What’s preventing the implementation of Qobuz in Canada? It would be nice to get a factual answer or maybe they are aware that some new Hi-Rez streamer will be starting here. Also, Our Government has announced it’s gonna start futzing with our Streaming lives this year demanding more Canadian control and taxing these services. This could be the reason for any new Streaming services being put on “hold”. I really hope that’s not the case!!
Most likely legal contracts and infrastructure limitations. That said Qobuz is not great as a service, yes they do good quality losslesss streaming but... The catalogue is spotty, There's loads of tracks you'll hit that turn out to be 30s sample tracks that are purchase only, The app and web interfaces are garbage (not an issue if you have Roon I suppose), Qobuz reckons there's only 12 genres in the world of music, No personalised recommendations based on your tastes/listening habits, You're better off with Tidal if you want a lossless streaming service, don't get too hung up on hi-res streaming. Yes there's hi-res on Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon, Deezer etc. but they all have their issues/limitations. Do you want a good experience or a bad one where 1% of the catalogue is available as hi-res? Honestly there's a lot of online hype for Qobuz but I'm convinced that is all over-excited US consumers as it's relatively new there. It's been out here in the UK for years and I've trialled Qobuz at least once a year and there's been no visible improvement on the above in the 3-4 years I've used it.
I had a 30 day trial and could not even get the program to work on Windows or Android. Not ready for prime time, garbage product that needed more development before the launch. You're not missing out on anything.
Valid points. I'm a download only consumer. I don't stream at all. Qobuz, 7Digital and HDtracks are my go-to download vendors. For the same record, Qobuz is usually a dollar or more less expensive than 7Digital. Plus they support PayPal checkout, which seems to nix the currency adjustment charges. For my situation, they are my preferred store... if they have what I want.
If I had to guess, I'd say bad business climate (high tax, govt. overreach, etc.) relatively low population -- just not a must-have as a business partner. Just to add, I have come to Qobuz (from Spotify). I like it very much, and it is getting better, IMHO. [Edit: I'm using Windows 10, streaming with Sonos products...never had a problem.]
So far from what I’m gathering I'm not missing a “must have” here. I’ll just keep “Tidaling on and see what shakes out!
Works perfectly on Android and Windows here. Sounds good, app works fine. Catalogue is pretty decent, I've demoed all of them and they all have holes. Doesn't have MQA. In summary free trial all of them and sign up for the one you like....and change when you don't. Pay no attention to the 'That service is complete junk' crowd.
I think the point is that OP cannot try Qobuz because it's not available in Canada. Thus I'm just putting my seasoned opinion out there that OP isn't missing much and there's other, better alternatives that probably are available in Canada.
I've used both Qobuz and Tidal and my reasons for sticking with Qobuz is a relatively minor point of preferring the mobile app. I've experienced none of the problems described above. To most people they're basically fungible, which means a current Tidal user is good to go.
On all the various audio sites I belong to, the general opinion from actual users of Qobuz and Tidal formats, is that Qobuz is far superior, and that's what they're staying with. You can rationalize it any way you want so that I doesn't piss you off as much, but it is definitely our loss. And this stupid loss is perpetrated by our Canadian protectionist attitude that the government has on everything. That's why we pay so much more for everything. The CRTC, directed by the government I would think, puts unacceptable restrictions on all of these services, so that we are all forced to buy inferior Canadian products and services, at even higher prices. And many of these great companies with excellent products, just say fine, it's not worth doing business with Canada. Again, our loss.
You’re making up complete and utter nonsense. Plus, we all need to work just a little bit harder on not whining about first world problems. Qobuz will expand into Canada when it’s good and ready. Do some reading on the subject instead of knocking Canada over tired old tropes that have little substance. Right now, Qobuz is concentrating on strengthening service in the U.S. and European markets it already occupies. Qobuz is burning through cash and can’t seem to turn a profit, yet the grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence crowd spends half its time mewling about TIDAL and pining for Qobuz. In the global scheme of things, Canada is a small market in population that occupies a vast geographical territory. There are rules and regulations in place that encourage broadband product suppliers to enter the Canadian market nationally, not just the Vancouver-Toronto-Montreal big city markets. Don’t knock what we’ve built in Canada thus far, because I can point to a vast mess of national markets that I love visiting but are nowhere I’d ever want to live. But many of them have Qobuz! To hell with that. You think you’re missing out on experiencing nirvana? Think again.
More fiction and more failure to read about how Qobuz is managing its business. To expand into a small population market and have in place the licensing agreements to do so requires time, operating cash and investment capital, and cooperation from the labels. Qobuz’s financing is stretched to the breaking point. It will expand into Canada when it can afford to do so, but Canadian rules and regulatory requirements have little to do with it. Spraying lurid old tropes about taxing the internet and taxing companies and taxing this and that without also supplying some actual evidence other than “I follow parliamentary debates“ just reinforces those old tropes and winds people up for no good reason. You think that because we share a border with the U.S. that it should somehow be automatic that what goes on down there should go on up here? Give your head a shake. Canada is a sovereign nation and you really ought to be thankful for that. I have family who live in the U.S. - American citizens all - and friends and business relations in the U.S. too - a lot of them - but I hope none of them will be offended when I state without rancour that I’m awful glad that Canada is my home. Knocking your country over petty frustrations during the course of first world whining about Qobuz is ill-advised at best and reprehensible at worst.
Agreed. I'm very happy with Tidal. Don't know how they'd tax us on a service coming from outside the country, I'm sure they'd find a way. GST only works out to a buck a month, but still. Maybe Tidal would just eat the cost as there's lots of competition out there now.
That's great to hear. I guess I'm just not up to date. Thanks for the update, I look forward to the launch.
I’m really curious to see what the prices are for CD and high res downloads on the Qobuz store in Canada when it’s finally available. Lots of new releases that interest me are priced significantly less than HDTracks and somewhat less than 7digital.
Tidal is good, and I use it a lot. But I chat with a lot of Brits on the Naim site that also have high-end streamers, and they say there's no comparison. The hi-res streaming files from Qobuz are excellent. And apparently, ripped CDs stored on a NAS have the next best SQ, then Tidal is next. I'm in the process on ripping my smallish CD collection (around 600), so I won't know fer sure till I get a few of them on the NAS.
Has there been any update on this? It's super frustrating. There are certain releases that I would like to add to my collection, which consists of WAV files ripped from EAC. For a while I was adamantly CD only, but I've since given up, as some releases just don't get CD releases anymore. But being in Canada, I'm STILL unable to buy what I want. HD Tracks has a limited catalogue, 7Digital does not have WAV, and Qobuz, which seems to have the songs I want to buy, is still unavailable here. This is ridiculous--why are we not allowed to buy the music we want?
Yeah, I know, it's bloody ridiculous. I think it's because it cuts into their profits too much to adhere to all the Canadian rules and regs, some of which must be Canadian content. It must cost Qobuz more to supply the higher res music, and yet they charge less per month than Tidal. So their profits must be too thin to bother with our stipulations. NZ just got Qobuz, and they only have 4 million residents. It's us ... not qobuz, that's the problem ... Anyway, I hope we lower the bar and get Qobuz at some point. Cheers.
