At Capital Audio Fest last weekend, one of the exhibitors claimed that Qobuz will launch Jan 7 in the US. They may be in a position to know. FWIW.
Beta and Launch are two separate things. The only hybrid that comes to mind is Botch.
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If true, it recalls to mind the quote (in the movie anyways) from Lonesome Dove, where they have delays getting going on a cattle drive:
“It’s a bad start, boys…”
As a customer, I’m getting weary of manufacturers announcing dates for things that do not happen, either on time or indeed, in reality. It is an unfortunate reality of online marketing in this day and age.
To paraphrase a marketing friend of mine, “The only sales/marketing justification for teasing a new product well in advance of its launch is to prevent customers from buying something else in the interim. You are saying, “Wait for ours, it will be better than X.” “
We’ve been awaiting a US launch of Qobuz for a long time now, aside from those willing to go the VPN route. Admittedly, it’s a problem of having a global community - we know more about what’s out there than ever before. There are worse problems to have ; ).
It would be nice if they would just explain why they would use the “L word” in advance of RMAF, then miss by such a wide margin.
Anyone going to the New York Audio Show this weekend in Manhattan? If so, can you please check in with the Qobuz folks and ask them when the USA launch will occur (and also ask them to correct the misspelling of Paul’s last name (“McGowen”) in this press release!):
Excerpt:
New name: BuzQill (pronounced Buzz-Kill). Meaning: (verb) to extinguish the building excitement and word-of-mouth marketing for the release of a new product or service by a lack of coordination in timing.
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Yeah - kinda killing the buzz I got when I saw the name of this thread appear back in May, and ever since, when I see the title, I hear John Mellencamp singing it to the tune of “R.O.C.K. In the USA”. Just how my brain works - can’t help it. “Q.O.B-Uzz in the USA” 
Now that’d be a launch tune to play…uh, maybe next year sometime. And I’m not really much of a Mellencamp fan. Just sticks in the head.
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Thanks. Now I can’t get that out of my head. I’m not much of a Mellencamp fan either but I do like Trouble No More where he did some blues and folk covers.
I agree with your marketing friend. Sales guy I worked with in a high tech networking company used to use the phrase “I’d rather have an unhappy customer than a happy prospect”. Which drove us engineers crazy! 
Qobuz USA seems to be alive. C’est vrai?
I just tried and it still isn’t working for me - I can’t successfully sign up for a trial period and it still says “…isn’t available in your country.”
It still appears to be non-functional. I just spent a half hour trying to set up an account in the US (I had set up one in France a couple of years ago, but never followed through with the neccessaries of the VPN, etc.) In between they emailed me multiple times, I agreed - yes, please inform me when I can get it here - NO subsequent communication whatsoever.
Just now I tried to activate the “existing account” (on which I have never spent a centime or streamed a note), and continually got bounced out, as I’m not in France. I sent Customer Service a note (not holding my breath on that one). For fun, I signed up under another email, and ended up with this:
Where is Qobuz available?
Qobuz is currently available in 11 countries:
- Germany
- Austria
- Belgium
- Spain
- France
- Italy
- Ireland
- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- United-Kingdom
- Switzerland
When you create your Qobuz account in one of those 11 countries, your account will be linked to that country. Once connected to your account, you can use Qobuz everywhere in the world.
SO - I guess I could still do the VPN route (or maybe they have greased the wheels) but I would prefer to get it set up here going forward. C’est dommage : (
badbeef
Try this and see if it still works. Even though I have had a paid account set up with a VPN for about a year and a half I set this up to try the Hi-Res as it sets up as a Sublime account.
If you want to do the free trial use this link
After your account is created then go to your profile and use the gift code CEDIA2018
It will be a UK account but still a free 3 month trial.
Tried it - sign-up still doesn’t work. Thanks for the effort though!
Hmmm, I was able to register and got to selecting a payment method, but didn’t want to proceed further, did you get that far ?
No I wasn’t able to. I try to select the “Studio” try for free option and then the error message “cart.ordercreate.error.country” message comes up. Just won’t let me do it.
Bummer, are you in the US ?
Click on your username and on the drop down click on your profile then put in the gift code. Caveat may not work anymore
I am in the US. They said I will be receiving an e-mail once it launches.
Just tried this code as you advised and it says it doesn’t work in my country (U.S.).