I have a physical copy of it which is subject to the usual conditions. I can play it for ever and it won’t cost me another penny. Play forever or pay to play until I stop paying and it stops playing. I’d suggest it’s more than semantics.
I have both Qobuz and Tidal listening via Roon, the Qobuz subscription is due in November and I’m seriously considering not renewing. The idea was to find music I like and use the sublime subscription to download it a bit cheaper. But what I am finding is Qobuz doesn’t seem to have as much choice that I like as opposed to Tidal and quite a few of my potential downloads were not reduced in price. Like others I have been carefully buying CD’s and ripping them. As I’m still exploring Jazz if I find something Ilike I can usually get it used from WOB or Music Magpie or even Amazon. Occasionally I like a high res version of something and I will purchase usually at a premium price.
I do find Bandcamp really good as I like the combination of ordering the record and getting a download as well.
We too, have continued buying and ripping CD’s to add to our server based collection. ( Instead of using the streaming platform or even buying and downloading a copy instead).
Maybe something others have eluded to, that collecting physical media is an established behaviour difficult to overcome?
To me the convenience and ultimately sound of Qobuz is the most important reason I no longer buy/download music. I have 2,200 albums ripped if the service ever goes tits up. Here in Canada a year subscription is around $150 dollars, so a tiny fraction of the cost of my gear. If anything, I might consider buying PGGB software and the appropriate computer to upsample some of my favorite albums.
This software definitely works as advertised, I have about 20 songs upsampled to 32 bit/ 705 KHz and they sound vastly superior to the 16/44.1 equivalent. The software creator is working on real time upsampling, so streaming services such as Tidal/Qobuz can be upsampled on the fly, rather than needing to store the files.
I use Qobuz but I do find the app rather lack lustre and hard to navigate sometimes. I also find that you can end up listening to the same few albums over and over again as a result.
I tend to read a lot of music websites and sources as a way to discover new music, look them up and listen to them on Qobuz and if I really like them, I use the Qobuz store to buy a hi-res downloadable copy. That way if I ever take a break from my subscription, I still have the key albums I want to listen to.
To be fair, it was more when I was using Roon (which I have recently stopped using). The landing page in Roon defaults to recommendations and new releases and you have to click around to get to your favourites.
Not a massive pain, but it used to annoy me. Probably that way as Roon want you to integrate all your music together; but I basically have my own collection and then use Qobuz to listen to new releases and things I am considering buying.
It’s odd as @fotobrooks and I have the same Deep Purple album (potentially) but I’ve not had a deletion email. Might all those titles be on the same label?
What I’m maybe concerned about is if they are sending emails by specific labels or sub-licensed labels we might get multiple emails as the system trawls purchase histories.