Qobuz sound quality intermittent issues?


Sat down for a listen few days ago for a listen. Patricia Barber “Cafe Blue”. Sounds flat, soundstage all cluttered in the center, glaring mids, muddy bass, details subdued, highs rolled. Tried several other albums, same thing. Got so frustrated signed up for Tidal trial. Played same albums on Tidal sounds like it should. Back to Qobuz and no bueno. Tested network speed, in the upper 200s. This morning rebooted all routers (eero mesh, Apple AirPort base station. Rebooted the player.  Played same material and seems to be back to normal on Qobuz
Anyone else ending up in the same boat?
What gives?

Auralic Aries G1 player, Bryston BDA-3 DAC. 

128x128audphile1

Showing 8 responses by audphile1

Thanks all for the replies. I thought I was either losing my mind or my hearing.  Good to know I’m not the only one experiencing these nastiness of streaming. 
I rebooted all network and audio hardware including reconnecting USB cable between AURALiC and Bryston and rebooting both units (power cords out, waited and reconnected). It seems to be back to normal. We’ll see how long it lasts before Treble Fungus strikes again. 
Good all day after the reboot. Threw bunch of different albums at it and it sounds fine. So something is going on either with qobuz or network or the streamer. I also tried it with AES cable and that too sounds fine. 
@ghdprentice what DAC are you using?
@ghdprentice ethernet not an issue. I have one extender close by. I’ll read up on Aurender but so far last two days the system has been sounding great. 
@ghdprentice awesome setup! Had Audio Research CD3 MkII years ago and to this day regret selling it. Can only imagine how good your cd player sounds with years of experience and digital evolution behind ARC’s belt now. 
Yes you can program the Auralic to auto-reboot but it results in unit freezing up. I brought this up with the AURALiC team about a year ago and it’s yet to be resolved. Not s big issue but still. I sat down to listen last night when it was quiet in the house everyone asleep and confirmed that reboot of the streamer did the trick. It sounded amazing. Details, tone, soundstage, dynamics all in spades. Was listening to Tidal and even though my dac doesn’t do MQA the system sounded as good as it should. 
Wanted to post an update….

Since my last post, the Qobuz sound quality had fluctuated several times. It’s gotten back to normal then back to garbage again. Same symptoms - cardboard bass, glaring mids, muted highs, constipated soundstage. Acceptable for background music while you’re on a zoom call but not much use beyond that.
Qobuz recently reduced their subscription fee. In a world where prices only go up…they must know they’re effin it up.
Tidal on the other hand is stable and sounds wide open. 
Have been going back and forth between Qobuz and Tidal. To me Tidal sounds more alive, more open, dynamic and without the midrange glare. It could be my equipment, my room
or my ears. Contemplating to just sticking with Tidal at this point. 

Sorry to hear that but it will most likely show its ugly head from time to time. I switched to Tidal and my Qobuz subscription runs out in Dec. Tidal sounds better to me and is consistent. I also switched from AURALiC to Lumin and I think that helped with stability as well. 

@ozzy62 

Tidal definitely sounds better in my system. Not sure when you last compared the two if it’s been few years I would recommend checking Tidal out again.