Deezer Elite (CD Quality Streaming) coming to UK in March

Thanks Greg. This is relevant to me too.

Let the price-wars begin.

G

Interesting.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzhvgjfbY8I

And it will look slick when I announce the Pono/DuckBack tie-up.

Listen to some of my CDs in, err, CD quality - on demand (just e-mail me and I'll stick it on when I get a moment)

('slick' in error for 'sick'. But it works

- in reverse)

Reflecting further, I think Deezer's announcement could be really good news for those of us interested in CD or better quality streaming.

Qobuz while in better shape than 2014 is still financially constrained, it's future still uncertain. Tidal was/is financially constrained. It's unclear just how much investment Jay Z will actually bring. Deezer however has a lot of investment, heavy industry backing, and a global footprint. Offering CD quality streaming to 150 markets is a bold move and one Spotify is likely to take far more seriously than relative niche players like Qobuz and Tidal. Things are looking up.

The Deezer price point is intersting. Qobuz has gone from strength to strength from it's slightly precarious spot last year with a growing list of industry partners to help secure its rate of growth and development in the market space.. But £15 pm is better than £20 pm, and the increased competition has got to be good... and hopefully this will pressure the Qobuz subscription prices  down.  I think it will be healthy to have multiple service providers offering different flavours of service... and we the consumer should be the beneficiary.

I think prices for lossless streaming will tumble over the next year.

G

I got my invitation to join the Deezer Elite service today. I'll have to wait until I get home to test it on my Sonos units, but streaming from my Mac in the office in CD quality has been most enjoyable today.

The 12 month Deezer Premium subscription came 'free' with the first Sonos unit I bought in October 2014. I was expecting the Deezer Elite upgrade to run until October 2015, so it was a nice surprise that the upgrade runs a full 12 months from today.  At today's exchange rate, GBP 31 to steam 35 million tracks in CD quality In CD quality sound pretty good.

How do you get access? I can't find any mention of it on the Deezer site. I got a Sonos last week so don't think I qualify for free but would be interested in signing up

My email through too - £Bargain! The 'Library integration' is seamless.

Might run with Qobuz & Deezer for a while to see which I prefer...or if Naim 'connect' eventually.

G

Apologies if already mentioned, Deezer emailed  me to upgrade to Elite if I pay the  Premium + for a year in advance, therefore saving 50%.

I'm paying £35.88 for a year's lossless streaming. It will be an interesting year ahead but meanwhile, so much music so little time...

G

Is Deezer streaming gapless?

Is everything on Deezer CD quality?

Everything I've played and checked so far with the 'Elite' subscription notes 'FLAC'.

G

The CEO of Deezer said that 25M tacks out of the 35M in their catalogue are available in FLAC Format.

I received an email, because I had the free premium membership that came with the Sonos units towards the end of last year in Europe. Based on the announcement in February, I think it will be opened up to all Sonos users on March 19.

Most of what I have tested today was in FLAC. A notable exception was Love Creole by Fatboy. 25m tracks sounds pretty good to me. 

Regarding quality, I find the improvement quite significant. In Mark Knopfler's Beryl from the new Tracker album, I heard a light organ, that was almost imperceptible on the MP3 version.

Only thing I haven't yet figured out is how to get CD quality on the iOS app, which would be handy for the car.

Everything I have tested this evening using the Sonos Connect has been. I previously sent an email to Deezer and was told this was the case with FLAC, but not MP3 material. The only real caveat is your connection speed and ability to buffer big files. I'm lucky enough to have a pretty fat pipe so haven't run in to that issue yet.

Have you had a chance to explore their classical catalogue? That's one genre in which Qobuz excels so it would be interesting to know how Deezer compares.

25M tracks at say 4 min averge per track is about 190 years worth of music.

There isn't anything I haven't been able to find, but it's literally been a few hours so too early to tell. In the previous months I found them quite comparable but Qobuz obviously had the edge because it was CD quality. I'd normally find the work in both, but there could be differences in which recordings were available.

If I broadened out the question to all my searches I would clearly say Deezer had an edge over Beats, but Qobuz was consistently behind both.

For me it's not really a big concern. As you say there's more music than I have time to enjoy. I love streaming, but it's still largely a try before you buy and discovery option for me, but I could see that changing with time.

Interesting, I find Deezer lossy comparable with Spotify, but there are severeal  recordings .. and master versions I can only find on Qobuz.. having said that there does appear certain labels that are not supporting lossless at the moment so I can only get on Spotify or Dezzer lossy. 

I use a Sonos Connect as my source.

Simon

I think it's going to be dificult to compare the services objectively. Any comparisons are likely to be anecdotal. 

This morning I noticed that my favourite recording of A Love Supreme, by John Coltrane was available with a UK IP address, but two tracks were missing with a Swiss IP address. I've also noticed that with a Swiss IP address more Dire Straits is available than with a UK one.

Generally I don't think it's a big issue for me. If something is important to me I will buy it anyway.

p.s. I have a good CD rip but if anyone knows of a worthwhile 24 bit version of a A Love Supreme I'd be interested. 

This right here, this is still incredibly amazing to me. I do not have a copy of, nor am I familiar with, A Love Supreme. I was listening to Radio Paradise on my SuperUniti when I read this on my iPad, jumped to Spotify and did a search...found three albums (two saying 1965, one from 2002 - no other details)...hit "play" for the 2002 version in Spotify, which automatically switched the SU input (nobody else has remarked on this two-way integration beteeen apps, but I think it's cool), and am now enjoying a new recording while typing this reply. 

This is may not be a classic "audiophile experience", but I'm not really a classic audiophile (if there is such a thing). It is, however, a truly modern and opportunistic experience that is completely enabled by technology. I am delighted. Would it be better if I had lossless Tidal/Deezer/Quobuz/Spotify instead of lossy 320k? Sonically, I suppose it would - at least a little (I'm not in the camp of folks who find Spotify or Radio Paradise or MP3 rips to be "objectionable" or "unlistenable" or, worse still, "irritating" thank goodness). But I doubt that my delight at the discovery and the ease with which it all fell together into my lap would have been increased...

My trial with a copy of Gramophone and Spotify downloads was equally fun and enlightening (thanks Goon!) albeit more intentional and less coincidental. Fun stuff. Happy listener. 

Regards, alan 

ps - there are 13 tracks on this Love Supreme album with a Canadian IP address; four studio parts, five live (including intro) and the rest listed as Alternate and Alternate Live.