Qobuz used to have user reviews for albums which tended to be quite helpful pointing out issues or positives with the downloads - they seem to have stopped providing a user review system which is a shame as it certainly prevented me buying a few items, and equally probably pushed me to purchase others.
I think many of us have waited for quite some time for recordings to be made available to download in hi res due to the poor uptake of SACD/DVD-A when these were competing for mass market sales years ago. The general public just wanted cheap music and CD was good enough even if some of use felt it didn’t satisfy as much as vinyl unless played on extremely expensive hardware.
I was delighted when Qobuz started selling hi-res in the UK as other vendors were often not easily accessible outside of the US.
I see little point buying their CD quality downloads as unless there’s a sale, these are invariably more expensive than a physical CD.
I’ve bought quite a few hi-res albums from them, some new, some old, various genres through pop/rock/jazz/classical and opera.
In all honesty very few hi res downloads have really stunned me or provided subjectively improved audio quality/enjoyment compared to older versions on CD/vinyl, but I still tend to buy them as they are available. Now that Qobuz pricing seems to be increasing across the board, I may buy less.
New titles are hard to compare if you’ve only ever really heard the hi-res version - I wonder if anyone has critically compared different download qualities of hi-res purchases, as if the CD quality versions are very similar there are potential savings in cost, network bandwidth and storage to be made even if we’re not really bothered by these things in practice.
Perhaps there ought to be a thread in the Music Room section highlighting/recommending extremely good titles available, but as we all enjoy different music/genres these things will boil down to personal preference a lot of the time, and what one person finds sublime will be boring to another.
I also wonder if we all tend to go for personal favourite/well-loved musical titles in hi-res first (I certainly do), and perhaps as they’re older it’s why many don’t soar above CD/vinyl quality for us. I’d love to try many older titles in hi-res but perhaps the fact they max at CD quality reflects the artists/studios opinion that hi res offers little over CD quality.
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I have found hires to be very mixed, some masters are great others not so. What puts me off the most is the cost of them, Qobuz charge way to much most of the time. If I want to buy an album I will more than likely get the cd of Amazon and rip for far less than buying the hd download or cd download. I still don’t understand why they still charge a premium for a file which has so little production costs , no packaging, or delivery costs.
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I don’t think they’ve been particularly more expensive than anyone else for hi-res, but I suppose I still mentally consider a CD for a new title to cost £10-£12 when it probably doesn’t. Maybe the Sublime discounts have also made prices more palatable as I’ve rarely paid much more than £10-£15 for a hi-res title, less usually. I’ve also noticed that new releases of older titles in hi-res seem initially more expensive and drop later.
The prices must surely be dictated firstly by the labels, and secondly the need to remain viable. It’s actually the CD quality pricing that really baffles me as it’s often £10+ when the CD with AutoRip and next day delivery on Prime is £4-£5 on Amazon - I can’t imagine they sell much in CD quality unless there are people who just can’t be bothered to rip their CDs (and that must be an attraction for those who are not really bothered by cost or find it more cost efficient to not waste 5-10 minutes on a rip if their time is more valuable doing other things).
24-bit only exist in digital - you can only get 20-bits when you convert to analog which you must to be able to listen. I see marketing something as 24-bit to end consumers as false marketing. This goes for both recordings and playback equipment.
One should also remember higher bit depth only buys you a lower noise floor. No other benefits. Given that the natural noise floor is about 25dB then you must listen at extremely high playback levels to run out of 16-bits.
Dont buy into the numbers game currently going on with digital. We learnt in the 80’s that music reproduction was about other things than low THD-numbers and bandwidth of several hundred kHz. Digital is the same game.
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I find the jump from 16bit to 24bit alone yields more natural dynamics.
24bit can offer lower quantization distortion as you may use more bits to describe low volume levels. 2^3 versus 2^6. A 16bit music recording is unlikely to use the full potential of 96 dB dynamic range.
I buy a lot of hi res files from HD Tracks and so far most are excellent. However I do find with some CDs and few of the hi res files they could sound better but I feel it’s more to do with the original master (as others have mentioned). Think that goes for all formats, I’ve heard poor vinyl and even been to gigs that weren’t great (SQ).
Rubbish in rubbish out.
As for the Abbey Road remix my 24/96 WAV file sounds fantastic, I’ve done some side by side listening with the remastered CD from a few years ago and the new remix imo is an improvement. I think with a brand like the Beatles that they treat them with a lot of respect. Who’d want millions of angry baby boomers off side.
