HD Tracks, Qobuz UK

Posted by: Dan43 on 31 January 2014

Apologies if going over old ground. Re-visiting these sites where before I made some hi res purchases, even in Jan this year on HD Tracks it seems both are now not available to UK customers. Trying to get High Hopes 24bit and others, is anyone else having this problem, again.

highresaudio in Germany has some good downloads and allows UK based customers to purchase.

Posted on: 01 February 2014 by ChrisH

Yes, same here Dan43.

Im UK based and have previously bought from HD Tracks and seemed to get round the loophole buying via Paypal.

It doesn't even let me get that far with the Springsteen album.

Though I did purchase the Miles Davis Kind of Blue 192/24 download from them no problems around Christmas.

Maybe some recrdings are 'locked down' more than others?

Posted on: 01 February 2014 by Dan43

Its annoying, bought the Eagles 24/192 six album set no problem 3 weeks ago, now nothing. Also noted when searching it filters out a lot of downloads that I assumed were not available to the UK, but now even those can't be purchased, odd one.

 

Qobuz is the same, cannot buy anything from them, streaming yes, purchases no?

 

Probably locked down before their UK launches, hope the catalogues stay intact hope we don't end up on the end of a license war allowing only one or two options. Even UK acts we can't access to download, bah....:-)

Posted on: 01 February 2014 by GraemeH

I bought downloads from qobuz yesterday - have you contacted them via the faq help to let them know you are UK based?  This 'unlocked' everything available for me.

 

G

Posted on: 01 February 2014 by Dan43

Thankyou Graham will do this today.

Dan

 

Posted on: 01 February 2014 by GeeJay

Article in latest HiFi News and Record Review quotes discussion with Chesky (HDTracks) at the CES that HDTracks dot CO dot UK will be going live in the spring........

 

Watch this space I guess?

 

George.

 

Posted on: 01 February 2014 by ChrisH

Last time I had a look in Qobuz for the Springsteen album I couldnt find it.

Probably didnt look well enough (common complaint from MrsH...)

Anyway, its definitely available and I just bought it.

I am already unlocked for Qobuz for quite a while now.

As Graham says, an e mail to their support e mail address to say you are UK resident and want to download is all it takes. Done and dusted in a day or two.

Good luck Dan.

Posted on: 03 February 2014 by Dan43
It appears, from this response, that Qobuz is not allowing UK customers to access their downloads anymore, so those of you who can have got in early before they cut off.
 
Reading between the lines, use our streaming service please :-)
 
 
Dear Customer,
 Thank you for your interest in downloading some of our music on Qobuz.
 Qobuz recently opened its streaming service in your country.
 Due to copyrights distribution in your country, customers cannot download every music file, however you can still subscribe for a streaming service.
 We understand and appreciate the real wish to acquire some music in quality CD and/or High Definition, however at the moment, it is still not possible for all the record labels in your territory.
 Of course, if you sign in our newsletters, you will be informed about the opening of the download section in your country.
 
Thank you again for your confidence,
 
 
Posted on: 03 February 2014 by kassos

Yes I have had the same disappointing experience with qobuz. I have stuck with Spotify, at least there is a reasonable amount of music available for £9.99 I resented paying £19.99GBP as opposed to 19.99 euros but then to not be able to download any of the music I wanted even after a request to customer services as above and then to have significantly less music available to choose from to stream did not make the slightly better quality sound worth while IMHO.

Posted on: 08 February 2014 by Briz Vegas

In Australia I came up against this problem about 4 months ago With Kind of Blue.

 

Solution.  Got myself a second hand P5 and a nice valve preamp.  My vinyl LPs sound better than pretty much anything digital.  Dave Brubeck Time Out on LP for example beats my nDAC / XPS 2 combo. Now I just buy the record instead, and unlike downloads you can sell em, not that I would, but you get my point.

 

now I've invested in a new format they have lost my custom in the future,and the range of vinyl is better than downloads as we'll.  For the nDAC I will stick with CD rips.