A nightmare regarding streaming?

+1 stuartk     Streaming reared its ugly head around 2007? The sound quality was atrocious but the defense was always convenience which is still the main battle cry. Until streaming meets my level of refinement/sound quality/consistency I will pass on so called convenience and enjoy my 45rpm vinyl.

Getting a system to sound good is sufficiently challenging for me, without adding in the headache of worrying about whether I can even access the music I want to listen to!  You guys have a far greater appetite for messing around with gear than I'll ever have. I'm content to remain an unapologetic "caveman" and confine myself to physical disc's.

DROPBOX may be the answer for some of you.

 https://www.dropbox.com/home

I got into streaming precisely because it enables the use of playlists, as well as discovering new artists.  I have what most folks here would consider two entry-level systems that each use a Bluesound Node to stream files from Tidal or an attached USB drive.  

I am currently looking to upgrade to something like a Cambridge unit in order to move away from Bluesound; it may be relatively easy to use, but it has been problematic for me.  System updates have in the past caused me to lose several playlists I had originally created in iTunes years (decades?) earlier that contained content strictly from my 3,000 or so ripped CDs.  Like a few folks here have mentioned, these playlists were not just long, they had dozens, if not hundreds of tracks, they play for hours and evolved over a long time.  

I believe at the time Bluesound support was inundated with help requests due to a major overhaul of their OS, so this process took months and months just to restore my lost playlists, although not all of them returned.  And it was only because I was persistent in my effort hounding the support team that I got any sort of result.  They did not seem to appreciate or care that this loss was substantial and represented hours of time on my part.  It has also reinforced my appreciation of physical media.  I’m not getting rid of my LPs or CDs anytime soon.  

Any recommendations I give now regarding the Node as a component or Bluesound as a tool come with the caveat that they are strictly entry-level, enabling you to try streaming without a major investment.  They are buggy and quirky and a poor choice for a serious music aficionado. As in so much with our hobby, you get what you pay for.  

The Bluesound system and the couple of Nodes that I have owned have caused more issues and grief than all the other audio components I have ever owned, combined.  I’m very pleased to learn from you all that there might be some third party apps that could save my cache of playlists when I eventually ditch Bluesound.  Watch this space for a good deal on a pair of used Nodes.  

I'm from the year of the great flood,I don't stream at all,Never....

Cloud services providers usually backup in at least duplicate.  Sometimes triplicate.  I bet they can restore it unless they just don't.

As a non-tech limited resource option, I take screen shots of my saved Album/Artist lists every so often and playlists just in case they mysteriously disappear - as I get older I worry I would never remember the obscure artists or individual tracks I "saved" as I hunt through the wonderful vast forest of music that is Qobuz

Perhaps asinine as you stated, but it solves the problem.

ozzy

On My Lumin while using the App for Quboz, I have found it to be very easy to press delete playlist because it is right below where you press to play the list,

I’m sorry, but that is just completely asinine.  Then again, I’ve never read much positive written about Lumin’s app so not really surprised.  

On My Lumin while using the App for Quboz, I have found it to be very easy to press delete playlist because it is right below where you press to play the list,

What I do now is make a backup playlist. Name it something similar but different with maybe an X in front of the name. especially if the playlist is long and took a while to create, just in case the original gets deleted.

ozzy

@lovehifi22
I think you will need to update your new saves to Soundiiz every so often. I believe only the "automation" section is auto-updating. I may get on Soundiiz every 6-12 months to update my diverging Spotify and Tidal saves with each other. 

@lalitk
I agree. I wouldn't say there's right or wrong way to stream. Streamers have varying feature sets, and finding the right feature set is maybe more important that sound quality.  

“I want a manufacturer agnostic app because I don’t want my content to be tied to the health of any specific device or manufacturer.”
@classdstreamer

There is nothing wrong with your approach. I’d my share of headaches with re-creating playlists or favorites prior to buying into Aurender eco-system. And I don’t foresee switching to anything else. In any case, good to know about Soundiiz options as a backup. 

Thanks again to all. Since I am new to Soundiiz, 

I do have a question. Every time I add a track or delete a track on a Qobuz playlist, I assume I need to update the playlists on Soundiiz. 
Is this correct?

Thank you!

I used a 3rd-party app called "Tunemymusic" to transfer my album list and playlists from Spotify to Tidal. I ended up subscribing to "Tunemymusic" on their monthly basis, but cancelled it before it renewed the following month after I’d already done the "transfer". You can also export your album list and playlists to a text or .cvs (compatible with Excel) file.

I did this to have an electronic record of all my stuff on my computer. I also downloaded a list of all the "missings" tracks and albums too (stuff that wasn't available on Tidal). Soundiiz sounds similar. Worth it for peace of mind.

My streaming service is Apple Music.  I stream primarily to audition unfamiliar recordings and then if I really like something I buy it.  I used to do Qobuz but my wife really wanted Apple and I didn’t want to pay for another service.

