Qobuz & Sublime Pro ?

[martin_a]

Hi guys,

I would like to try a few albums on Hi Res quality from Qobuz to see if I switch from Tidal to Qobuz.

I have bought an album in the Hi Res quality and played it on Spark but I would like to know how to be sure that I'm playing the Hi Res version, I'm searching for a Qobuz & Spark tutorial but didn't found it.

[steve_denney]

I am interested in your observations. I too have Tidal but am thinking if the sublime plus Qobuz is worth switching to.
I would hope that if you have a hi res version then via Spark it should auto play it in the hi res format.


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[streamy]

Hi guys,

I would like to try a few albums on Hi Res quality from Qobuz to see if I switch from Tidal to Qobuz.

I have bought an album in the Hi Res quality and played it on Spark but I would like to know how to be sure that I'm playing the Hi Res version, I'm searching for a Qobuz & Spark tutorial but didn't found it.

Congrats! You made the 1000th thread in the Phantom section of the forum! Welcome.
When you set in Spark in the Qobuz setup Hires as audio quality and have either the Qobuz sublime or the Qobuz Sublime+ subscription Spark will stream in Hires. The Qobuz sublime subscription however only streams purchased Hires albums in Hires whereas Sublime+ streams all Hires albums in Hires. However, there is no way to see which datarate is streamed. Your ears need to hear the difference. You can so stream Qobuz with a Mac or PC and feed an optical signal to the Phantoms. The optical stream you can check reg. resolution and sampling frequency. Don‘t use the optical input of the dialog as it is still buggy (hi frequency crackels). But the Phantoms play up to 24bit/192kHz. Downloads play well through Spark and in full Hires quality.

[martin_a]

@streamy Thanks you for your answer !

What I understand is that there is 3 ways to stream Hi Res audio from a Qobuz Hi Res Album :

- No subscription : purchase the Hi Res album and send it Opticaly to the phantom
- Sublime subscription : stream the Hi Res purchased album with Spark
- Sublime+ subscription : stream all the Hi Res albums of Qobuz with Spark

Am I right ? If I am it means that I need an optical input to my phantoms to test my purchased Hi Res album to see the difference with the CD quality from Tidal.

Do you recommend any device to send an optical stream to my phantom from my Mac because there is no optical out from my iMac ?

[streamy]

@streamy Thanks you for your answer !

What I understand is that there is 3 ways to stream Hi Res audio from a Qobuz Hi Res Album :

- No subscription : purchase the Hi Res album and send it Opticaly to the phantom
- Sublime subscription : stream the Hi Res purchased album with Spark
- Sublime+ subscription : stream all the Hi Res albums of Qobuz with Spark

Am I right ? If I am it means that I need an optical input to my phantoms to test my purchased Hi Res album to see the difference with the CD quality from Tidal.

Do you recommend any device to send an optical stream to my phantom from my Mac because there is no optical out from my iMac ?

Maybe I was not clear enough in my previous post.
When you have Spark installed on a PC or a Mac you can setup in Spark, which folders you want to add for streaming. These can be local folders on the computer running Spark or a network drive e.g. on a Nas. Those files can be compressed, lores uncompresed or hires files. So you can stream from Spark all purchases from Qobuz as long as you store them on a folder you indicate in Spark as local folder.
When you want to stream a hires file directly from Qobuz within Spark (you can search and play directly from Qobuz) then you need to have the hires file purchased or subscribe to the sublime+. The optical input of the Phantoms can be used to connect any streamer, e.g. a Raspberry PI with and optical output, e.g. the hifiberry digi+ board, which e.g. can run as Roon endpoint (RAAT). It supports any stream (optical) up to 24/192kHz. The optical input of the Dialog is limited at least in my case (latest firmware and latest Dialog) to 24/96kHz. I was mentioning the optical input way to stream from Qobuz only to indicate that this is tge only way to be sure through measurements on that optical signal what is the streaming format and resolution of Qobuz. The Qobuz implementation in Spark does not indicate you which streaming resolution is currently playing. So you cannot see if it streamy mp3, flac CD format or flac hires. Qobuz offers all of them. You can select you streaming format in the preferences, but when you select hires, but only have a Hifi Qobuz subscription you will get CD format (16/44.1kHz) and not hires. I hope this clarifies my previous post.

[midi]

How should it be possible to stream from Qobuz sublime+ to a Rasperry PI as an ROON endpoint connected via optical output to the Phantoms ? ROON does not support Qobuz. And ROON endpoints are no selectable streaming devices for Qobuz Webplayer/Qobuz App-Player or for Spark.

So for me the only ways to stream high-res Qobuz Sublime+ music to the Phantoms are:

- connecting an OS device directly via optical cable into the Phantoms (not very practicable, when they are fixed on the wall).
- using Spark (you can select "High-res" in the Spark app)

With purchased high-res music it´s a little bit easier.

I´m I wrong ?

[streamy]

How should it be possible to stream from Qobuz sublime+ to a Rasperry PI as an ROON endpoint connected via optical output to the Phantoms ? ROON does not support Qobuz. And ROON endpoints are no selectable streaming devices for Qobuz Webplayer/Qobuz App-Player or for Spark.

