Lol. I'm not someone willing to be a Beta tester without getting something in return - like a free subscription!
The last offer was a free month then your credit card on file gets charged monthly. You could discontinue at any time but then might not be able to subscribe again until the beta is over.
I signed up to a month's free trial of the studio service today. I'm enjoying exploring artists I don't own anything by, but the downsides for me so far are: 1. My player doesn't appear to have gapless playback (though I've not used the streaming side before); so on some tracks you lose the first second or so while they are loading, which is annoying. 2. Not all titles appear to be available. For example, I wanted to play the album 'Now That's What I Call Rock N'Roll' but all I get is 30 second samples of each track as MP3s. Ultimately, I'm not currently convinced I would want to pay £24.99 a month. It's a lot (to me), and I'm still very much hooked on CDs and CD box sets. However, I can see the advantages in terms of playing stuff you don't already own.
I used to beta-test for a couple of big companies. It was fun trying to track down bugs. And, we testers were compensated.
Sorry to report Qobuz still has problems with the desktop app on Windows 10. Tried the latest update app this morning and am still getting distortion intermittently after playing for 5-10 minutes requiring a restart. Using Qobuz with Audirvana+ there is never any distortion it just works.
Hell! That sometimes happens to me while using Foobar 200 or YouTube after a few hours on Windows 10.
Yeah I reinstalled the Qobuz app and tried all settings available and still have a problem with the distortion at odd times needing a restart. Qobuz runs rock solid through Audirvana+ so there definitely is a problem with the app on Windows 10. No problem with the Tidal app either.
Edited for language. 2 albums by Queens of the Stone Age...Songs For The Deaf and Lullabies To Paralyze. Tidal and Spotify offer both albums in explicit and edited versions.
That is odd. Possible they are still 'in transit' with certain releases/versions. Qobuz France has this-
I imagine they are. I'm certainly not going to complain since officially I shouldn't even be using it.
Received just now: “Hi, We received many hundreds of beta testing applications for Qobuz US, and unfortunately you were not selected to become a tester at this time. Have no fear - we are adding additional beta testers every day, and we should get everyone on board by mid-February. As an early invitee, you have first priority on our waiting list. Thank you very much for your interest, and we look forward to getting you onto our service at the earliest opportunity! The Qobuz US Team”
I imagine Qobuz will go live sometime this spring. I also have a bad feeling the music selection is going to be no better than it is on any of the other U.S. internet vendors like iTunes or 7-digital. Prices are still great...for now, but, I'm seeing the album and song selection on the beta site dwindling like mad. Man, you folks in Europe and Canada don't know how good you have it!
I had just sort of naively hoped the US service would have the same availability as the European one - figured that was why it was taking so durn long to launch, ensuring those rights were in place. My ... er, ‘my friend’s’ ... UK Qobuz account is very enjoyable in large part because of the great selection.
Europe is not one country. I'm in Czech Republic and Qobuz is not available here. But we have the best beer and the best girls, and Tidal Hifi is cheap here. So I don't disagree with what you said, just wanted to point out it is not because of Qobuz
I know it's not one country. I'm not one of those stupid Americans. but, I was talking about it as a collective whole, as in the European Union. And, again, I know not every european nation is a member of it. However, I did assume Qobuz was available throughout most of western Europe. My main point was that the U.S.-based record labels are very restrictive here, or have tighter controls over content because of laws. Music that is available "over there" just isn't available here, even if the music was by U.S. artists on U.S. labels. Geofencing just isn't fair! We shouldn't have to resort to VMs to get domestic product! Yes! And, while we want the artists to get their fair royalties, it's all about control. And, I fully believe it's all about the record labels only releasing what they think they can make money off of. C'mon! It's not a tangible product! They are just files on a server! No manufacturing costs! Storage is way cheaper than manufacturing and marketing costs. Give we Americans the content, for cryin' out loud!
I signed up for the beta - have been streaming Tidal for a few months now and am happy with it - Quobuz sounds intriguing. I DO like the fact you can purchase hi-rez files on the cheap if you have the top tier option. But, now that I have been streaming Tidal, my purchases of CDs/HDtracks have decreased A LOT. It's good timing for me - I'm 50 and have, I don't know - 5-7,000 CDs and my wife is cool as hell but they take up a lot of space and our next house will prob be smaller sooooo.... Streaming lossless is becoming more and more attractive
There is no collective whole. The EU is a lie, all it has done is get a head start on One World Government in a significant piece of real estate. I cannot even buy Beyer headphones direct from the factory in the next country over- they only ship to like 4 "European" countries and their neighbor Czech Republic is not on the list. We have just as many problems buying from neighboring countries as we did before and just because both countries are in the EU there is no guarantee we can conduct business... I am surprised to hear that. My experience is in America everything is available, cheap and fast, and everywhere else is catch as catch can and at twice the price, for starters. What you are saying is incredible! I guess we should start gifting each other with music... I know there are many bad stories about great musicians dying in debt because they got screwed over by agents and labels. I think if most of the money went to the musicians and less to "business" then the business would be a lot more acceptable to everybody. This problem is not limited to musicians, unfortunately.
This is no place to get political, but I just want to say that this is paranoia. It's not incredible, it's anger-inducing! Right now, other countries have a much wider selection of music downloads on internet vendors than in the U.S.. While we certainly don't want the major labels to fail, they are too damn big! They have way too much control!
My experience with Qobuz in Germany is quite good but not very good. Qobuz has only lossless albums. 7digital has fewer albums and some are only available in mp3 format. Mostly Qobuz is cheaper but not always. Qobuz has a bad search engine to find songs. So I'm looking for songs first at 7digital and if I find the albums I go to Qobuz and search the albums there. The search engine for artists and albums are better. The song lists of compilation albums have only song titles but no artist names. I see the price for individual songs only when I click on the triangle next to the button "ADD TO BASKET". Qobuz has a lot of obscure labels which I do not trust to have original songs in good sound quality. The default file format for downloads is WMA Lossless but you can change it to other lossless formats like Flac or Lossy 320 or Lossy 128. But I see no reason why someone uses lossy formats.
What I really hate is that it is not possible to buy sometimes one song from an album but all other songs are available. This is not the fault of Qobuz but a trick of the record companies to sell the whole album:
