Qobuz Celebrates 2nd Anniversary in America: High-Res Streaming Finally Hits Its Stride

Qobuz entered the U.S. market rather late, but the high-res streaming service has done a remarkable job over the past two years building an audience and solidifying its position as the high-res streaming platform of choice.

Before Qobuz became available in the U.S., Tidal was the daily fix because it had no competition. None of the audiophile platforms will ever be in a position to challenge Spotify as far as market penetration and brand recognition are concerned, but the audiophile music streaming platform is growing faster at the moment and giving Tidal all that it can handle.

As a paying customer who uses both platforms almost everywhere that I go, Qobuz offers the superior return on investment.

Tidal have had many more years to perfect their app for mobile devices, and there still is some room for improvement on the Qobuz side — but I’ve discovered that I’m using the platform almost 95% of the time these days. Even with a Roon Nucleus connected to my router at home, and thousands of albums saved on each platform, my brain always tells me to select the same album on Qobuz; and that applies to the four digital music streamers at home where I can access both apps natively or via Roon.

Is there a sound quality difference?

I’m still not sold on 24-bit/192kHz vs 24-bit/96kHz, and that’s even with the ability to listen to the same albums (in both formats) on some very high-resolution DACs. That being said, Qobuz does sound superior with the kind of music that I enjoy; jazz, electronica, classical, and blues.

In 2020, they began a successful out-of-app conversation series, “Qobuz Live,” to educate music lovers and audiophile-curious community about topics of music and high resolution audio playback. The series has so far attracted guests like Perry Farrell, Archie Shepp, Ashley Kahn, recording greats Bill Schnee and Cookie Marenco, and reps of iconic brands including Bowers & Wilkins, Klipsch, and KEF.

“We’ve come a long way very quickly, made possible by enthusiastic partners in the music industry and creative community”

Dan Mackta, Qobuz US Managing Director

About Qobuz
Founded in Paris in 2007, Qobuz is the world’s first Hi-Res music streaming service and a pioneer in high-quality sound. Launched in the US market in 2019, and available in 11 other countries worldwide, Qobuz is designed to meet the needs of music connoisseurs and audiophiles. Offering an exceptional range of exclusive editorial content written by a team of experts, in addition to liner notes and a catalog of more than 70 million titles, Qobuz is the undisputed choice for the most discerning music lovers.

For more information: qobuz.com