Quobuz Receivership

I'm sorry I seem to be responsible for this thread wandering off into definitions of high res - due to me using the term too loosely. I should have said 'CD quality - or preferably better'. I agree 16/44 isn't really high res, except in relation to those streaming services who only offer much poorer quality levels.

GregW posted:

......Personally I'm somewhat conflicted by this. Labels have such onerous terms as to make it near impossible for streaming services to be viable, but I also accept that Qobuz/Xandrie must pay its bills.

 

Very little chance of the bills being paid, nowhere near in full anyway.  Cutting off a potential revenue stream from the new Qobuz when there's when there's minimal chance it will make a difference to the debt situation, makes little sense to me.  If that revenue is not enough to be significant to them, it would suggest the debt probably isn't either.

My playlists appear to be in tact so far though, one album disappeared that I know was there recently, but is already available again, just from Universal now rather than Virgin.  Not sure if it's even related though, I have seen this happen a few times over the last 2 years, and never sure why.  Perhaps the withdrawing business has been going on for much longer unnoticed.

GregW posted:

Personally I'm somewhat conflicted by this. Labels have such onerous terms as to make it near impossible for streaming services to be viable, but I also accept that Qobuz/Xandrie must pay its bills.

Stupid editor................

Can I ask how you know the terms?

Harry posted:

There seems to be contradiction and confusion about what "HiRes" actually is, no doubt encouraged by the suppliers who would love their standard and LoRes offerings to be rechristened "HiRes". Is the Apple product likely to be higher than 16/44? If no, it's not HiRes no matter what Apple call it.

High Res starts with 24 bit for so far I know, so less then 24 bits is no high res...

I agree terms are used loosely, but more often that not Premium seems to refer to higher bandwidth lossy codec files, HiFi seems to refer to CD, HDCD and DAT quality - that is 44.1/16, 44.1/24, 48/16 and  48/24 and hires/hidef seems to occur to anything at a greater than 48/24 sample rate...but yes these boundaries are rather fluid

Simon

Bananahead posted:

GregW posted:

Personally I'm somewhat conflicted by this. Labels have such onerous terms as to make it near impossible for streaming services to be viable, but I also accept that Qobuz/Xandrie must pay its bills.

Stupid editor................

Can I ask how you know the terms?

Assuming 'stupid editor' means me, quite appropriately.  I don't, but very much suspect the deal is along the lines of purchasing the 'good will', assets etc from the original company, transfer employees to a new company, or that of the buyers, and then liquidating the original company to pay the creditors, where there is little, or nothing, to liquidate.  

Goon525 posted:

I'm sorry I seem to be responsible for this thread wandering off into definitions of high res

I don't think it's an apology issue - we're not writing the ten commandments here. I do find it interesting how the term HiRes as applied to digitally delivered files seems to have a different meaning to different people and that the verbiage from marketing departments, even Naim's can be misleading.  Naim's announcement, presumably copied and pasted,  that the Beatles' catalogue was available in "HiRes" on Tidal is a case in point. which perhaps should have been more closely scrutinised before publication. Ripped files on the HDX go into a MQ folder, the HQ folder being empty. and the LQ folder being for less than 16/44 files. Confusion and contradiction.

Qobuz as a business will evaporate during 2016. Its creditors and former suppliers will not give it sufficient credit to be able to generate satisfactory income through new customers who, anyway,  will show only very limited loyalty to this music supplier. With no qualms at all, I have just closed my free Tidal subscription and am happy to await a less pricey option emerge in the very near future. I have had no interest in paying any money to Apple for its Music offering as it does not even match Spotify. This market is going to become very dynamic and bloody with no clear winner in sight.

Apple will deliver a higher definition offering, but we all know that the resolution wars are as confused as the streaming suppliers themselves. Endless discussions fill this site on the various formats from MP3, AAC, ALAC, FLAC, MQA (maybe) and many more. Rather like 4K, 8K and Ultra High Definition televisions, it all sounds and looks great from the attached flash drive in the store, but Sky can barely reach 1080P, if that, and 50 Hz, never mind the 800 Hz capability of my 3 year old Samsung television.  It s not that your hardware is incapable of delivering much higher definition music, or even that your networks and the Internet are incapable either, it is the confidence and commitment needed by music producers to those higher resolutions in order that they can believe they will be able to successfully turn a buck. 

