Qobuz etc general query.

[A Stuart]

I was looking for the first time at streaming options?
Microsoft Store pleasantly surprised me, labelling Qobuz as "Free", then after downloading, I discover it costs about £130/year, ie £1300/decade which equates to a pretty decent CD transport, before you have even downloaded anything.
So, I am trying to get a general picture of how Qobuz or any other options work out. Struggling to find the answers from google.

For example, having "bought" an album from Quobuz, do you own it for ever, or does it evaporate the minute you stop your subscription?
Can you put it onto a CD-R to play in the car?

All opinions/advice welcome. I may regret saying that .

[TimN]

I use Amazon Music Unlimited. It's £9.99 a month. It has loads of Ultra HD stuff on there and everything is at least CD quality. I do not remember having failed to find a song or album on there that I was looking for yet.

You can download it to listen to offline. I think you can rip it to CD but I don't know how.

I have the app on my phone. My car has bluetooth, so I can listen to the app on my phone by pairing it with the car, although I think that limits it to CD quality.

The way I look at it, you don't need to buy the album because it is always available to stream anyway. Apart from the occasional hard to find CD, the only music I actually buy these days is on vinyl because I still prefer analogue and my turntables, although modern stuff on vinyl has been digitally recorded anyway.

I think people who are obsessed with Ultra HD streaming use Tidal. Until recently for the really high res stuff you needed a streamer with MQA decoding, but I think MQA have now gone bust so Tidal have started streaming with ultra HD FLAC files, although I have not tried them myself to comment on their service.

John Lennon had the right idea with a record player in his psychodelic Rolls Royce Phantom.

[Greg.]

I stream all my music now. I don’t buy downloaded recordings. My personally owned library consists only of ripped CD’s I already own.
I subscribe to Qobuz. The monthly or annual membership fee gives access to the entire library to stream, many recordings now in high resolution. You stream from the Qobuz library but don’t buy the recording. You can create a library of your favourite recordings for streaming. You can buy and own the recordings and then it’s yours to burn to a CD-R as you wish.

You will need a dac, a streaming device and the streaming service App/software on your PC/laptop/tablet/phone. You can pay thousands of pounds for streamers but this item is excellent for £100.

https://vortexbox.co.uk/shop?store-p...yer-p429428713

I was listening through one at the weekend and the sound quality was astonishingly good. Hope that gives you a general idea.

[Greg.]

I should have said, the DAC32 is a combined streamer and dac. See the linked video at bottom of page. A separate power supply is required, also available from Audiostore.

[TimN]

Might give Qobuz the benefit of a free trial period to see what it can do.

My DAC has balanced XLR outputs that aren't doing anything at the moment. How easy would it be to put some XLR inputs in my 6550 and would there be any benefit to it? Has anybody ever tried it?

[bob orbell]

Tim, your 6550 is not a balanced amplifier so fitting XLR sockets would do nothing to sound quality, if you read about balanced equipment you will understand, a MC pick up cartridge is and can be balanced, but the arm wiring usually needs addressing and a DIN or two XLR plugs and sockets are needed to connect with a SUT. Bob

[TimN]

Thanks, Bob.

On further consideration I had also come to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the grief.