Qobuz Windows App

I have been using Tidal on-and-off and Amazon Music for a number of years, and recently I pullet the trigger on a Mojo 2.

With the Mojo adition I was really hopping to get a decent improvement on Tidal (I know the Mojo doesn’t have MQA, and for a good reason).

I recently decide to give a go to Qobuz and just clicked the 1st music that appeared in the screen:

Who’s next by The Who... WTF! I had no idea this track could sound that good! To be sure, I run the same track (w/ same bitrate) on Tidal and the difference is tremendous.
I immediately dug into some of my favourite albuns. OMG, it seems I'm rediscovering music.

Tidal discovery options and interface are great but the sound quality isn’t there; MQA is pure snake oil.

About Qobuz; the interface is a bit laggy in my PC (Dual Xeon, 128 Gb Ram)

Since my last post on this subject in February, I gave up on the Qobuz Windows app. When I investigated further, I found that the app freezing was a really common problem, one that Qobuz support admitted they were working on. I’d say it ran only about 20% of the time without freezing.

Fast forward a few months and UPS delivered a Roon Nucleus Plus streaming server.

I signed up for a Qobuz "studio" (hi res) plan and configured Roon to use it and Tidal on the new server and the sound is just plain awesome!  No problems streaming using the Roon box.

I renewed my subscription to Qobuz and have been listening to it a lot.  The app works great within the Bluesound app on my Android devices.  The app is still a little buggy on my PC and runs kind of slow, but works fine on my Dell laptop.  I'm not sure what the differences are between the app and web player, but in my case I have more control over output options.  

I can't get the app to work on my HP laptop at all. It instantly freezes as soon as it loads. I even bought a new computer--it froze on it, too. What is the advantage to using the app over simply streaming from the web?

if the ambition of any streaming media player or service is aimed at higher res audio playback for the masses, especially one which crosses language barriers as its norm, an intuitive  short or non existant learning curve MUST be obvious in its use or operation.

oddly and quite sadly many ‘players/streamers’ miss the mark of being intuitive or even thoughtfully compiled.

the aspect that an app is ‘powerful’ means it is complicated yet it should not be so.  POWERFUL  or CONFIGURABLE should not necessitate the end user needs an AS degree to properly setup the software.

defaults should be in place which enable desired popular outcomes.

for bit perfect   playback click here

to upsample files click here

for DSD playback click here

for playback in all zones click here

etc….

lastly, updates and or upgrades should never become yet more complicated than the previous itterations, they should be simpler. neither should things once in one area, be moved to some other area just for the sake of making a thing appear to be different.

I cancelled my sub too. 

I cancelled my trial.  I'll give it another try in the future perhaps.  Besides the performance of the app, I miss the "daily mix" and "my mix" playlists that Spotify and Tidal create.  Both do a nice job of putting together music I enjoy while playing some things I haven't heard before.

I spent some "quality time" investigating why the Qobuz app is so flaky on my Windows 10 Pro machine and the "smoking gun" is not the Qobuz app, but Windows.  I keep this machine up to date with everything, and power it down when I'm done.  It's not used for much of anything else other than music storage and streaming.  When this machine boots up, of course it runs the "boot up anti-virus scan", and Windows checks to see if there are any updates, the latter seems to fail from time to time and needs to be manually re-run.  I've done all the "configuration" I can in Windows to minimize the ill effects of this Windows Update feature.  I think my best strategy is to boot up the machine about an hour before I plan to use it, fix any Windows Update failures, and just give it time to do its "Windows stuff".  Once the machine "settles down", using the Qobuz app is without problems.

I'm using a new or recently new Mac 5K Retna w/I5 CPU 8GB RAM.

I've tried several times to just get logged in.

today, finally, I got that done. 

however, neither the applications for Mac or their streaming option via Safari works.

their downloaded app won't open. and their web browser streamer won't stream.

its a very buggy not ready for prime time accident if you ask me.

I'm gonna just cancel my sub and wwait a good long while if ever to try it again.

we've come a long way since DOS and command line prompts or instructions. users today given the personal confuser SOTA should be a seamless event with what ever media player users might select.

MPs should simply be plug and play. 

the Tick Tac Toe chicken at the local county fair should be able to use any media player on the market today, free or otherwise. given the chicken does have visible means of support. 

this is especially so if an app or a paid for subscription service is chosen. users should no longer need to know IT lingo or advanced settings in order to obtain media playback apps just to get them up and running.

its utter nonsense.    

naturally, if it turns out to be 'pilot error' and my bad, I'll just have to  get that chicken to come by on her day off and get things straightened out for me.

then.... maybe invite her to stay for dinner.

I run the Qobuz app on a powerful Windows10 Pro machine and I find the best way to avoid the slowness in the app is to boot up the machine well in advance of my listening session, so it has time to complete the startup anti-virus scan, and completes its Windows Update, which sometimes fails and requires that I once-again "check for updates" and let that complete.

In the setup for Window Update I also throttled down the percentage of bandwidth it could use, to 10%.

Once the machine has completed all it's startup steps, the Qobuz app runs significantly better.

I'll investigate "Windows10 Shut Up", sounds like a good way to go...in general.

A follow up in case it helps someone else... I uninstalled the drivers for the other DACs I had on this machine and only left the one I'm using installed and the Qobuz app seems to work fine now.

@gdnrbob2 Thanks for the suggestions. 

I run the Qobuz app on my phone and tablet with no issues.  I installed it on my laptop, which is  a slower machine and it runs fine.  I have plenty of bandwidth, that machine is connected directly to my router, while all the others are wireless and work fine.  I get about 65 Mbps download speeds.  The firewall isn't the issue or it wouldn't work at all.

I'm starting to think it might be a hardware issue of some sort since the issue seems to be confined to that machine.  I have three DAC's connected to that PC and perhaps that's "confusing" the app.  I don't have any issues with Tidal, Spotify, or Foobar however.

Your PC shouldn't be having issues, if you can run photoshop, Quobuz is nowhere near as demanding.
I run Quobuz through Bluesound App and have no issues with hanging up (though I do have some other issues which are probably related to the Bluesound app). No issues if I run the Quobuz app directly.
(Intel I7-4790 with 24gb memory with Win10 pro)
More likely is it is a network issue. 
You also might have to configure your router to allow Quobuz.
B

I have found an app that tames power hungry programs and is free into the bargain . It is from O and O soft ware and is called Windows 10 shut up ( Yea catchy isn't it ) . It works by switching all parts of Windows off that are not needed for music based programs and the like. If you look in the task manager you will be astonished at how many threads have been cut out. I have found it really helps with power hungry apps. Your music through Qobuz sounds completely different , cleaner more detailed and fuller. \try it as I have said it costs nothing.