  I dislike lauding Apple for anything, but many years ago I had made playlists in iTunes.  When we switched to Apple Music all my iTunes files, which I hadn’t accessed for a few years and were created before the Apple streaming service existed, have reappeared along with the playlists that I had made.  A few recordings in the playlist show as files but no music appears, and when I check it’s because the recording is no longer carried by Apple.  That seems to be an issue with all streaming services.  Anyway, the playlist themselves have been maintained for years 

I hardly ever use playlists, but I back up Roon regularly and I use Qobuz.  Is something wrong with me because I do not use playlists?

Many, many thanks to all, especially classdstreamer.

I just purchased Soundiiz and transferred all my Qobuz playlists. That is the best $36.00 I ever spent! Thanks to your advice I will definitely sleep better...beginning tonight!

Greatly appreciated! 

I’m a third vote for Soundiiz. With Soundiiz, you can keep track of saved artists, albums, songs, and playlists across music services. And, you can transfer these saved items from one service to another whenever you migrate. Soundiiz serves as a meta platform.

Some of this Soundiiz functionality is free. If you come up against a paywall, you can pay for just a month to transfer things around. (I pay monthly for the ability to update Spotify's dynamically changing playlists in Tidal, which Tidal playlists are then accessible in Roon.)

I take an opposite view from lalitk. He prefers a proprietary app. I want a manufacturer agnostic app because I don’t want my content to be tied to the health of any specific device or manufacturer.

So, yes, you can back up all of your saved music from Qobuz to Soundiiz. If you’d like additional redundancy, from there you can then back up your saved music to Spotify/Tidal etc.

lovehifi22

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there is no sureproof way to back up Qobuz playlists.

You can export the list using any one of a variety of tools, such as Soundiiz.

Thanks to all,

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there is no sureproof way to back up Qobuz playlists. We all remain at the mercy of the cloud. 

How do you export a Roon playlist to PDF?  Thanks

Hi @cfa88  I had to try a few times to remember myself.  Open the playlist and click the three dots to the right of "Play Now"

Click export:

Now this does not seem to work currently on my ipad but does work on my macbook.  Hope the screenshots made it.  Ken

I've been in the process of moving from Amazon to Quboz due to BluOs having issues with Amazon search. I used Soundiz to transfer playlists successfully. Then within a week several disappeared. I eventually heard back from Quboz and they said they could not restore them but I could retransfer them. I did and then others disappeared. I still have Amazon so I can xfer again, but I'm thinking about whether to make the move to Quboz or wait for Bluesound to get their act together. Or maybe maintain a Soundiz account but I don't like paying for something to fix something else I'm paying for. 

Never lost a playlist, but have had music disappear, the service stops streaming that artist. 

For me, if it something that I really like, or is important, I buy it.

What bugs me with streaming is that they are always changing something. Tidal has some stuff going on, they are changing all their services, getting rid of all MQA, removing the app from Samsung. On Spotify, playing anything on random, just cycles your favorite songs, it's not random at all. It's good when you are in the mood, but sucks to find new music. 

That’s disturbing. I have spent hours putting together playlists for the winery I work with, several lists 10 hours long so the staff doesn’t get tired of the same songs. We use Tidal /Mac Mini and Meyer Sound.

I can’t imagine coming home had finding my LPs and CDs gone!!

Eddie

baylinor I use the same game plan with Qobuz as my main portal. So far I haven't lost any favorite lists. I recently upgraded to the Eversolo DMP-A8 and was happy to see my favorites list still intact. One thing I avoid as much as possible concerning my digital music collection is using the cloud in any fashion, precisely  to prevent the problem experienced by the OP. 

I never lost my playlists or favorites on my Aurender….here is why another reason to invest in a high quality player that offers a robust proprietary user interface app. Unfortunately, Qobuz is not known for its outstanding customer service. 

I have used Soundiiz to move playlists between Amazon Music and Qubuzz. It worked great and was very easy.

Just another vote for Physical Media.  I’ve made play lists from files burned to my NAS that have never gone nowhere.  When I tried this with Qobuz I lost a few during my first few weeks

With Roon you can export your playlists to either M3U, CSV, or Excel files.  I haven't used the Qobuz app in a long time, so I'm not sure if there's a way to do that from Qobuz.

I never do playlist.  I hope I don't ever lose my Qobuz and Tidal albums in my favorites. Has this happened to anyone?

@fastfreight

How do you export a Roon playlist to PDF?  Thanks

Also, somebody recently told me that there is a 3rd party ap that lets you back up playlists and move them between services.  I haven't looked for it yet.

@fastfreight  My roon playlist is on the core in my Grimm which I sent in for upgrades. Should have downloaded it before I shipped it. 

Your system sounds great. thanks for posting.

Jerry

Someone here recently inadvertently deleted an extensive playlist on Tidal, but he contacted Tidal and they were able to restore it so wouldn’t surprise me if Qobuz may have a backup of your playlists somewhere.  Worth a try fer sure. 

I feel your pain @lovehifi22 !  I have lost years of extensive playlists when my Roon Core crashed.  Now on roon I export all playlists to a pdf.  Since Qobuz and Roon sync I have redundancy if I make a Qobuz playlist at the same time I add songs to my Roon playlist.  And I can back up my Roon Core.  Not sure about backing up straight from Qobuz, they have not lost any of my stuff yet!  I listen across platforms, as I have Roon at home but Auralic Lightning at a weekend home.  So Qobuz is nice as it syncs with both.