Ending a subscription with qobuz turned out to be hell. I did it two weeks ago only to find out that my account is still active and I am still being charged. I contacted qobuz yesterday and the first response was from a bot saying at 9AM they will be back online tomorrow. Which is actually today, so when I got online to figure out what happened, I received the rudest, most useless responses and then ending the chat by the agent. So as of now, I am unable to cancel my subscription - I don't want to use it, pay for it etc. I found it mediocre anyway.
I have no doubt I will spend many hours trying to cancel it in the coming days and get horrible treatment.
I happen to LOVE Qobuz and sorry your experience is not a good one. I DO agree their customer service sucks, as for the FINANCIAL issue there is an easy fix. File a dispute with your credit card company and let them handle it for you. That’s when QOBUZ will have no choice but address your issue.
As a frustrated Tidal user, I am 2 weeks into trying out Qobuz. I really hate Tidal’s interface (using app on Mac & IOS), and they seem to push R&B and Rap rather than the music I actually listen to. I don’t like their playlists.
Qobuz does not yet have volume normalization... so that’s frustrating. I do like their album info better than Tidal. They look like actual liner notes, whereas Tidal’s credits page is not pleasant at all. Qobuz music selection is far less. That may well decide it for me. I’d really rather have more selection than ultimate sound quality. I’m not a fan MQA, but it’s not a deal breaker either.
I’ve recorded identical songs from both platforms into my DAW, and gotten them to "very nearly" null when inverted and level matched. It’s just stupid to see "MASTER" on audio that’s been heavily limited in the mastering, and then lowered by 6 dB for level matching, and then claiming some benefit by it being MQA. What the heck good is MQA on dynamically limited rock music??
To be honest, I’ve had more FUN listening on Spotify, thanks to their great selection of playlists. They claim that the Premium bitrate is 256kbs, but it sounds a bit worse than that. It’s OK, but the same tracks sound FAR superior at full resolution. I've found that using Spotify via web browser is not volume normalized, but using the Mac App, it WAS normalized (to -12 LUFS I think).
As of this moment, I think I’ll give up on Qobuz, and keep Tidal and Spotify.
I will definitely check out Tidal. In all honesty, Qobuz could be decent, if it weren't for the connection drops and the lame search. It's hard to believe they couldn't write decent queries that would literally take a day or two.
These quys are here to give you a bad deal. That' s how they make their money. Like the victims of a Ponzi scheme or crypto, there are always enough idiots out there.
Thanks for the Tidal advice.... you know, I have not made any of my own playlists at all. I do lots of searches, and play songs and albums, but haven't spent the time to make playlists, as I don't think I'd ever play a playlist that I made.
Which brings me to a thought.... why isn't there a manual or user guide or tutorial on how best to use Tidal?? I remember looking for info on how to use the app, and came up empty. Maybe its on me for not digging more, but I still find myself swearing at the interface!
Just FYI for those in the U.S. who might not know: If you like Tidal (any paid tier, with or without MQA) you can get it for a yearly subscription through Best Buy "dirt cheap", and make it price competitive with any other streaming service. That’s what I have: Tidal HiFi (no MQA) CD quality and I’m more than happy with it, especially now that more streamers have the Tidal Connect app. Ease of use is almost as important as sound quality, at least for me.
I have been a Qobuz subsciber since their beginning in France. Hi Res was is still is audibly better than cd quality. I used Slimdevices transporter and now Aurender NH100 which ties in to Qobuz nicely. I also bougnt many hi res albums (over 100) . The hard drive version used to sound a bit better, but now with clean ethernet the difference in gone.
I had Spotify for its suggestion algorithm, then got the songs from Qobuz. Big difference in SQ. I cancelled Spotify to protest their disinformation endorsment and moved to Apple music., much improved since 5 years ago. Better suggestion algorithm, covers all languages and styles, not 80s biased like Tidal. (I think MQA is not convincing and doomed).
Cancelling any subscription on the web is a pain. Everything is done to make you fumble and forget a little detail. Qobuz should do better on this.
"Cancelling any subscription on the web is a pain"
sometimes I have to call customer support and ask where can I cancel and they direct me to my settings, change my profile then go to some feedback page, login again, find the uncontinue link, set it to suspend unti 2099 and then confirm it via email too :)
So I did try Qobuz for the past month, and I'm now trying to cancel it. Yeah, it's not easy. While I'm 99% sure I signed up for the monthly service, they went and charged me $129 for an entire year! I was able to stop the renewal, but I'm still stuck with a 1-year purchase that I did not want. I don't mind losing 12.99/mo to try it out, but not willing to sacrifice $130! Their customer service chat is "not available" and there's no way to leave a message or email them. I have no choice but to dispute the charge with my credit service, and waiting to see how that goes.
I spent a week trying to get in touch with them. They responded to the chat twice. basically blowing me off. Then I opened a case with my cc company and was done. They should not have a license to operate such scams.
Signed up Feb 24, after 4 days cancelled seemingly w/o issue. Have the documentation for signup and cancel for cc company if ncessary. Not anticipating any issues.
For me, too many annoying dropouts versus what I have experienced using Pandora Plus which exhibited zero issues over >1 year of use. The streamer/setup matters little because it works great w/everything else, and since I've read stories where throwing resources at the gremlin (Cat 6 cables, etc) didn't help, I abandoned the thought of that approach entirely. I reached out to the manufacturer who "unfortunately" could not offer a potential solution.
Since the stream is largely for background when WFH, P+ with its limited catalog is good enough. I agree w/others that the Qobuz interface is a bit clunky, but did enjoy the SQ of the hi res, esp the increased dynamic range.
Qobuz works well and sounds good as it should to me. I use mainly with Roon on Cambridge streamers. If in doubt, I would stick to more widely used product lines.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
