Qobuz Connect - Anybody Heard Any Updates

Dom56 said:
I no longer believe in a future Qobuz connect. If, one day, Spotify switches to Hi-res, then, goodbye Qobuz ;)
Fortunately, there is Wiim Home, MConnect and Bubbleupnp to do the job.
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Qobuz Connect is coming. From June:

What’s more, we gave a public demonstration of the future Qobuz Connect functionality for the first time.

www.qobuz.com

Qobuz at High End Munich 2023 | Qobuz MAGAZINE

The High End trade fair in Munich has become the must-attend event for Hi-Fi enthusiasts. Manufacturers are there to unveil their latest products, armed with plenty of demonstration rooms, making it the ideal place to go and try out a wide range of brand new sound systems. Qobuz was present at...
www.qobuz.com www.qobuz.com

Ensuring a Connect service works, isn't buggy, is support on all the devices people expect is no small task. Qobuz is small.

Can't come sooner enough though. I'm currently subscribing to Amazon as I can listen to Lossless from the App to my Wiim Pro but it's only a "good enough" service. Audio Quality aside Spotify is a much better service.

I gather Qobuz is good but I dislike streaming from streaming device apps. Expecting to switch from Amazon to Qobuz. Will probably keep Spotify.
 
Was there any statement regarding resolution or hi-res from official Qobuz side in this promised land of Connect Felicity? As so many are focussed on the digits their DACs show...
 
Achim1812 said:
Was there any statement regarding resolution or hi-res from official Qobuz side in this promised land of Connect Felicity? As so many are focussed on the digits their DACs show...
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A Qobuz employee stated this only last week on a Facebook streaming group whose admin is another Qobuz employee who did a Youtube video with WiiM some time ago:

”it’s largely up to the manufacturers how long it will take to implement. Our side of things is just about done. Onboarding manufacturers to start soon, depending how quickly this goes will determine when we launch the feature. In my opinion it is on track for this calendar year but there are a lot of variables and things that we don’t control.”

WiiM are in direct contact with the person responsible for Qobuz Connect so will no doubt let us know as and when they have anything to say on its implementation for WiiM devices.
 
Achim1812 said:
Was there any statement regarding resolution or hi-res from official Qobuz side in this promised land of Connect Felicity? As so many are focussed on the digits their DACs show...
Click to expand...
I wouldn‘t expect (nor would its users) anything less than full 24/192 for Qobuz Connect, assuming they can overcome the concerns they have with Chromecast beyond 24/96
 
Brantome said:
I wouldn‘t expect (nor would its users) anything less than full 24/192 for Qobuz Connect, assuming they can overcome the concerns they have with Chromecast beyond 24/96
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My understanding was a concern over the CPU impact of 192, Chromecast evidently being a somewhat onerous protocol. The bandwidth is pretty trivial either way, given where we are today.

They could perhaps adopt their own lightweight protocol, or simply piggy-back on DLNA by incorporating their own control point. On the other hand there are multiple alternatives. Didn't someone once comment that the best thing about standards was that there were so many to choose from? :)
 
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Brantome said:
I wouldn‘t expect (nor would its users) anything less than full 24/192 for Qobuz Connect, assuming they can overcome the concerns they have with Chromecast beyond 24/96
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I thought Chromecast couldn't go beyond 24/96 ... any idea what Amazon use?
 
Witterings said:
I thought Chromecast couldn't go beyond 24/96 ... any idea what Amazon use?
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WiiM can support up to 24/192 over ChromeCast as I reported here around 9 months ago when I first got my hands on a WiiM Pro, but Qobuz caps it at 24/96.

Amazon uses AlexaCast

Edit: Qobuz aren’t consistent on ChromeCast though - this article still claims you can get 24/192 “on some devices” while in other places, they’ll state they deliberately cap it at 24/96

How do I experience Hi-Res on Android? | Qobuz Help Center

help.qobuz.com help.qobuz.com
 
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ratty said:
This would be consistent with there being a device dependency, in terms of CPU horsepower.
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I'd have to think very hard to come up with any modern embedded CPU -- whether general purpose or audio-focused -- that can't deal with processing 24/192 FLAC streams. Heck, even a dirt-cheap Risc-V chip can do it without breaking a sweat. A good user experience will depend more on buffering capability, reliable network connectivity, etc...which pretty much every streamer out there, including homebrew RPi boxes, can achieve.

The main challenge for Qobuz is to make available a solution that can be implemented easily by all the CE manufacturers who already support Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect. Even though the latter has had the added burden of the MQA nonsense, adoption has been pretty good, so that should be an encouraging sign for Qobuz.

Still, I'd expect a deliberate rollout, targeting a couple of streaming solutions (I'm guessing WiiM and Volumio) at the outset, and starting in a few countries and expanding from there, to make sure everything is bug-free, reliable, and supportable. Would be great if they have something available by the end of the year, but I'd rather they do it right than do it fast.
 
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Balthazar B said:
I'd have to think very hard to come up with any modern embedded CPU -- whether general purpose or audio-focused -- that can't deal with processing 24/192 FLAC streams.
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Absolutely, but decoding the payload isn't the issue. I'm sure I recall seeing somewhere that Chromecast is a rather 'expensive' transport protocol, and that the increased size of the datastream was a factor.
 
Balthazar B said:
Still, I'd expect a deliberate rollout, targeting a couple of streaming solutions (I'm guessing WiiM and Volumio) at the outset, and starting in a few countries and expanding from there, to make sure everything is bug-free, reliable, and supportable. Would be great if they have something available by the end of the year, but I'd rather they do it right than do it fast.
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Well Qobuz did say in a joint YouTube video that they expected WiiM to be one of the very first, but again that was probably just schmoozing...
 
ratty said:
Absolutely, but decoding the payload isn't the issue. I'm sure I recall seeing somewhere that Chromecast is a rather 'expensive' transport protocol, and that the increased size of the datastream was a factor.
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But there will be -- almost certainly -- no relationship at all between Chromecast and Qobuz Connect, just as there is none between Chromecast and Spotify Connect or Tidal Connect. I'll hazard a guess that what's required to support Qobuz Connect is about as lightweight as for Spotify or Tidal Connect. Most of the heavy work will probably be on the back-end, but it shouldn't be rocket science.

Spotify has a developer site with a fair amount of information on all things techical with Spotify (including Connect):

Home | Spotify for Developers

developer.spotify.com developer.spotify.com

AFAIK, Tidal doesn't have anything quite as well-organized and -presented.

Re. Chromecast, Google did put a lot of technical documention online. I haven't visited it in quite a long time, but I would assume it's still available and findable.
 
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Brantome said:
After a career in IT where early on I did my fair share of programming, I must admit statements like that and “it’s surely just one line of code” somewhat raise my hackles…
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Agreed. However programming would be so much easier if we didn’t have - you know - end users. 😂
Truly they are the hardest nut to crack of any go live I’ve run.
 
Witterings said:
I did various google searches / trawling through forums to compare the 2 a while back and generally people seemed think Qobuz's overall sound quality was better.

I hasten to add, I've never tried Tidal so it's not personal experience but seemed to be the concensus after doing research.
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I managed to have qobuz in my unsupported country . You are right and the concensus is right about sound quality… Using it with the wiim app.
 
Just wondering if anyone had heard any updates and if it's still in the pipeline?
 
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