I’m going to dump Qobuz for a while. I’m giving Presto’s streaming service a go, the download works properly there.
1 Like
Indeed, I’ve bought a few there, but the last two weren’t available. I suspect that most of Qobuz’s business is now streaming, so maybe the downloads don’t matter to them. The popularity of downloads is waning according to the figures, but I like them.
I recently used 7 digital instead of Qobuz. It’s only hires Flac, but I don’t bother. It’s cheaper vs Qobuz and much more practical.
Bandcamp is still my favourite.
Don’t get many Schubert piano sonatas on Bandcamp though, is a problem (for some anyway)!
2 Likes
Was discussing with Qobuz support - tried again - and now working!
Maybe Hirestracks, if you have access in England. I could download some albums available in France, and very quick to download.
Please do report back on how that goes, David.
I plan to continue with Qobuz for streaming and Presto for downloads, at least for a while. But if Presto were ever integrated into the Naim and Linn streaming platforms, I’d happily jump that way.
Roger
Will do. I like that anything you have bought as a download can immediately be streamed in the res your bought. But the integration with Naim needs thought.
However the integration with my phone which streams to my hearing aids works pretty well.
I just made my first new purchase on Qobuz since they created this new download app. I updated the app first on my PC, and selected .WAV as my preferred format.
Purchased the new London Grammar “The Remixes” that was released today, and the album automatically appeared in my download queue, so started the download. Download worked fine. I did notice that is appeared to have downloaded a .flac version and a .wav version of the file, but after i exited the download app the .flac version disappeared. So i do wonder if the downloads are always in flac and then transcoded locally by the download app to your chosen format. The album was only available in CD quality rather than hires, the resulting .wav files do appear to be the right size for CD quality. Album now copied over onto my Core ok, and even the album cover file was small enough to be displayed ok from the Core via the Naim app.
Thanks, David.
Roger
Have just watched a download (in my case to Apple Lossless) working.
It downloads the flac files to a subdirectory called original and then transcodes to a directory called 1. It then deletes the ‘original’ directory.
Sadly in the case of Apple Lossless it doesn’t write any tags to the file! Have reported this.
So I guess it always downloads the .flac and then transcodes locally.
I used 7digital for many years (before Qobuz) - many of my purchases are no longer available to download.
It’s very strange when you consider that they sell so much classical as so many are often ‘box sets’ and this could really alienate customers.
I’ve used the separate Mac Qobuz app to download all my purchases, but you can’t choose the format only the quality settings. Invaluable for certain purchases which always failed with TAR file timeouts but I still liked that system.
I has a reply from Qobuz support that they know metadata is missing in Apple Lossless and will be adding it in a forthcoming release.
Sounds like they released the ‘new downloaded’ app long before it was ready.
Very odd when the old app worked so well.
I guess they were in a hurry to release some feature in the ‘play locally’ app which also removed the downloader functionality.
If you have a back up, I don’t see the problem.
I hope Qobuz doesn’t ditch downloads, I don’t use the streaming service much so I’ll have to reconsider my sublime sub. The old app worked fine for me too. ugg.
1 Like
I just purchased The Ballad Of Darren by Blur using the downloader, what a bloody nightmare with the downloader conversion.
I ended up downloading the flacs via the Qobuz app, converting to Apple lossless and tagging everything by hand.
As mentioned by @ElMarko the old method worked fine.
1 Like
I forgot to mention « highresaudio . com). A lot of jazz and classical music to download in hires, and straightforward.
I will wait until Qobuz changes its downloading platform.
FWIW the downloader downloads flac files correctly tagged.
But agree - I can’t imagine what the Product Manager at Qobuz was thinking, this is a complete mess.
2 Likes
I was quite upset initially with what they did, also the way they changed the structure of the tagging etc……and so far I always had issues with the app………
But knock on wood, so far the app has been more stable than anything they published so far, so for now ok, while I am still kind of expecting a quick break down as before….