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In Reply to: RE: Qobuz now offers full hi-rez streaming posted by PAR on May 18, 2017 at 18:09:25
I thought I would not do it, but for whatever reason I took the plunge and can share first impressions about Qobuz hi rez classical catalog ...
It sounds great, a clear step up from their 44.1/16. No tech issues with hi rez internet streaming so far.
But the hi rez catalog is less than I expected. Seems to go by the label: e.g. DG and Harmonia Mundi titles are in hi rez; but BIS and Chandos are in 44.1/16 only. Commercial decisions by labels I would guess ... (Of course, cd quality Qobuz classical catalog is head and shoulders above Tidal, different leagues altogether.)
Enjoying immensly Kempff's Beethoven sonatas in 96/24 as I type this ...
Follow Ups:
That is great. But do you have a DAC that displays the incoming data rate?
I have two Qobuz installations on two PCs using two DACs. In both cases using the Qobuz desktop player for Windows, whilst the Qobuz app shows 24/X (i.e. > 96 KS/s) output, the DACs report receiving 16/44.1 or x/44.1 input ( the latter using an AQ Dragonfly which doesn't display wordlength, the former my dCS stack).
Using the Qobuz phone app the DAC (in this case that same AQ Dragonfly Red) does report 96 KS/s.
I would appreciate details of your Qobuz account settings in the section for playing music if you are really getting 24/88.2 or 96. Are you using the Windows or Mac desktop app?
Yes, I too would be enjoying the Kempf Beethoven if I could get the test tracks to work and be persuaded to buy into Sublime+. A truly great piano player. I call him that rather than a pianist thinking of Mieczyslaw Horzsowski's criticism of a pupil " look at the front page of the music. It is a concerto for piano and orchestra, not pianist". Kempf truly understood the difference.
I had no problems at all.
I tried hi rez Qobuz in two set ups: with Qobuz app on w10 laptop and with Aries Mini streamer, both into M2Tech DACs. In both cases the DACs displayed the sampling rate correctly and consistently with Qobuz itself, from 44.1 to 48 to 96. The app also shows bit depth, at 16 or 24.
BTW, Aries's Lightning DS app has its glitches but overall is more user friendly running Qobuz than Qobuz own app: at least it is remotely controlled.
Wow!
Very good!
I doubt (but do not know) if any other proprietary player software does that, certainly not SONOS, nor to my knowledge, LMS.
Was the QOBUZ player plug-in hard to get in the US? Had to re-register my SONOS system in Europe in order to get the QOBUZ plug-in.
The Extremesd USB Audio Player Pro also provides full Qobuz support including sending the hi-rez repertoire correctly to the DAC. Cost is around 5 gbp/$ or whatever. Unfortunately it is for Android phone/tablet only but it is currently the only way that I can get to hear those Sublime+ test tracks.
As you and Maxim seem to have no bother getting them correctly via both Win and OSX setups I am feeling very frustrated. NB: I also tried the web player and still cannot decode the Sublime+ tracks at intended sample rates. I think that both of you use the French Qobuz players so it may be a problem affecting only the English version.
With Lightning DS, Qobuz seems to come preinstalled and unrestricted: I just had to log in to Qobuz service, entirely straightforward.
I have my own horror story about persuading Sonos to allow me to use Qobuz ...
Just went in and changed the address on my SONOS registration/account to Europe (France) and QOBUZ pops up as an option.
OK, lost the ability to stream Rhapsody, but I don't care. ;-)
That's gonna cost me, I guess....
OK, really not that much if any more as I already pay about 20 Euros a month and this is just about the same but as an upfront payment?
Plus the downloads are cheaper with Sublime+ as they are with Sublime?
If so, it's really a wash.
No, not quite, it's about 30 euro a month equivalent paid annually upfront. Yes, downloads remain discounted.
How have you got on with the test samples using your Mac?
96K
No bit depth on the display though.
But that DAC sucks to back to the Audio-GD for me, which says nothing.
I notice on this new version of QOBUZ that when I mess with sample rate in OS-X Audio Midi Setup/Audio Devices I get really high pitched version of what is playing if I up the sample rate above that which is streaming. Lower pitch when setting the sample rate lower that what is playing.
Only with QOBUZ, nothing else.
30 Euros a month but pay up-front? Likely will.
Only bad thing is that it eliminates my plan to stream TIDAL and QOBUZ to my living room easy chair using a Raspberry Pi. Now I am back to a MacBook Air running the QOBUZ OS-X Player.
nt
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