I take it that sarcasm was intended! Roon, at least when I initially trialled it some years ago, was the epitome of social media encrusted music apps! (I N.B. I later learnt that some of the things I found particularly irritating could be turned off, and in later versions may have been more clearly optional or not automatically enabled). If you weren’t joking, maybe it has changed?
Anyway, @cvh, I mostly understand and sympathise with the your issues, being a fellow Facebook hater, aldo detesting adverts in BBC material (yes, only ads for themselves, but intrusive nonetheless), and seeing absolutely no point in or having any interest in playlists, and I am not a follower, so treat with distain suggestions that I should follow something. I also abhor with a vengeance the uninvited intrusion of AI into everything, virtually never beneficially: it seems many people or organisations think it is something they have to be seen to do to be up to date, not recognising how inane and incapable it makes them look.
Interestingly though, other people don’t seem to have been bothered by adverts and recommendations on Qobuz - perhaps it is how you are approaching it, rather than the site or app itself? I can’t really comment, as my own experience of Qobuz is only through web browser, searching and buying files to download, when I don’t particularly recall there being adverts.
But honestly, I don’t understand what is the real problem.
If you stream online, you can go to the search part, enter the name of the artist, then choose the album to listen to.
Or buy it and store it on a server or Nas.
Personally I hate all these , often, crap recommendations. Then there are many albums I don’t find on Qobuz or Tidal. Finally the sound is better when I stream locally.
Roon full of social media crap? Huh? Are we living in alternative reality? Roon only shows you what you want to see and the music suggestions, which are up to the user to seek out, are reasonable based on the individual’s library, albeit a feature I don’t bother with as I have my own way of discovering new music. See below:
Afaik also Presto gives suggestions (even in pre release form), so I am having difficulties to understand what the problem here exactly is.
Is it Qobuz magazine with articles on hifi and events? Or the fact that Qobuz also shows releases other than jazz and classical music if the musical genre preferences are not adjusted?
Not sure if it’s already been mentioned as I only skim read the thread, but why not buy a NAS and download content to it and stream from there?
Potentially a financial hit upfront but then the music is yours forever.
I find I’m using Qobuz less and less for direct streaming and only for a few downloads. But then I have built up my own library of both downloads and ripped CDs over many years (and even some vinyl ‘recorded’ with my PCM recorder) so am well set for Armageddon! Just need to source my own generator of course…..
Whilst I don’t have a problem with Qobuz certainly compared to many other apps, there is a general tendency to over-complicate things in IT now without adding any real value. It’s as though some companies are desperate to provide anything which can be marketed as an ‘update’ but often make the experience worse.
And as if to prove my point, I’ve had a nightmare trying to compose this message on my modern iPhone with up to date software and in the end had to compose in ‘Notes’ and copy and paste it in.
I’ve worked in IT for nearly 40 years and hate it now.
Not sure whether this thread is a rant about Radio 3 or a rant about Qobuz.
On the former, I’m a bit disappointed myself by some of the directions R3 has taken recently. I’m no fan of Classical Mixtape, for example, but for me what makes R3 such a joy are the live broadcasts. Evening and lunchtime concerts and, a particular favourite, Choral Evensong are very special and not interrupted by adverts when I’ve been listening.
As for Qobuz, I don’t find Qobuz over-cluttered either in the Naim app or Qobuz’s app. I guess that’s very subjective, but it doesn’t seem reasonable to blame the streamer, which just relays what the streaming service sends it.
Also remembering the old days, listen to radio, hear something you like, buy record, easy.
Making that mobile is where the difficulty started, either record your own (cassette) tapes, or buy pre-recorded tape (for same price as record which didn’t feel VFM), or transistor radio. That got better with ripping / downloading to iPod. Unfortunately FM was also replaced by Dab (horrible) and Internet Radio, so you need a good streamer for radio and streaming service.
Now having everything on the fly anyway leads to an apt description by a forum member comparing streaming to “an all-you-can-eat buffet” and I’m getting a little streaming fatigue. Rereading this moving to digital has made everything more complicated instead of easier.
Blimey we are a bunch of grumpy old gits, I’ve a Qobuz account which I use for trying stuff and buying the odd download, but I find streaming directly from it very tiring compared with local rips and vinyl. R3 is fine, of course they promote themselves.
You appear to be conflating digital with online streaming, latter being just one of several practical digital media sources, and not the best in my view (unless you are a fan of all-you-can-eat restaurants!)
Yes that was not precisely formulated, digital ecosystems I meant. For exemple a CD in an analogue system is different entirely.
As a next step that felt like progress I started ripping CDs in a MacBookPro via Audirvana 3.5 via USB into a DAC-V1, (and to an iPod) not unlike what your profile indicates.
But then had to replace a FM tuner with internet radio, also at the time wanting to cater for kids with Spotify, so along came a streaming device.
And am now reading here about suggestions/self-curation in the app (instead of by the radio producer), spoilt-for-choice perhaps diminishing value, ethernet cables, server, switches, streaming services, etc. More complicated.
I think the complications exist more in people’s minds.
In my teens (eighties) I had to go to a shop (by bike or by bus) in a city 15 kilometers away from the little town where I lived to buy a vinyl or a CD. These days I buy album as a digital the file at home in an online shop.
In the eighties I would receive a receipt from the cashier (if he didn’t forget). At home I had to put in a drawer otherwise it would probably have been thrown away with the garbage. These days I get a confirmation invoice in a place online. How I store it is up to me but the digital place os often comparable with the physical drawer. Do I forget to store it properly then it will probably get lost in the trash.
When I got home after another bike or bus ride with the new CD I would play it on the CD player in my set up. And afterwards put it in the cabin with all my other CD’s. These days I already am at home, store the file in the storage space with all the other music files and play it with the network streamer in my set up.
If I did not want to buy a CD but just have it for a while, I would borrow it from someone and maybe make a copy by burning it with my PC and put the copy in my cabin. These days I rip a CD and store the file in the storage space.
All I can see is that physical has been replaced by non physical. But also that I have an easier job nowadays. That physical thing is worth something though. To some more than others but it’s more a subjective discussion than an objective I feel.
That we feel that life has become more complicated is not because of how we can buy things. That has become more easy. It’s more due to the fact there’s a hell lot more on offer and within reach these days than back in the eighties. It causes stress because there’s too much to choose from and we also have a fear of missing out.
So if that’s the clutter people are talking about, then I understand. We have to find our way in a jungle of offers. We used to have about 5 channels on TV. Now we have a list of 40 and on top of that a pile of streaming services as well. So to me it’s more a feeling of so much available that sometimes we don’t know where to start and the nagging feeling of wondering if the choice we make is the right one.
But more complicated? No. I see streaming services like Qobuz as the replacement of the old libraries where you could borrow CD’s. And I have to pay for that.