Mark Waldrup, a music recording lecturer and head of Real HD audio, did an interesting challenge to see if people could differentiate between his hi-res recordings and downsampled versions of the same.
http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6267
.sjb
The comparison of use is between the new remaster at 24/96 and 16/44.
My cloth ears are rarely up to noticing any difference.
.sjb
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Unfortunately I don’t have access to the remix in 16/44, only the remaster from a few years ago. And as for the old ears thing I just turn the volume up to help compensate. 
But, she also emphasised that “It’s the best codeced audio I’ve ever heard, remember it’s codeced audio, so it’s compressed audio but it’s the best sounding one out there for sure.”
She didn’t say it’s better than uncompressed!
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I stumbled upon this the other day and it makes a lot of sense:
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When you record 24-bit is very convenient. But as a distribution format 16-bit is enough. If the ambient background noise level is 25DB and you add the 95dB of 16-bit you run out of bits at 120dB.
If I produced a mix that used the full 16-bit range it would sound flat and dull becuse when people play it at home the low-level details would be buried under the ambient noise level. Remember that vinyl only gives you 70-75dB and usually comes off more than good.
When you record you normally use 24-bit. To keep EQ-algorithms and other stuff from clipping (or submixing) you set the abslute peak level to 14 or 16dB below the absolute maximum level of 24-bit. You still have about 20dB lower noise than with 16-bit.
The summing bus in a digital mixer is usually 64-bit today. This is just to handle the peaks when you add together all the 24-bit numbers, today you can have hundreds of tracks. Then you do a division of that 64-bit number and truncate it to 16/24-bit, you add some noise to mask the bad residues of the truncation. And thats it.
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A con, like diigtal video games
Hello Xanthe-- “She didn’t say it’s better than uncompressed!”
And coincidentally, she did not say that uncompressed Hi Rez was better than MQA. In fact she spends the first 30 minutes of the video outlining the “minefield” that is the current practice. I have heard other record engineers say that when they finish their work, they are later disheartened by what comes out of the distribution channel, after the Master has been down sampled, or upsampled, or further compressed, etc. This is a way to get all that stuff to stop, and give everyone better sound and a better connection to the emotion of the performer/artist. Its no wonder that it sounds so good.
I concede that there are some very good streams out there, some at CD quality, but in general the better experience seems to come with the 352’s. When I hear something outstanding, its mostly MQA which is give me the best overall result.
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Yeah I play only analog video games! What?
In Yoda speak: The MQA kool-ade strong in this one runs. 
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I play only physical based disc games for ps4 and x box scorpio meaning non boxed games are an expensive con, wrong choice of words on my part as i had a late night.
In the early days I found some HD downloads of questionable quality… such as from HD Tracks.
These days I find it quite different, and I obtain or stream most of my HD from Qobuz HD distribution masters… I find the quality and enjoyment almost always exceeds that of CD or 44.1/16 resolution. Not to say CD is bad but I’d do hear the relative limitations of the reduced sonic gamut compared to hidef.
In many ways I find the 24 bits over 16 bits one of the more significant benefits…
However I have found to really enjoy Hidef, it does depend on your DAC… some DACs don’t seem happy with Hidef and sound more at ease with 44.1/16… almost as it’s a car engine is revving to highly.
The Abbey Road re mix master from the analogue tapes at 96/24 is superb And on my system and ears a delightful and wonderful enhancement on the relatively limited 44.1/16 version… and you can very much hear and enjoy the quality of the then new solidstate mixing desk they used… although it took a bit of tine to get that Beetles sound back originally apparently.
So I would say if you have a genuine Hidef distribution master and it sounds dull or too hot and not a worthwhile improvement over 44.1/16 I would look to your DAC.
Clearly questionable Hidef masters that are simply upsampled from a 44.1/16 distribution master may well sound inferior.
I find much new material is available at least in 44.1/24 or 48/24 now … and compared to the downsampled/decimated 44.1/16 versions are preferable and flow more and less congested when listening… I put this down to that most are mastered to 24 bit… and the lossy process of downsampling to 16 bit for a CD master is loosing information from the recording and negatively affecting its SQ. I find a similar affect on some of the music I mix and master.
Indeed for internet streaming, where bandwidth is an issue, yes MQA has its place (well at the moment). As costs come down delivering the 24/192 file directly (no additional processing will be necessary) becomes steadily more viable until the distribution cost is less than MQA’s royalties; then MQA looses most of it’s rationale (other than for the recording’s copyright holders i.e. the record company).
In the mean time, everyone further down the chain, particularly the consumer, indirectly pays the royalties to MQA Ltd, leaving less of the sales value available to the artists (and this is why I like Bandcamp!).