I was using a Dragonfly Cobalt on my phone but the adapter was too fidgety so I abandoned the phone as a playback device. But now I don’t go anywhere anyway so it doesn’t matter! sadface emoji
However, enjoying Hi-Rez Qobuz files through a very good integrated DAC/amp/streamer is great, and makes this new interior life a lot easier to deal with …
I may have an opportunity to switch from Tidal to Qobuz. I am a Roon user as well. Anything I should know or take into account deciding to switch? Anything you all wish you would have liked to know to start with?
Qobuz doesn’t do mp3, so you’ll be getting CD resolution or higher. I have both right now and thus far Qobuz has 98% of the content I listen to vs tidal. You’ll need to see if Qobuz has your preferred tunes. No service has everything. I have Qobuz sublime and love that I can purchase my favorite music at a discount.
During the spring COVID season, I demoed Tidal, Qobuz, and Amazon HD. Main observations:
Tidal files sounded smoother/filtered/processed to my ears. The high end was very clean. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes not. It’s pretty good for recommendations and discovery. The software is stable (Mac & iOS). There’s a lot of hip-hop and R&B content, as well as videos. These are not my primary focus so I was paying extra for nothing.
Qobuz delivers essentially raw files. There’s more detail in the high end (also brightness) than Tidal. For some reason my DAC often defaulted to the lowest quality setting and was really finicky. The DAC often required manual changes to its settings. The software (Mac) often crashed. Discovery was only fair.
Amazon HD sounds a lot like Qobuz (native/unfiltered HD), and my DAC behaved itself. One can also use DAC exclusive mode. The software is stable but can be slow. It’s only fair for discovery, but fantastic for finding popular singles (e.g., one-hit wonders) on albums because of song popularity ratings.
I use Roon as well.
Download the Qobuz application and create/log in to your account. Open Roon and put your Qobuz credentials in there too. It will then be able to access both Tidal and Qobuz at the same time.
Go to soundiiz.com and create an account. Pay for one month of Premium which is about $5. This service will let you transfer your Tidal playlists and library over to Qobuz. You can select which playlists to transfer, or you can just use their platform to platform transfer and do it all at one time. This will save you a massive amount of time.
It’s not perfect. It might match tribute album versions of a song instead of the intended song itself, or it might match a live version of the song instead of the studio version, so you should audit the result manually. It will give you an option to save the results of the transfer to a CSV file that you can open in Excel or Google Sheets for review. You can then find the obvious mismatched songs and correct it in the Qobuz application. This is still way faster than manually recreating your playlists.
Once your playlists and library have been transferred, you can remove Tidal from Roon, and you’re good to go.
I’ve been finding Qbz to be great for discovery, but that’s because of its European background … more Euro labels to browse, I think.
I had some issues with Qobuz on Android 9.0 (unable to sort songs in playlists); uninstalled it (which usually fixes app issues for me); and now can’t find the app on Google Play Store. Any Android users seeing the same thing?
On the ‘Discover’ page of the Qobuz app, if you go to the playlist section and select the ‘See All’ option, a list of playlist groups are presented. The Hi-Fi Audio Partners has some pretty good selections.
Thanks for the info - I definitely peruse that section. But my issues were twofold: 1) On my personally created playlists, I cannot sort the tracks within said playlists. 2) Now that I uninstalled the app thinking reinstallment would fix a bug, I can no longer find the Qobuz app on Google Play Store.
So wondering if any other Android users are having the same issue. I’ve reached out to Qobuz CS as well. Thanks all!
I can’t help you with finding the app but if you open your playlist in a browser, above the text ‘Playlist Releases’ at the top of the list and on the edge of the banner is a row of icons. The last icon of three dots (or ellipsis) will open and give you the selection to ‘modify the tracks order’. Then you just grab the release you want to move with your cursor (left click) and move it where you want in the list order.
Edit to add: Just checked on the FiiO M11 which uses an earlier version of android and the top right corner of the screen has the dots and the option to sort the list.
I’m giving Qobuz a whirl with its free trial. I’m very pleased with it so far, the sound quality is great, I like the interface, and in the three years since I first did research about streaming services its library has grown vastly. I am having one issue, though, and was wondering if anyone happens to know of a fix.
I have Qobuz on an iPhone, iPad, and a MacBook Air. If I add a song or album to my Favourites on either of the iOS devices, it syncs and shows up on the other. But that item won’t show up on my MacBook’s app. In other words, the MacBook Air doesn’t seem to be syncing with the iOS devices.
My google sleuthing hasn’t yielded a solution (unfortunately, much of the online community support pertains to Roon). Does anyone know of a fix, please?
I can’t speak to the MacBook issue but I wound up having to leave Qobuz due to the Windows app being unstable.
I guess I’m trying to say - continue testing as you are and make sure everything you need works properly before putting too much time into creating playlists, etc.
Thank you, that’s good advice. I’m sorry to hear Qobuz didn’t work out for you. You’d think they’d ensure the app works for Windows users, given that there are a few of them out there…
*gets tired of exclusive mode for amazon not using wasapi or asio*
*free qobuz trial*
*this sounds so much better! let’s start setting up my favorites list*
*finds obvious stuff missing from the catalog, like the first two Big Thief albums and Chromatics*
I’ve tried and dumped all the (non genre-specific) hi res streaming services except Tidal which I’m now trialing. Each had one or more deal breakers, but different issues with each service.
It’s very frustrating and disappointing using the service’s native apps. Using a couple services plus Roon seems like it might work but I’m not willing to go there.
If Tidal doesn’t work out I’ll have a real decision to make, with no desirable choices.
Next will probably be Primephonic or Idagio for classical and a free / low cost low res service for rock, electronic, etc.
Qobuz, emailed me asking for feedback recently. I made sure to let them know I wanted to see their catalog increased and better than their competition because what you described is exactly what I am currently doing, Qobuz + Tidal + Roon. (Dropping Amazon December first) Don’t get me wrong I am digging it especially because of Roon but it’s definitely more spendy. If Amazon could use bit perfect and implement with Roon it would be game over, but they aren’t listening.
I probably would have stayed with Amazon if they could set the dac to the format of the track being played. The Windows app has other issues but paying for a feature that you can’t actually use makes no sense.
It seems like this functionality would be a given for a hi res service. I suppose there is some legal/political intrigue behind the scenes that prevents them from implementing it.
someone want to explain to me how you don’t have Daydream Nation as a selection? OY. #grumpy
I think you will find in general that bands/tracks come and go with the streaming services.
Tracks you’ve been listening to for months just one day disappear. Occupational hazard with streaming services.
i hate licensing. some things i have given up on ever seeing anywhere - half the captain beefheart catalog comes to mind, gang of four. it comes with the territory and is also annoying.