I believe CD/HiFi users, like me, are getting Studio for that price too.
1 Like
Does anyone have the details of each available plan? I’ve signed up for the trial Studio but am unable to view other options without canceling the trail and committing to change…they warn and have clearly made a choice to do this but it’s lame to not be able to compare the offer sheet.
I doubt there is much in 24/96+ that I would care much about compared to 16/44.1.
Is there a 16/44.1 only plan for ? $9.99? or did the CD-quality plan go away with this price reduction?
It may have as the “plan” page only shows Studio Premier and Sublime.
But try this link
What is the difference between “Studio” and “Studio Premier”?
Appears to be the same thing as just bundled basic and Studio into one product at a lower price than either. Sure beats the Exchange Rate price I paid for over two years.
Studio Premier is FLAC up to 24/192 resolution. Studio is FLAC 16/44.1 AFAIK
I don’t subscribe but am considering it
I’ve discovered that Qobuz lacks volume leveling info, if this matters to you. As a primarily track-based listener, it’s critical, as I don’t like jumps of 10dB+ one way or the other.
I’ll exercise the 30-day trial but don’t see continuing without leveling info. Apparently, it’s been a work in progress since launch so I don’t have high hopes it will appear in the next month.
What I’ve listened to does sound good but recording differences are far greater than format for me.
I subscribed to Studio Premier annual a month ago. Got an email today saying I should resubscribe again and get a lower rate and a refund in December. I’m guessing I just paid twice and they’re going to rip me off. I used PayPal so maybe I am somewhat safe.
'Splain please, brett. Do you mean you want it to level stuff for you, or provide information so you can adjust gain? You don’t listen to albums much, more playlists?
Roon uses EBU R128 - https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf
Roon analyzes local media, and Tidal provides the R128 values in their stream, Qobuz does not.
I find R128 to be exceedingly good at normalizing volume, automatic gain riding. This does not compromise dynamic range, it’s still all there. Heavily compressed tracks are ‘penalized’ more than dynamic tracks. The trick is to find the value, I’ve settled on -20LUFS, for the music you listen. A well recorded, full dynamic track may be reduced in volume very little, -1dB, whereas a heavily compressed track may be reduced by -10dB or more to keep the apparent loudness the same. One needs to keep enough ‘room’ for dynamic tracks to ‘fit’, otherwise they can be truncated as R128 will not boost much, if at all.
Many sources have settled on -14LUFS or -16LUFS as a compromise for those with systems of limited dynamic range capacity. The EBU recommends -23LUFS but many, myself included, feel this is too much reduction.
I suspect many that have tried R128 feel it sucks the life out of some music, it doesn’t, louder sounds ‘better’. After a few weeks of listening to proper normalized volume, I really don’t like the wide variation without it.
I rarely listen to an album (but when I do it’s Led Zep II), but I don’t listen too much mainstream pop either. Track-based listeners seem to get lumped with casual listening. I prefer to sample across many genres, and I find few albums have stellar tracks throughout, there’s always a dud or 3.
Interesting. So where and how is this leveling accomplished? In Roon DSP?
Not in DSP but Zone Settings. Click on speaker icon then gear icon.
One can also set a value for when loudness info isn’t available like for internet radio (or Qobuz) but it’s a static value so not terribly useful.
Sorry - you lost me there. I had Roon for three years or so, so sorta remember what you’re talking about, but no longer have it to check. What are you changing/selecting in Zone Settings? That sounds like a thing that results in Roon doing something in DSP.
Yes, it’s is DSP (signal attenuation at 64-bit) but the setting is not found in DSP settings, rather in Zone Settings.
That is a display, so to speak, showing you what the DSP is doing. And it is doing a lot.
No offense intended, but not a fan, even with no DSP engaged whatsoever.
Why would I take offense? (rhetorical)
Yes, it is a display. I frequently switch between convolution filters and sometimes a touch of eq and nothing. I enjoy all of them but the convolution really fine tunes to my space, the room and I hear no degradation.
I used to be one that thought not altering the signal was always best but I’ve learned to trust my ears and not get hung up on bit-perfect. Besides, you’ve heard how different Snowmass vs. Windom can be and yet they are both bit-perfect…and yet each is ‘altering’ the sound we hear in different ways. How is use of DSP or volume leveling any different than ‘tuning’ in the DS?
I’ve also run Roon with HQPlayer embedded for over a year (no sampling), removing Roon from the signal path completely. The sound is not repeatably different so I removed HQPe because it added some quirks of managing filters and licensing issues with RAMROOT enabled - if Roon has a sound, then HQPe has the same sound - but I digress.
I still would encourage everyone to investigate and try EBU R128 and make your own decision.
1 Like
This continues to be my experience as well.
SEE
Anyone here using Qobuz on a RasPi/Linux?
They only seem to offer a Windows and Mac client (which is extremely annoying, very poor, though also very common!)
Greetings All, I’m a newbie here and recently signed up for the Qobuz trial. I found Ronalds playlist’s on this site, what a huge effort on his part! I’ve added several to my playlists but seems that about 50% of the content is grayed out and therefore unplayable. I contacted Sebastien at Qobuz to find out if this was because of the trial membership and he claims it is not. I sent him a link to check and he says it’s because they have been moving things around when they have been adding content and offered to help the creator clean up the Metadata. Does this seem realistic? Seems to me that if they are constantly moving content that Playlists are useless for any length of time. Please give me some of your thoughts on this problem. I’m a US based user on a trial membership at this point. Thanks!
1 Like
It’s supposedly related to regional rights issue for some of the songs. But the problem comes and goes, so I’m not sure.