Esoterically discussing whether CD quality streamed music is truly high definition or not is also interesting but will probably be the highest delivered, mass market resolution for quite a long time. Even if producers claim higher resolution will the mass of original recordings merit the name? Still, there appears to be faster movement in the Hifi arena than the monstrous conning than is delivered to our television sets at extortionate cost to keep overpaid footballers in Porsches, Rolexes and WAGs.

We're all doomed. However (like Nero playing his cithara) I'm thankful to be still enjoying Qobuz both in CD quality and Hi-Res (24-Bit).

david

andarkian posted:

Qobuz as a business will evaporate during 2016. Its creditors and former suppliers will not give it sufficient credit to be able to generate satisfactory income through new customers who, anyway,  will show only very limited loyalty to this music supplier. With no qualms at all, I have just closed my free Tidal subscription and am happy to await a less pricey option emerge in the very near future. I have had no interest in paying any money to Apple for its Music offering as it does not even match Spotify. This market is going to become very dynamic and bloody with no clear winner in sight.

andarkian posted:

Qobuz as a business will evaporate during 2016. Its creditors and former suppliers will not give it sufficient credit to be able to generate satisfactory income through new customers who, anyway,  will show only very limited loyalty to this music supplier. With no qualms at all, I have just closed my free Tidal subscription and am happy to await a less pricey option emerge in the very near future. I have had no interest in paying any money to Apple for its Music offering as it does not even match Spotify. This market is going to become very dynamic and bloody with no clear winner in sight.

Apple will deliver a higher definition offering, but we all know that the resolution wars are as confused as the streaming suppliers themselves. Endless discussions fill this site on the various formats from MP3, AAC, ALAC, FLAC, MQA (maybe) and many more. Rather like 4K, 8K and Ultra High Definition televisions, it all sounds and looks great from the attached flash drive in the store, but Sky can barely reach 1080P, if that, and 50 Hz, never mind the 800 Hz capability of my 3 year old Samsung television.  It s not that your hardware is incapable of delivering much higher definition music, or even that your networks and the Internet are incapable either, it is the confidence and commitment needed by music producers to those higher resolutions in order that they can believe they will be able to successfully turn a buck. 

Esoterically discussing whether CD quality streamed music is truly high definition or not is also interesting but will probably be the highest delivered, mass market resolution for quite a long time. Even if producers claim higher resolution will the mass of original recordings merit the name? Still, there appears to be faster movement in the Hifi arena than the monstrous conning than is delivered to our television sets at extortionate cost to keep overpaid footballers in Porsches, Rolexes and WAGs.

The annoying and frustrating thing is that anything in recent years mastered in digital at what we would call high res, would cost the record companies nothing more to make available for downloading than lower resolutions. (Not talking about streaming, in which I have not a ha'porth of interest).

As for TV, the licence fee isn't that steep, and at least it keeps adverts off BBC... 

Bananahead posted: 

Can I ask how you know the terms?

- The Deezer IPO prospectus

- The Apple/Beats deal 

- The Spotify May 2015 financial statement

The detail is remarkably consistent, so it's perfectly reasonable to assume Qobuz was operating on similar terms.

As I have previously said the killer number is the royalty rate, a percentage of revenue. It was always assumed to be about 70 percent, In actual fact it' been much higher. The Deezer IPO prospectus revealed it payed 97 percent and 91percent in 2013 and 2012 respectively. 

Now that Qobuz seems saved, i pray for a quick integration In Nstream. They offer a large and qualitative  catalog, a good SQ at a very reasonable price (espécialy when compare to thoose available for TV). By supporting a good provider, satisfying their clients, Naim would support it's own sector.

