Qobuz: Music & Editorial

Review by eFreeware

Most streaming catalogs sound fine through a phone speaker and mediocre through a decent pair of headphones. If you have spent money on audio gear, the gap between what the hardware can do and what a compressed stream delivers is the thing that nags at you. Qobuz is one of the services built specifically to close that gap, and the pitch has always been as much about the writing around the music as the bitrate.

The app is free to download and has been on Android since November 2014, which makes it one of the longer-running names in this space. It carries a 4.5 average from more than 84,000 ratings and over a million installs, so it is not a niche experiment. Ads are present and there are in-app purchases.

What I find interesting about Qobuz is the combination it is selling: a large lossless catalog, a team of human editors, and the option to buy music outright rather than only rent access to it. That last part is unusual among streaming services, and it shapes who the app is really for.

A catalog built around sound quality

The headline feature is audio fidelity. Qobuz offers more than 100 million tracks, delivered in lossless CD quality at FLAC 16-bit/44.1 kHz or in Hi-Res at 24-bit encoding up to 192 kHz. That is the technical difference between a stream that has been squeezed to save bandwidth and one that aims to arrive as the studio master did.

Qobuz is pitched as the one service that streams and sells Hi-Res music. Whether that claim holds up against every competitor is not something I can verify from a store listing, but the combination matters in practice: you can stream an album on a phone during the day and download the same recording in full quality.

For someone rebuilding a digital library after years of renting, the ability to download purchases in full quality is a meaningful distinction.

Human curation instead of an algorithm

The second pillar is editorial. Qobuz employs a team of music experts who write and assemble the content: news pieces, long-form panoramas on an artist, album, genre, period or label, artist interviews, and a Hi-Fi section covering audio equipment. The developer puts the figure at more than 500,000 original articles.

Alongside the writing sit thousands of curated playlists, organized by genre and covering rock, classical, jazz, electronic, pop, funk, soul, R&B and metal among others. The distinction between this and a recommendation engine is that a person chose the sequence and can tell you why, which tends to produce better results in the genres where context matters, classical and jazz especially.

There is also a Discover page, a dedicated search bar for the magazine side so you can filter editorial searches separately from music, and widgets that surface recent articles and your latest listening sessions from the home screen. The player has been redesigned to match the music, and lyrics are now available. Digital booklets with liner notes are included too, which is the kind of detail that appeals to people who used to read the CD insert while the album played.

Getting it onto your speakers

Hi-Res audio is only worth paying for if your chain can carry it. Qobuz supports the main wireless routes, including Chromecast, AirPlay and Roon, and the developer says it works with audio equipment from the major Hi-Fi brands. Qobuz Connect extends the app's features onto partner hardware without a loss in quality, which matters if you would rather control playback from the phone than from a separate manufacturer app.

If you are moving from another service, the developer points to Soundiiz for transferring playlists and favorites into Qobuz. That removes what is usually the strongest reason to stay put.

Offline mode is available, so downloaded music plays without a connection. For anyone who travels by plane, works in a basement office or commutes through dead zones, that is table stakes rather than a bonus.

What the free download actually gets you

The app itself costs nothing to install, and the developer offers a 30-day trial of Qobuz Solo directly in the app, with no commitment required. That is the sensible way to judge the service: a month is long enough to test whether your headphones, speakers or car stereo reveal a difference between lossless and what you are used to.

Beyond the trial, the app carries ads and offers in-app purchases. The editorial content, meanwhile, is described as free to access. If you mainly want informed writing about records and a place to read about equipment, that side of Qobuz stands on its own.

The value of that depends entirely on your equipment. On a phone speaker or a pair of budget earbuds, Hi-Res is largely wasted. Through a decent DAC, a home amplifier or a pair of serious headphones, the case for paying more becomes much easier to make.

How I would approach the first month

Start with material you know intimately rather than something new. A record you have heard hundreds of times is the only reliable reference point for whether lossless playback changes anything for you. Pick two or three albums across different genres, listen on your best equipment, and then listen to the same tracks on whatever service you currently use.

Use the editorial side deliberately. The panoramas and interviews are the feature most likely to keep you in the app rather than in a rival. If you enjoy reading about a label's history or an artist's influences before hearing the record, this is where Qobuz separates itself from services that treat writing as filler.

Then test the practical things. Download an album for offline listening and play it somewhere without signal. Try casting to your home setup through Chromecast or AirPlay. Run the Soundiiz transfer and see whether your existing playlists arrive intact. If any of those steps disappoints, that is worth knowing.

Finally, think about whether you want to own anything. It is worth deciding early whether building a permanent library is part of your plan or whether streaming access alone is enough.

Where the trade-offs sit

Qobuz is not trying to be the cheapest option or the one with the most aggressive personalization. The editorial approach means a finite team of writers choosing what to cover, which will not match every taste, and the genres where curation shines are not necessarily the ones a given listener spends most time in. The catalog is large, but curation is a filter, and filters exclude things.

The free download comes with ads and in-app purchases. The Hi-Res promise also depends on hardware you may not own yet, and the app can only deliver what the rest of your chain can reproduce.

None of that is disqualifying. It simply means Qobuz suits listeners with equipment worth feeding, an interest in the writing around music, and a preference for owning some of it outright. For that person the combination is hard to assemble elsewhere.

A considered pick for listeners with good gear

I would point Qobuz at people who have already invested in audio hardware and feel that their streaming service is the weakest link. The lossless and Hi-Res catalog, the download option, the casting support and the editorial layer all serve that listener directly, and the 30-day trial makes the decision cheap to test.

It also suits anyone who misses the context that used to come with a record: liner notes, a writer's take, a reason to listen to an album front to back. The 500,000-plus articles and the curated playlists are not decoration; for the right person they are the reason to choose this over a bigger, blander rival.

If your listening happens mostly through a phone speaker and you want the widest possible catalog above all else, the premium here buys you less. For everyone else, the free download and a month of Solo is a low-risk way to find out whether you can hear the difference.

What's new

Here's what we have been working on: We’ve made some improvements and squashed a few bugs for a smoother experience. Tell us what’s working (or what’s not)! Share your feedback at https://www.qobuz.com/store-router/help/contact/