Qobuz: 5 ways to improve your audio streaming experience
2/4/2025
Translation: Julia Graham
Pictures: Florian Bodoky
Hi-Res service Qobuz is one of the few hybrid options in the audio streaming industry. As well as traditional streaming, it also lets you buy music. Find out what else this service has to offer.
Qobuz has been around since 2007, and unlike a lot of its competitors, it’s based in France rather than the US. Like Tidal, the French service delivers Hi-Res (24 bit/192 kHz), i.e. professional sound quality. Alongside classic streaming, Qobuz also lets you buy Hi-Res files so you own the music should you ever cancel your subscription. Rather than offering a free, ad-financed subscription tier, they prefer to prioritise paying artists. Independent valuers estimate that Qobus earns 18.01 euros per thousand streams (in comparison, Spotify makes roughly 3.40 euros).
Like other streaming providers, Qobuz also offers apps for Android, iOS, macOS and Windows, but it can do far more than just play music. Here are the five coolest features:
Watching/reading editorial content
The Qobuz magazine is a cool feature for all music enthusiasts. You’ll find various forms of music journalism. The Articles section analyses artists, albums and music genres, while the Interviews area provides tantalising insights into the world of musicians, producers and industry experts. Reviews is, as the name suggests, the place for informed write-ups of new albums, often with special recommendations for audiophiles. Meanwhile, Panoramas provides stories about the music, focussing on culture and history. The Qobuz team then compiles suitable songs in playlists – without using any algorithms. The «One Cover One Word» segment is really cool where artists give candid, quick reactions to album covers. They share their thoughts and experiences about the album as well as the artists behind it.
You can find all this content by tapping on the magazine icon in the app and then selecting the desired section at the top. As for Qobuz playlists, they’re under «Discover» (scroll down a bit).
Booklet/Album info
Qobuz provides lots of information about songs, artists and albums. And I’m not just talking about composers, labels or musicians; rather, it also tells you the backstory about a track or album: how it evolved, the inspiration behind it and so on. Just bear in mind you won’t find this info for all music.
You can find this information by listening to a particular song and swiping upwards on the player. You then get these options: All credits or Information. The latter is where you’ll find the backstory and further additional info.
My weekly Q
Every Friday, Qobuz creates a personalised playlist for you. Based on your listening behaviour, the algorithm compiles a selection of songs to suit your taste. However, unlike other services, Qobuz makes sure the playlist isn’t simply a cross-section of your «listening week» and instead is mainly made up of new songs you haven’t necessarily heard. Qobuz also mixes the playlist with lesser-known artists whose music matches your preferences to ensure you get to know new songs.
You can find «My Weekly Q» on the app’s start page. Simply scroll down and then tap on it to open the playlist. If you like it, you need to save it to your library by tapping on the heart icon. Otherwise the playlist will be gone by next Friday and replaced with a new compilation.
Adjusting audio quality
Qobuz offers different quality levels for its music, both for streaming and buying. Open the settings in the Qobuz app by tapping on the gear icon. Select Streaming or Downloads, depending which you want to set the quality for. Now select the relevant quality for Wi-Fi or mobile data. If you select Deactivated, no content will be played at all. For example, you can choose this if you don’t want music to download unless you’re connected to Wi-Fi.
Bear in mind that when you buy a download – which gives you the file from from restrictions – Qobuz sometimes also offers other codecs. Find out more here.
What do the quality levels mean?
Qobuz offers four quality levels, with the lowest being MP3/320 kbit/s. It’s a compressed file in MP3 format, with a bit rate of 320 kilobits per second. Even this level delivers decent, albeit not lossless, quality. To put it into perspective, this is the highest quality level available on Spotify. It’s worth selecting if you use true wireless Bluetooth headphones and want to listen to good quality music on the go.
The next level up is CD - 16-bit/44.1 kHz. As the name suggests, this setting offers CD-level quality. Qobuz offers the FLAC codec for streaming (Free Lossless Audio Codec). If you use Qobuz with wired high-end headphones or hi-fi systems, this is the quality level for you. Here are some headphones it’s compatible with:
For wireless headphones, you’ll need both a smartphone and headphones that support the aptX lossless codec.
Finally, the highest level is Hi-Res - 24-Bit, which you can select with 96 kHz or 192 kHz sampling. If you want to listen to music at this level on the go (not all tracks on Qobuz support this), your playback device has to be connected to an external digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) (USB-C adapter).
Here are some compatible headphones:
You connect the DAC to wired headphones (usually with a 3.5-mm jack), which need to be Hi-Res. Here are some compatible headphones:
Report missing albums
Qobuz also offers modern hits, but more than anything, it boasts a huge collection of jazz, blues and classical music. If there’s an album or a recording you can’t find, you can request it. Tap on the gear icon at the top right, then on Report Missing Album. You’ll be redirected to the Qobuz page where you can enter details about the artist and the album you’d like. The streaming service will then check with the label to see what they can do.
Which service should I check out next? Let me know in the comments.
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Header image: Shutterstock
I've been tinkering with digital networks ever since I found out how to activate both telephone channels on the ISDN card for greater bandwidth. As for the analogue variety, I've been doing that since I learned to talk. Though Winterthur is my adoptive home city, my heart still bleeds red and blue.
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