Qobuz - Studio Premier (HiRes 24bit FLAC streaming): £12.99/month or £129.99/year, 30 day free trial - Studio Duo Plan: £14.99/month or £179.88/year, 30 day free trial - Studio Premier Family Plan: £19.99/month, 30 day free trial - Sublime+ (HiRes 24bit FLAC streaming and reduced cost downloads): £179.99/year - Duo and Family plans available.
Product Description: Qobuz offers CD Quality and HiRes streaming and download options together with an impressive range of HiFi equipment integrations.
Overall
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Audio quality
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Content
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Music discovery
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Features
Qobuz
Premium quality HiRes and CD Quality streaming and download service with excellent integrations to mainstream HiFi and other audio devices
Pros
Competitively priced HiRes streaming
Extensive HiFi integrations
HiRes streaming in up to 24bit 192kHz lossless FLAC
CD Quality and HiRes downloads
Duo and Family Plans
Cons
No Free Service
No student plans
History
Qobuz was launched in 2008 and has achieved a series of notable firsts. In 2009 it offered the first CD quality download catalogue and in 2011 the first CD quality streaming service. It was the first online music service to adopt 24bit HiRes in its catalogue and in the summer of 2015, it launched HiRes Streaming with its Qobuz Sublime+ subscription.
During the past few years Qobuz has positioned itself as a top end HiRes streaming and download service and has gradually transitioned from 4 subscription plans to two. The main streaming plan is Studio Premier which offers HiRes lossless FLAC streaming in up to 24bit 192kHz quality. Its other product is a premium offering called Sublime+ which in addition to HiRes streaming offers substantial discounts on its download catalogue. In early 2020 Qobuz announced that it would be dropping its support for MP3 streaming.
Qobuz has extensive desktop and mobile support and has an impressive range of integrations to hi-fi equipment being the first to provide CD quality streaming for the SONOS range of multi-room audio systems and more recently for GoogleCast-enabled products.
In June 2020 the company rolled out a Family Plan option to its Studio Premier service allowing 6 individual accounts to access the service but still does not offer either a student or couples plan.
In 2021 their Sonos integration was upgraded to HiRes and they started to expand their availability adding an additional six countries in the Nordic countries and Australasia in April. From September 2021, Qobuz reviewed and lowered its price plans making its Studio Sublime streaming and download plan an interesting option for those who still value permanent downloads.
In October 2021, its parent company Xandrie purchased e-onkyo music from Onkyo Corporation giving it a foothold in Japan.
Qobuz introduced a couples subscription plan in January 2022 branded Duo which gives the second user an individual Studio account for an additional £4.16 per month. They is also a Duo option for its Sublime subscription plan – see below for details.
Services
Qobuz provides two main subscription plans – a HiRes (96kHz/24bit FLAC or higher) streaming service and a combined HiRes and CD streaming plus download service. UK prices in pounds. Substitute a € or a $ for European and US prices respectively.
Studio Premier / Studio Premier Duo / Studio Premier Family
Studio Premier gives you access to Qobuz’s entire 70-million catalogue of albums in HiRes and CD Quality, all available for streaming. Studio Premier Duo gives couples living under the same roof two individual accounts in a single subscription. With the Studio Premier Family subscription, family members living under the same roof can share up to six Qobuz accounts in a single subscription.
- Studio Premier: £12.99 per month (no strings attached)
- Studio Premier: £10.83 per month, total of £129.99 billed annually
- Studio Duo: £17.99 per month (no strings attached)
- Studio Duo: £14.99 per month, total of £179.88 billed annually
- Studio Premier Family: £19.99 per month (no strings attached)
- Studio Premier Family: £16.67 per month, total of £199.99 billed annually
Studio Sublime / Studio Sublime Duo / Studio Sublime Family
Studio Sublime gives you access to Qobuz’s entire album catalogue in HiRes and CD Quality, all available for streaming and for download purchase, with exclusive Studio Sublime discounts up to 60% on HiRes purchases. Couples and Family subscriptions are available.
- Studio Sublime: £15 per month, total of £179.99 billed annually
- Studio Sublime Duo: £22.99 per month, total of £275.88 billed annually
- Studio Sublime Family: £29.17 per month, total of £349.99 billed annually
Availability
Qobuz is currently available in – Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, UK, USA, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Australia and New Zealand. It is likely that the e-onkyo music service will be upgraded and rebranded as Qobuz.
Audio Quality
CD Quality 44.1kHz/16-bit to 192kHz/24bit HiRes lossless FLAC.
Content
70 million tracks in lossless CD Quality in all genres (Pop, Rock, Classical, Jazz, World, Soundtracks etc) including over 240,000 albums available in HiRes. 200,000+ albums available for download.
Music Discovery
Subscribers have access to exclusive editorial content and the renowned classical music magazine, Gramophone, provides reviews and playlists which can be streamed or downloaded from Qobuz. The usual search and playlist functions are available on all platforms.
Features
Qobuz is well served for both desktop and mobile apps with PC, Mac and Web players, apps for Android and iOS and unusually Amazon’s Kindle. Links for Windows and MacOS apps can be downloaded from here. The webplayer can be accessed here, and the iOS app here and Android here. A recent upgrade has introduced a Dark Mode for its apps.
HiFi manufacturers have been swift to partner up with Qobuz and most of the big players including SONOS, Sony, Arcam, Cambridge Audio, Pioneer, Naim, JBL, Yamaha and many others offer easy integrations with their kit. A full list of partners can be found here.
Qobuz also offers integrations to Googlecast devices as well as AirPlay and BluetoothHD via its Qobuz Connect application.
In Car Entertainment is also well supported with support for Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
Offline listening is also available and for those who would prefer a download these are also available in HiRes and CD formats.
Qobuz has recently added Smart TVs to its list of supported integrations with a recent launch of its app on Samsung Smart TVs.