+1

I could not agree more. Qobuz and Naim are a match made in heaven from a SQ standpoint.
We should not have to use third apps to stream Qobuz to our streamers.

...not to mention the servers. Seems a logical position to me that these services should be made available via the Naim servers to then feed to the Naim streamers. Of course Naim could just leave them minimally supported and let them slowly fade and die.

M

It seems unfair to suggest that Naim not supporting Qobuz may contribute to their demise, seemingly trying to make Naim do so out of guilt. The one and only reason for Naim to add that would be for the benefit of Naim users. That doesn't by any means have to be a majority, though for Naim it is a matter of weighing up the cost (of development of the link, presuming Q doesn't charge anything to Naim) against any disbelief it, of which I'm not aware.

From various discussions on these fora I get the impression that probably it is only a minority of members who would stream, the non streamers including me. That doesn't mean I don't think Naim should make the link, provided it has no adverse effect (which I don't expect) ! Nor does it mean I don't wish Q well, as I do and just hope that one day they sort out their search engine, and (perhaps) add more things I'm interested in --to buy not stream

The new owners have decided to focus on the UK and Germany. Until Qobuz commit to a North American launch it will be less interesting to hardware manufacturers, especially those with limited resources.

Is that such a bad thing? They presumably have limited resources. Anyway, even though Naim are obviously an international company, the UK surely remains pretty important to them. +1 from me for Qobuz via Naim.

That's won't be for the présent users but for all the futur's adopters...

Qobuz and are a perfect match, yes....that would be even more obvious  without "inconvenience" due to the need of third party applications 

Hi Innocent,

I wasn't criticising Naim for not supporting Q, they will decide which streaming services to support based on a range of factors, including their probable longevity. My comment was based in the fact that they have made Tidal available direct on the streamers and not on the servers, where I believe there is a logic to placing such services. I feel that the support being given to the Naim servers is minimal, and I fear they have made a strategic decision to let them fade and die.

M

It isn't a big job to hook in a new service, it just needs the desire in the Naim marketing dept. It is a logical pairing as other have said. Given the good news at Qobuz plus what has been/is happening at Tidal you'd think they would be on it already.

I'd buy a Naim streamer if it supports Qobuz - All my other kit is Naim so currently I need to look elsewhere and that's what I am doing. I won't buy on the possibility Naim 'might' add Qobuz - A formal statement of intent would do it though.

Anyone from Naim marketing listening to this forum?

Goon525 posted:

Is that such a bad thing?

I think so yes, and more importantly so did Qobuz’s founder. A couple of years ago Yves Riesel predicted most streaming services would either be acquired or go bust. To survive and thrive you need scale, and that means North America.

Furthermore it’s a simple fact that with streaming royalty rates in excess of ninety per cent of revenue; not to mention employee, marketing and infrastructure costs, there are only really two sustainable business models. Last man standing and sugar Daddy.

Spotify’s plan is to be the last man standing. It hopes tol continue to raise the funds required to grow large enough that it becomes the remaining dominant player. This will give them: some economy of scale; better terms from the labels; and more pricing power over consumers.

The other approach is a simple strategic play. You need a streaming service to make your device platform more attractive, and you can generate enough cash from your core business to pay for it e.g. Google and Apple.

I find it profoundly depressing that unless the labels make more reasonable royalty demands, the only way way to succeed at streaming is absorb the costs in to your existing business or have a giant pile of cash and hope it lasts longer than everyone else’s.

Kevo posted:

Given the good news at Qobuz plus what has been/is happening at Tidal you'd think they would be on it already.

 

I don't doubt Tidal has problems, but you're inferring Qobuz will be around longer than Tidal. Why?

Mr Underhill posted:

Hi Innocent,

I wasn't criticising Naim for not supporting Q, they will decide which streaming services to support based on a range of factors, including their probable longevity. My comment was based in the fact that they have made Tidal available direct on the streamers and not on the servers, where I believe there is a logic to placing such services. I feel that the support being given to the Naim servers is minimal, and I fear they have made a strategic decision to let them fade and die.

M

Noted - apologies for taking your comments the wrong way