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Serious Problems with Qobuz

About six weeks ago I started having trouble with Qobuz. Many recordings that are available to stream suddenly appeared as "Unavailable" in Roon and as "Sample" in Qobuz own app (in this last case, you can stream only about a minute of each track and nothing more). I contacted Qobuz on several occasions and they emailed me saying that it is a "rights" problem. The labels affected are Chandos, BIS, Naxos, Capriccio, and CPO, and not all of the recordings are affected but mainly high resolution ones, and featuring certain composers, orchestras, conductors and performers. According to Qobuz, Naxos is the culprit as it owns all of those labels. Qobuz mentioned that the "are working with the labels to solve the problem", but up to now nothing has happened and the list of unavailable recordings is growing. In fact, some labels, like BIS and Chandos, have told some customers that have contacted them about this problem, that they are not the ones doing this.

Interestingly, this is not affecting the same recordings in Tidal, which are only available in CD resolution (44.1/16). This raises the question, at least for me, how viable is Qobuz when the recordings I want to listen to are being made unavailable. Mind you, recordings that were available before and which I listened to and marked as "favorites". Customers are paying for this service, which is not cheap, and it seems that Qobuz is reneging on the recordings it made available when one signs on.

I asked some very well known reviewers, some who had featured Qobuz reviews and interviews with the company's CEO, but none answered, and one is "sponsored" by Qobuz.

Qobuz has to answer to its customers and be forthcoming about the real problem and let us know if this problem can be solved or not. If not, they will be losing a lot of customers to others. A very bad way to run a business.
brucknermahler

Showing 4 responses by big_greg

big_greg
6,554 posts
 
Why do the words "whiner" and "entitled" come to mind? 

If you're unhappy with the service, stop paying for it and cancel it. If it doesn't meet your needs, move on.

You have choices, but as someone famously said "You Can't Always Get What You Want."
big_greg
6,554 posts
 
One man's protesting is another man's whining. Carry on.
big_greg
6,554 posts
 
This "serious problem" may be a matter of perspective.

Every once in a while, I’ll run into a song that isn’t available. From what I remember, it’s usually on compilations. So one artist’s music hasn’t been licensed by Qobuz and they can’t stream that song.

99% of the time I can find and listen to anything I want on Qobuz. That 1% (or less) of times that I can’t hear a song I want to is NOT a "serious issue".

If there’s another service that caters more to your musical tastes then vote with your wallet.  I have Tidal and Qobuz in part, for this reason.  I much prefer Qobuz, but sometimes Tidal will have something Qobuz doesn't.

As another poster mentioned, Qobuz has to pay to license songs to deliver them to you.  If the licensing groups jack up the prices and Qobuz pays them, guess who ultimately pays.  You and me.

I think you’ve blown this way out of proportion.
big_greg
6,554 posts
 
Now you agree that these "serious problems" aren't with Qobuz as  your thread title states.  It sounds like they've been quite responsive actually. Good to hear! 
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