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Post by SteveC on Feb 21, 2020 9:23:50 GMT
I got an email this morning announcing Qobuz Studio Premier for £14.99 a month!
CD/Hi-Rez download quality!
Very timely, as my Tidal HiFi 4 months for £1.99, runs out in mid March.
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Post by SteveC on Feb 21, 2020 9:34:23 GMT
£149.99 for one year!
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Post by MartinT on Feb 21, 2020 9:36:29 GMT
I've just switched my Studio account (£24.99/mo) to the new Studio Premier account (£14.99/mo) without issue.
Excellent!
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Post by speedysteve on Mar 17, 2020 14:30:32 GMT
I'm trialling Qobuz again! The Chromecast (optical/Lan/linear PSU) with it is close sound quality wise to RPi (Kali / I2S both linear PSU) in.. Spotify on Chromecast is dire..
RPi Spotify Vs Qobuz is close too. Just comes out on the side of Qobuz though.
I realised all my Sonos speakers can play Qobuz at 16/44. Now that does sound better than Spotify.. probably because Spotify is MP3 format only - I'd have to check that though..
Very enjoyable.
Scary is, when my ears get really old, Sonos with Qobuz would be quite good enough I think.. many years to go before that.. cross that bridge..
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Post by MartinT on Mar 17, 2020 15:05:23 GMT
Spotify is not mp3, it's 320k Ogg which is why it sounds better.
Qobuz hi-res, now that's in another league again.
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Post by speedysteve on Mar 17, 2020 19:17:21 GMT
Spotify is not mp3, it's 320k Ogg which is why it sounds better. Qobuz hi-res, now that's in another league again. I know it's Ogg on Volumio / RPi. Is it the same into Chromecast audio. I wondered if that was the big gap...?
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Post by MartinT on Mar 17, 2020 19:53:34 GMT
The Spotify feed is Ogg so if it transcodes to mp3 for Chromecast no wonder it sounds terrible!
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Post by speedysteve on Mar 17, 2020 20:43:54 GMT
Half an hour of fighting Volumio virtuoso / Qobuz. Worked fine yesterday. What a faff! First it tried to load. With a backwards progress bar. Then some random stuff I'm not actually trying to play from my file server, that's not plugged in.. Yep logged in to Qobuz What's going on?
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Post by speedysteve on Mar 17, 2020 20:47:27 GMT
Ah, those tracks in spite of being shown are seemingly not playable..! Others in other playlists do work. So, I find out in the app that all the hi res tracks showing that I put into a playlist I created last time used Qobuz are gone. Downgraded. It still had the playlist showing in both app and Volumio.. I deleted that playlist, and created a new one with all the standard Res tracks. The first duff playlist is still the only one visible in Volumio to play (er, or not). How long does it take to update? I'd forgotten all this between Volumio and Qobuz. Can't search for tracks in Volumio either it seems... It tried to load from YouTube. This can't be right.. no one would make a player that useless? A fair while later.. seems like forever, no update, can it be forced? Really frustrating.. I'm on the latest Back to Spotify..
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Post by speedysteve on Mar 17, 2020 21:50:49 GMT
49m later, the playlist I created in the app is available to play in Volumio Qobuz - really!
Search still attempts from YouTube and does nothing.
Amateur hour, in this day and age!
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Post by petea on Mar 17, 2020 22:29:39 GMT
As Naim updated their streamers to integrate Qobuz I also took out an annual subscription. I haven't done any straight comparisons with Tidal so far, but I have enjoyed their High Res offerings. I'm trying to work out whether to god for their Sublime subscription at the moment as I buy a reasonable amount of stuff from HighResAudio anyway.
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Post by MartinT on Mar 18, 2020 3:09:46 GMT
The setting in Volumio for Qobuz hi-res is 'FLAC hi-res 24-bit up to 192kHz', not 'Highest Possible' as seems counter-intuitive.
Once you've got that set (and restarted), you should be fine. It'll find the best resolution it can with all hi-res being indicated with the yellow logo.
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Post by MartinT on Mar 18, 2020 3:11:01 GMT
As for searches, select Qobuz and then search, that way you don't get all the webradio and YouTube rubbish getting in the way.
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Post by MikeMusic on Mar 18, 2020 11:11:58 GMT
speedysteve to do the beta testing I'll be hanging *well* back and for a year or two !
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Post by MartinT on Mar 18, 2020 11:34:48 GMT
I know it's annoying when people say this kind of thing, but I've been using Volumio with Qobuz for approaching 18 months and I've definitely ironed out the kinks in its operation. I use it seamlessly and it's really easy to search for things now, just needs a slight knack but Qobuz are improving all the time.
I can think about the music and not the mechanics as it's very reliable in operation.
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Post by petea on Mar 18, 2020 16:23:04 GMT
I made the decision today to upgrade my account to "Sublime" as the NDX I have in Germany does not support Qobuz in the same way as the NDX2 and so I need to use Tidal. This fine for most things though via the TP DAC. I can buy files from HighResAudio, but the "Sublime" account gives you a discount. At first I couldn't work out whether that was worth it or not, however, I noticed today that although the high res. stream for "A Pilgrim's Tale" is provided by HighResAudio and a download is available through Qobuz, it is not in the main HighResAudio catalogue. I bought a copy via Qobuz and have checked it and it is indeed 24 bit 44.1 KHz: maybe thy just haven't done the verification or negotiated the rights yet in Berlin. I'll see if this proved worth the extra cost at end of the year. This is the result of a 'scan' of the opening track using MusicScope (as used by HighResAudio).
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Post by speedysteve on Mar 18, 2020 16:25:14 GMT
I'll give it another go this evening..
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Post by speedysteve on Mar 19, 2020 15:47:29 GMT
As for searches, select Qobuz and then search, that way you don't get all the webradio and YouTube rubbish getting in the way. I am selecting Qobuz from the list. Always was. From this screen I press search Gives this screen I type something in - Yello in this case Which ends up not doing anything. I can't find any another setting as yet that might be wrong. I know this worked for me last time I trialled it but can't get it to work for now!
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Post by speedysteve on Mar 19, 2020 16:03:44 GMT
Right, I turned off YouTube, Web radio etc.. Left Qobuz on of course.. I am now getting search results... And they play😀 sometimes.. Not sure why I should have to do this. If I accidentally select a track that used to be on a usb stick this now not in my router I get.. And even my Webradio favourite channel Swedish Radio P4 started playing randomly. Not sure why that was? I don't care how good the music sounds though, having worked in SW Engineering Design, Systems Integration & Verification and CMMI all my life, in this day and age, for stuff you pay for (all be it a small amount), this is buggy SW. I'll spend some time trying to get the stars to align so these broken paths are not followed.
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Post by MikeMusic on Mar 19, 2020 16:53:58 GMT
Steve Stop thinking about me
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