So for me the only ways to stream high-res Qobuz Sublime+ music to the Phantoms are:

- connecting an OS device directly via optical cable into the Phantoms (not very practicable, when they are fixed on the wall).
- using Spark (you can select "High-res" in the Spark app)

With purchased high-res music it´s a little bit easier.

I´m I wrong ?

No, you are absolutely right. No direct Qobuz streaming through Roon
But you can purchase the Hires album at Qobuz and play it using Roon and a Rpi with optical card configured as RAAT endpoint. My main point in my two posts obove was that when you stream Qobuz hires through Spark you have no way to be certain that what you hear is really Hires. Whereas when you stream Qobuz through an optical output of a PC/Mac with the Qobuz app then you can check what the streaming format is. Apparently (reported in the Roon forum) Tidal reduces the streaming quality when there is ‚bandwidth‘ missing. I have not heard such from Qobuz, but it could be done by Qobuz as well. Bandwidth limitation can be on the service provider side due to high demand, e.g. on rainy weekends.

[midi]

My problem is not a purchased and downloaded high-res file, that´s easy and clear.

My problem is streaming high-res files:

I thought that it is safe to get high-res streaming files using my Phantoms (and may Dialog) with SPARK and Qobuz. If I understand you right, you have doubts about this.

Connecting an OS device directly optical to my Phantoms is no option for me.

I will ask Devialet...

[streamy]

My problem is not a purchased and downloaded high-res file, that´s easy and clear.

My problem is streaming high-res files:

I thought that it is safe to get high-res streaming files using my Phantoms (and may Dialog) with SPARK and Qobuz. If I understand you right, you have doubts about this.

Connecting an OS device directly optical to my Phantoms is no option for me.

I will ask Devialet...

I fully understand you. Devialet is the only one that can give you the answer on how Qobuz is streaming to the Phantoms when Hires is selected in the streaming options. Nothing is directly visible in the app and Hires could be limited to 24/96 as it is the case on the new Dialog, at least for me. In earlier DOS versions, more than 1 year ago, I can recall that 24/192 used to work or maybe it was with the old Dialog that I replaced to get Airplay. Acoustically, it is very difficult at least for me, to clearly distinguish between red book and hires.
I could check for you if there are longer latencies (before the stream starts to play) or even drop-outs when I select Hires and stream from Qobuz a 24/192k album in Spark. This could indicate that the streamed data is much larger. But of course it would also be a bad sign regarding the implementation. Another idea could be to measure the time it takes to fill the buffer. This can be observed in Spark and in theory should take longer when 192k track is loaded compared to a 44k track.

[streamy]

Out of curiosity I tested the Qobuz stream buffering time of hires and CD quality tracks within Spark while streaming to the Phantoms.
I have a sublime subscription that allows Hires streaming from Qobuz when the track/album has been purchased.
I selected from Herbie Hancock the album 'Inventions and Dimensions' that I purchased from Qobuz in 24/192k quality and the album 'Speak Like a Child' from the same artist I did not purchase.
Here are my observations regarding track buffering times (the time it takes for Spark to download and buffer the entire track):

Spark setting Hi-Res:
purchased album 'Inventions and Dimensions'
- Track: Succotask (7:40) selected from purchased albums took 1:36 to buffer
- Track: Succotask (7:40) selected through normal search artist/albums took 1:38 to buffer
not purchased album 'Speak Like a Child'
- Track: Speak Like a Child (7:49) selected through normal search artist/albums took 0:25 to buffer

Spark setting Lossless (FLAC):
- Track: Succotask (7:40) selected from purchased albums took 0:27 to buffer
- Track: Succotask (7:40) selected through normal search artist/albums took 0:28 to buffer
not purchased album 'Speak Like a Child'
- Track: Speak Like a Child (7:49) selected through normal search artist/albums took 0:24 to buffer

As last I checked the file sizes Qobuz has for Succotask (7:40):
Succotask (7:40) as 16/44.1k FLAC: 44.7Mb
Succotask (7:40) as 24/96k FLAC: 154.7Mb (= 3.46 times the CD quality file size)
Succotask (7:40) as 24/192k FLAC: 265.5Mb (= 5.93 times the CD quality file size)

From these few measurements regarding buffering times I conclude:
- The buffering times were quite consistent, only 1-3 seconds different between different trials.
- Buffering of purchased albums with Hi-Res setting took about 3.5 times longer than with Lossless (FLAC). This indicates that the streaming is indeed Hires but it is rather 24/96k than 24/192k.
- With the purchased album it made no difference when I selected the files through my purchased albums or through regular search.
- The not purchased album that is also available on Qobuz as 24/192k buffered in streaming at about the same time independent on the setting Hi-Res or FLAC.
- As main conclusion I would say you really get Hires Qobuz streaming through the Spark application to the Phantoms.
- In all trials I did not experience any larger delays from selecting the track to the start of play. The streaming (as I'm used from Qobuz) was very stable without a single dropout. It was always within 1-2 second to start paying, which is a good performance, specifically for Hi-res at (I guess) 24/96k.
It should be like this, of course. Maybe others can confirm similar results. I have my doubts if 24/192k streaming would provide audibly better SQ than 24/96k streaming. And the risk of dropouts would be higher for sure as we are talking about streaming through internet.