Though bandwidth and storage are plentiful these days, it’d be downright silly not to use lossless compression for an internet service.
Where does does the page say it’s not compressed?
FLAC is typically compressed, although need not be.
If you are the business providing the streaming source, you certainly want to minimize bandwidth.
It doesn’t - that’s what I’m saying. Says it’s all FLAC. Some of the other info pages about streaming sort of don’t mention that it’s still FLAC above 24 bit, and I think I’d gotten the impression it wasn’t somewhere. But maybe that was downloads, which are available uncompressed.
I guess I figured if we can stream Netflix in 4k, an audio stream shouldn’t require as much. But that’s apples and oranges, and that 4k is certainly compressed massively. 24/96 uncompressed would require somewhere under 5mbps.
I’d be willing to bet that even the permanent downloads are compressed FLAC as well. Think of the storage savings (~50%).
No - they specifically state that in addition to FLAC and ALAC, you can get AIFF and WAV. That was actually the first thing I did on Qobuz - downloaded an uncompressed album.
Interesting… but why? Hahah
Good to remember too that Netflix is highly compressed and needs complex CODECS to unravel the video stream. FLAC cuts the bandwidth requirements in half without any loss. And bandwidth costs money when you’re at these scales.
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Here’s a good read about flac:
Ripping to my Melco in flac uncompressed and Minimserver set to transcode flac > wav24bit on the fly, no difference whatsoever in comparison to uncompressed wav files.
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Oh, it was a while back when I still didn’t know the trick to signing up for an account in the UK, and someone suggested establishing an account and buying a download did the trick for them. I suspect they worked for Qobuz ; )
Interesting. Well versed in FLAC, didn’t mean to start anything by mentioning it. My first inkling that it was not necessarily an actual “bit perfect” subjective experience was many years ago, using a Squeezebox Transporter, which decodes flac on the fly, and FLAC files on hard drive. In that setup, it was audibly different from listening to the uncompressed version of the same thing.
Fast forward to now, where we have ever more highly-resolving computer-based systems for delivering bits, and in some cases, on some systems, a more “advanced” version of that issue still exists. As Paul (and Ted, I believe) have noted before, when the bits are being decoded in a computer environment, the work of doing the math can end up being audible.
But, no question, it’s the way to go for online streaming at the moment.
As the DS also transcodes flac to wav before the 20xDSD to 1bit thing, delivering files in wav could probably help somehow. The Minimserver/Melco combi delivers the clean bitperfect signal without stress.
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FMessage states you must choose the studio plan ($24.99 per month) for hi-Rez and that the music library is not complete in beta test but will be for US launch.
We are very excited to inform you that you may now sign up to be one of the very first Qobuz US beta testers!
Please click the following link to sign up for your free 1-month trial. Be sure to use your email address *********to sign up, as it has been pre-approved for an account.
Once you’ve created your account, you will choose a streaming plan. If you are a Hi-Res music user, make sure you select the Studio plan to access unlimited 24-bit streaming.
It would be useful if you could test the entire Qobuz experience and note any bugs, errors, or suggestions you have while using our service.
Please report these comments to us via our customer service portal:
One important note is that the music catalog is not 100% complete yet, but it will be fully populated before we move out of beta. Therefore, it is not necessary to bring missing albums to our attention.
Some features, such as SONOS, Yamaha MusicCast, CarPlay, Android Auto, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa should be available for the US in the near future. Many of our customers have also requested a Family Plan subscription - we are aware of this suggestion and hope to develop one soon. At this stage, you don’t need to focus on these features when testing our service.
We are so happy to have you on board, thanks again for your commitment and your help.
Enjoy!
The Qobuz US Team
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Apologies for the double post. If admin could remove email address I would appreciate it, thx.
[Everything looks good to me now. Please let me know if you need anything else. ELK]
Qobuz integration in the new Roon update! Let’s see if it messes up the sound…
Oddly - it seems to be 20db down from the output of the Qobuz app alone. No DSP, and fixed output volume. Doesn’t seem to matter what the source is - off my HD, Tidal or Qobuz via the Roon update - all very low output for some reason. Still checking to see if something was reset in the update.
The first Hi Rez file I played this morning sounded dull. I say what? Then wondered, that was after I updated Roon.
So - I just figured out that the update had enabled “Headroom Management” (-18dB) even though I’d selected no DSP…
Had to go in and turn off all DSP items manually.
Also something squirrelly going on (or something I don’t understand) with Roon defaulting to 16/44.1 even though I’m playing a Qobuz 24/96 file.
Opened Audio MIDI Setup (headless Mac Mini as server), and when I set the output to the DSJ, crank the sample and bit rates, go back into Roon and start the 24/96 Qobuz track, it flips AMS on the Mac to the System Output and 16/44.1. Odd.
The Qobuz desktop app by itself does not change the Audio MIDI settings. But of course it’s not using Roon RAAT, etc.
Another interesting wrinkle - on my actual US Qobuz beta (admittedly still underpopulated Library), there is no 24/96 version of this album, “The Astounding Eyes of Rita” by Anouar Brahim. I’m using it because even the CD is fab sounding, and is a nice reference for real instruments and sense of space - in addition to being great music.
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I am not in Qobuz beta, but I did update to Roon 1.6 and thought I should sound the alarm…
The DSP engine has been “simplified”. However, it looks to me like the global disable-enable slider at the top has been removed. To disable everything, it looks like you have to disable “Headroom Management”, “Sample Rate Conversion”, and “Filters”.
When I checked my settings, the DSDAC remained with everything disabled, but another zone had “Sample Rate Conversion” newly activated. Therefore, I would recommend that you check your DSP settings forthwith.
In my case there have been no issues with spurious sample conversions and SQ, after a short period, seems little changed.
How do you switch zones now, that looks changed.
Can’t remember the old way, so don’t no if it’s different. A single click on the current zone brings up a Zone Dialog.
I went ahead and subscribed (free trial) to the UK Qobuz and everything is working properly Roon on an iMac -> Bridge II. The Qobuz Mac app could not see the bridge, so I haven’t tried that yet.
Was just getting ready to post, clicking on spkr icon for volume brings up the transfer arrows. Or as you say, clicking on your current zone then the spkr icon,
Thanks