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Quobuz subscription

Hi I've recently joined Quobuz to try-out few tracks. 

The ones released on 70's and 80's Japanese jazz vinyls sound really muffled. Thought they would sound better vs. YouTube streaming channel of Terminal Passage that actually mostly plays its digitized vinyl collection, but quality is too far away from even YouTube.

I checked the quality and all of them are CD 44.1kHz, but the sound quality is so far away from CD 44.1kHz.

So what's there to check? Is only major-popular recording industry albums sound good there.

I checked that via my Mytek DAC and via my cheap DAC and both DACs show nearly-same differences on the playback vs. YouTube.

So far Tidal actually gets my best grading on items outside of RR hall of fame or outside of recording industry standards.

It really seems to me that Quobuz is over-advertised.

 

czarivey
nomorelandings
26 posts
 

Hi dicockrum,

Agree 100% with your findings. A more modest DAC, MF M6x plus Innuos Pulse, previously TEAC nt505& 701n all full MQA unfold and 352.8 capable. I have settled with Qobuz as more consistent sq although tidal at its best can equal it. There are many 24/192 tracks on my playlists plus several regular cd ones that are better mastered than the hi res version to my ears. One of my Tidal 24/352.8 unfold favourites was an audiophile album by Norwegian label 2L. Mozart violin concerto first track - superb. Play the same on Qobuz and the MQA studio led lights up and the res led says 24/352.8. MQA on Qobuz? Snuck that one in.

nb. Even the better BluetoothLDAC compressed the bit rate to @ 990, so about 10% of full 24/192's 9126. You pays your money....Bluetooth does a job but not as well as the real thing. 

nomorelandings
26 posts
 

Should anyone wish to check out MQA on Qobuz, search for 2L Audiophile reference recordings. On playing, it says Hires/44.1, but if played through a fully MQA capable DAC, will unfold to 352.8. Worth a listen

czarivey OP
5,691 posts
 

@dlcockrum most Japanese city Funk albums had been released with great quality Japanese pressing and recording. The material on Quobuz as if they weren't. Takanaka is just one of the examples, but the line-up of such artists can overwhelm R/R hall of fame.

jbuhl's avatar
jbuhl
892 posts
 

I A/B Tidal and Qobuz years ago. I could not discern SQ difference. Chose Qobuz basically due to Jay-Z and Kanye West involvement with Tidal. 🤮

 

Qobuz been rock solid for me. Although I wish Deezer was supported on ROON I might go back to that. Mis that platform and although only Redbook quality it was good enough.

poke33
70 posts
 

Interesting thread.... I am a Qobuz subscriber, enjoy it immensely, find the service stability, volume of choice and the quality very good....

The one thing I never thought about was a John Darko comment on physical media and inability of a service to build a profile on you when using records or CD's...and then sell it or "offer" artists an AI program thinks I would like...I still enjoy the physical media, Qobuz for me is an excellent extension of lunacy

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