All About Streaming Music Services

[Papy Oli]

- The playlists page (viewed as covers, it can be as listing instead)

[Papy Oli]

- View within a playlist (ditto)

[DavidW]

When it was (hopefully no more) affecting a substantial chunk of the albums saved in your playlists, it rather made the Qobuz experience much less appealing 

Oh that is awkward.  I've only had it happen to me twice.

[Papy Oli]

Oh that is awkward.  I've only had it happen to me twice.

Not at all, David. We all have different experiences with such platforms.

[Brian]

Looks like both services have really incredible selections. I tried long and hard last night and this morning to test the limits of obscure and out of print albums. I was deliberately looking for things they might not have - and they had almost all of them. Really really impressive libraries.

Just jotting down things that are on one but not the other:

Qobuz has:
Two Michel Block recitals of Chopin on Guild
Several obscure Esteban Sanchez recitals
Manfred Honeck's Naxos Bruch disc
Reynaldo Hahn quartets with the Tchalik Quartet
Some additional La Dolce Volta albums (Idagio has fewer)
Some MDG albums (Idagio appears to have none)
LP Classics
Supraphon

Idagio:
Fou Ts'ong Scarlatti album on Meridian
George Lloyd's violin sonata on Albany
Occasional bonus tracks to Sony/Universal albums (I found two, both German artists, Nils Mönkemeyer and Albrecht Mayer)
Photos of a lot of artists at the top of their pages

I noticed Qobuz has multiple pages for single artists. For example, Manfred Honeck has just one album listed under his name, with two more under "Manfred Honeck, Cond." and many more under "Pittsburgh Symphony, Manfred Honeck." Luckily they all come up together if you search his name under "albums" rather than "artists".

Both services find Juan José Mena changing his name to Juanjo VERY confusing. But they have his stuff.

[Todd]

Qobuz has:
Two Michel Block recitals of Chopin on Guild

One day I hope to find any streaming service with the below Block recording.  Indiana University of course has a copy available, so I may have to go the interlibrary route if ever I want to hear it.  Which I do.

[Mandryka]

One day I hope to find any streaming service with the below Block recording.  Indiana University of course has a copy available, so I may have to go the interlibrary route if ever I want to hear it.  Which I do.

If that's the one with an op 14, op 90 and an op 31, I can let you have it.

[Holden]

According to Amazon (who have it but it's expensive at $54) it is indeed the one with 10, 17 and 27. So I'd jump on Howard's generous offer. You've intrigued me about this recording.

[Brian]

By the way, Olivier, thank you for posting those screenshots. Helps me know what the app would be like and how the interface works.

Looks like both services have really incredible selections. I tried long and hard last night and this morning to test the limits of obscure and out of print albums. I was deliberately looking for things they might not have - and they had almost all of them. Really really impressive libraries.

Just found another example thanks to Olivier's screenshot:

Idagio:
Does not have Dutton

Qobuz:
Has Dutton, but if you want to listen to composer David Matthews, you have to scroll through the Dave Matthews Band to find him 

This seems like a funny summary of the two services 

[Madiel]

Well it made ME laugh.  And think about listening to the Dave Matthews Band too. 

[amw]

In Qobuz search you can filter results by genre as well, so I usually look for e.g. David Matthews by typing his name in the album search bar, hitting enter, and then filtering by "Genre > Classique" or local linguistic equivalent. (For some reason the service believes I live in France.)

Dutton (along with MDG and a few other labels) also has an issue where the label failed to supply anything beyond 30 second samples of particular tracks or albums, so that you can't actually listen to them even with the highest tier of subscription, and in some cases you can't download them either. No idea why this is, but this is a label issue, not a Qobuz issue—I guess they can't really force a label that's signed with them to supply full albums rather than samples.

[Papy Oli]

By the way, Olivier, thank you for posting those screenshots. Helps me know what the app would be like and how the interface works.

Just found another example thanks to Olivier's screenshot:

Idagio:
Does not have Dutton

Qobuz:
Has Dutton, but if you want to listen to composer David Matthews, you have to scroll through the Dave Matthews Band to find him 

This seems like a funny summary of the two services 

Glad it helps Brian.

Along AMW's filtering recommendation below, if you seek a particular label for a particular composer, you'll get more direct results by searching "Matthews Dutton" then clicking See All Releases. See attached.

[Papy Oli]

That works also for "performer label". See attached for "Herreweghe Phi".

This is the search feature, with the label, that I miss the most in Idagio.

[Brian]

Thanks all. With my previous service I almost always included label names in search (e.g. Walton Chandos) so it is a regular habit for me.

This issue of some Qobuz albums being samples/decoys is frustrating. It's hard to tell without signing up since all I can see from the outside is the download store.

[Daverz]

Thanks all. With my previous service I almost always included label names in search (e.g. Walton Chandos) so it is a regular habit for me.

This issue of some Qobuz albums being samples/decoys is frustrating. It's hard to tell without signing up since all I can see from the outside is the download store.

I only recall this being a problem with the previously mentioned Dutton albums. 

[DavidW]

This issue of some Qobuz albums being samples/decoys is frustrating. It's hard to tell without signing up since all I can see from the outside is the download store.

Yes I encountered that recently as well on a few albums.  I'm sorry that I didn't mention it before.

[Madiel]

It honestly has never occurred to me to try searches by record label...

[Holden]

It honestly has never occurred to me to try searches by record label...

I just did this for Dutton on Qobuz and got a lot of results. It includes new plus historical material and they are also full tracks.

[Brian]

Signed up for free trial on Qobuz (which lasts a month). Almost everything has been great so far, even just on web player I'm delighted with the sound quality.

Two notes:
I did find a "missing track," the Dutton album of very early and late Vaughan Williams orchestral works has a single track grayed out (the concertante cello piece). The rest was lovely.

It is quite annoying that when you listen to an album, at the end of the album it randomly selects a "related" album to play. Just because I'm enjoying Jarvi's Prokofiev, doesn't mean I want to hear the 1812 Overture!

[Papy Oli]

Signed up for free trial on Qobuz (which lasts a month). Almost everything has been great so far, even just on web player I'm delighted with the sound quality.

Two notes:
I did find a "missing track," the Dutton album of very early and late Vaughan Williams orchestral works has a single track grayed out (the concertante cello piece). The rest was lovely.

It is quite annoying that when you listen to an album, at the end of the album it randomly selects a "related" album to play. Just because I'm enjoying Jarvi's Prokofiev, doesn't mean I want to hear the 1812 Overture!

Not done it before but that might do the trick for the Auto-Play:

Click on your account name in the top right corner
Settings
Tab "Music Playing"
under Playback, untick Continue playing music after your queue has ended

(nb: Idagio has the same feature by default too)