Qobuz continuing to be problematic

I got the same answer as I get everytime I mention the problem to the support organization. The bug is known, we don't havea date for resolution yet......

I got completely fed up with them, and I will now only buy if they are offering something I can’t get anywhere else. I cannot understand  why they don’t have an efficient downloader. They are arrogant when you have a problem, and, as you say, the waste of time is so frustrating!

Bert Schurink posted:

We have already been writing about this before. But I continue to have regular issues with the download processes. Meaning that I spent hours behind my pc rather then in front of my system. I am pretty upset as the problems continue to not get resolved. The only reason I am still doing business with them is that they often are the cheapest. But I am getting close to accept to pay a bit more and get my music from others which don’t have these issues

What problems?

Drikus posted:

Bert Schurink posted:

We have already been writing about this before. But I continue to have regular issues with the download processes. Meaning that I spent hours behind my pc rather then in front of my system. I am pretty upset as the problems continue to not get resolved. The only reason I am still doing business with them is that they often are the cheapest. But I am getting close to accept to pay a bit more and get my music from others which don’t have these issues

What problems?

Music not downloading at all after a couple of albums in the desktop app

In the ad hoc downloading process files not being put in folders but just all in the same subdirectory

Albums they sell which don’t download at all, standard answer oh please select another album instead, we will take it off. And they never take off the faulty albums. 

Corrupted files, which haven’t been pre-checked

...and many more issues....

The problem, as we know, is that Qobuz have got us over a barrel. If you want a 16 bit legacy recording then in the majority of cases they are the only show in town. 

7digital have a comparable catalogue but a lot of their stuff is 320kps.

itunes has pretty much everything you'd want but it's MP3

Bandcamp is great for new stuff but they've been forced to add VAT and priced themselves out of the game.

Boomkat and Juno might have what you're looking for some of the time.

Then you've got the HD providers where prices can be a bit steep.

Last resort might be a retro-grade step in finding a CD from the 'new and used' section on Amazon (then the wait for delivery).

What we need is some more 16 bit (or cheaper HD) competition but that's never really been a featured of the music retail business, or for Qobuz to get it's act together - I've never had an issue downloading from all the others above and they are a whole lot more user friendly.

Bert Schurink posted:

Drikus posted:

Bert Schurink posted:

We have already been writing about this before. But I continue to have regular issues with the download processes. Meaning that I spent hours behind my pc rather then in front of my system. I am pretty upset as the problems continue to not get resolved. The only reason I am still doing business with them is that they often are the cheapest. But I am getting close to accept to pay a bit more and get my music from others which don’t have these issues

What problems?

Music not downloading at all after a couple of albums in the desktop app

In the ad hoc downloading process files not being put in folders but just all in the same subdirectory

Albums they sell which don’t download at all, standard answer oh please select another album instead, we will take it off. And they never take off the faulty albums. 

Corrupted files, which haven’t been pre-checked

...and many more issues....

Lots of problems indeed, highresaudio.com seems to be a worthy alternative.

Don't go to hdtracks, many of the so-called hi-res files there are from re-encoded sacd's.

I find HDTracks very reliable. 

And my experience with SACD rips (when available) has been very satisfactory. There just aren’t enough of them. I would commend to you (for instance) the SACD rip of TDSOTM for example.....

Where do you download sacd rips legally?

My experience of Qobuz has been poor, at best. OK, they sometimes offer very cheap downloads, but I found metadata to be either shambolic or non-existent, like their customer service. The last straw for me was when I tried a 'free' trial subscription and they ripped me off, so I now boycott them entirely. 

ChrisSU posted:

The last straw for me was when I tried a 'free' trial subscription and they ripped me off, so I now boycott them entirely. 

Does that mean they took credit card info to get he trial then automatically charged you as you didn't cancel?

I only ask as I think Roon are about to do that for me after I got a second free trial and never provided new cc details as i used an old log in.

FWIW, I have used HD Tracks in the US to download some albums without issue and the sale prices have been reasonable.

seakayaker posted:

FWIW, I have used HD Tracks in the US to download some albums without issue and the sale prices have been reasonable.

The US might be different, but unfortunately like mentioned before Qobuz is the very often the cheapest by far in Germany, and as said offers a deep catalogue of cd quality stuff as well. HDtracks is only in exceptional cases cheaper for me. I use them once every 3/4 months. The only decent alternatives for me are Highresaudio, but no 16 bit, prostudiomasters.

I have no problems with Qobuz whatsoever other than their prices can be high.

I really have never had an issue with Qobuz as a download provider. I have never used the desktop app and use the 'manual download' option which is perfectly simple.

I do use 7Digital a fair bit, and have had the occasional blip with their downloads but they have always sorted things quickly.

Bruce

I use Qobuz frequently and, despite a brief glitch when they changed their PayPal interface, haven’t had any problems. Their prices are mostly very good and the depth of catalogue, especially off the beaten track and Classical, is unparalleled.

I download manually and it’s a doddle, though I do use their downloader tool for box sets.

Having said that, none of us use Qobuz to a fraction of the extent that Bert does!

Absolutely. If Bert did spend his money on shares of Qobuz, he would have been the single owner of the company by now.

More on topic ...

I have had no issues with Qobuz. All issues I had were with Primephonic which needs to 'prepare' the download which takes ages. Don't know why. Maybe they mark the individual files digitally so that they can trace copied / stolen files.

No issues downloading from Qobuz.  I generally use the PC desktop app for this. Have been great for the 18 months I have subscribed to Sublime, with some great bargains.  Only recent issue has been paying by paypal via Safari.  I have no issues with metadata as I like to edit it anyway to be consistent with my library.  Very straightforward using MP3Tag or Illustrate's PerfectTunes.

Alley Cat posted:

ChrisSU posted:

The last straw for me was when I tried a 'free' trial subscription and they ripped me off, so I now boycott them entirely. 

Does that mean they took credit card info to get he trial then automatically charged you as you didn't cancel?

I only ask as I think Roon are about to do that for me after I got a second free trial and never provided new cc details as i used an old log in.

Yes, that's exactly what they did. I had several attempts at cancelling before the end of the trial period. When the trial ended, I was no longer able to log into my account, but was charged anyway. When I contacted them, they were totally unapologetic, and flatly stated that they were not going to refund me. 

Before this, I'd had a couple of poor customer service experiences when I was having problems with download purchases, so perhaps I should have been more cautious. My experiences with Roon have been much more positive, so I find it hard to imagine that they would be anything like as unprofessional as Qobuz were.