
  15. britt2001b

    britt2001b Senior Member

    Location:
    United States
    When playing your Qobuz tracks through Roon does anyone know if it plays from your Qobuz "offline" library or from your Qobuz "favorite" library? Or, can you choose? I would prefer that it plays from the offline library to eliminate streaming issues.
     
  16. Dr Tone

    Dr Tone Forum Resident

    Location:
    Calgary, AB
    It’s streamed, third party applications aren’t allowed to offline content from Tidal or Qobuz. Only the native apps are allowed to do that.
     
  17. freesole

    freesole Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle, WA
    I already enjoyed Roon a lot - now with Qobuz it is even better.
     
  18. britt2001b

    britt2001b Senior Member

    Location:
    United States
    Thank you. I'm currently in a trial period for both Qobuz and Roon. Offline playability is important to me. Roon wins hand down as a player but I can only play Qobuz's offline content by using their player. I had envisioned signing up for both Roon & Qobuz but I'm afraid I'll use the Qobuz player exclusively. Roon's rather expensive. I know I'll sign month to month with Qobuz. Perhaps I'll try Roon for a year and see how it works out.
     
  19. britt2001b

    britt2001b Senior Member

    Location:
    United States
    I just remembered that Qobuz plays back your "favorite" tagged music from a cache held in storage after the initial play. Would Roon play from this chache? If so, this would be the same as offline playing as long as I haven't cleared the cache!
     
  20. Dr Tone

    Dr Tone Forum Resident

    Location:
    Calgary, AB
    They are 2 different playback engines and know nothing of each other. Being a streaming service the cached music would be encrypted and only the Qobuz player would know the key to decrypt cached content for playback.
     
  21. britt2001b

    britt2001b Senior Member

    Location:
    United States
    I see. That makes sense. Thank you.
     
  22. Josquin des Prez

    Josquin des Prez I have spoken!

    Location:
    U.S.
    I've been thinking about signing up for Qobuz trial now that it's open for U.S., but still need to figure out how I'm going to stream at high-res to my Naim network streamer. I have TIDAL now, and that's supported natively on the Naim, but the selection of classical music sucks.
     
  23. Mike-48

    Mike-48 A shadow of my former self

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    How are you controlling the Naim? With a tablet? iOS or Android?

    I send Qobuz to my (Auralic) network streamer using BubbleUPnP on an Android tablet. The PC version of Qobuz now has DLNA ability, too, though it's considered beta, and I don't know how well it works.
     
    Josquin des Prez likes this.
  24. Josquin des Prez

    Josquin des Prez I have spoken!

    Location:
    U.S.
    The Naim has its own iOS app that supports TIDAL and Spotify natively, as well as UPNP. I have an older QNAP NAS that runs LMS to stream high-res FLAC via UPNP (it also streams to a Squeezebox Touch in my office system). The new Naim streamers have Airplay2, Roon and Chromecast support built-in, but not mine. I just bought a high-end phono cartridge cartridge so I don't see upgrading to one of the newer Naim streamers anytime soon. I could possibly get a newer NAS that has better support for newer tech and Docker containers.
     
  25. Mike-48

    Mike-48 A shadow of my former self

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    @Josquin des Prez : There seems to be a DLNA app for iOS -- mconnect player HD -- that might be of use.
     
    Josquin des Prez likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine