Serious Problems with Qobuz


About six weeks ago I started having trouble with Qobuz. Many recordings that are available to stream suddenly appeared as "Unavailable" in Roon and as "Sample" in Qobuz own app (in this last case, you can stream only about a minute of each track and nothing more). I contacted Qobuz on several occasions and they emailed me saying that it is a "rights" problem. The labels affected are Chandos, BIS, Naxos, Capriccio, and CPO, and not all of the recordings are affected but mainly high resolution ones, and featuring certain composers, orchestras, conductors and performers. According to Qobuz, Naxos is the culprit as it owns all of those labels. Qobuz mentioned that the "are working with the labels to solve the problem", but up to now nothing has happened and the list of unavailable recordings is growing. In fact, some labels, like BIS and Chandos, have told some customers that have contacted them about this problem, that they are not the ones doing this.

Interestingly, this is not affecting the same recordings in Tidal, which are only available in CD resolution (44.1/16). This raises the question, at least for me, how viable is Qobuz when the recordings I want to listen to are being made unavailable. Mind you, recordings that were available before and which I listened to and marked as "favorites". Customers are paying for this service, which is not cheap, and it seems that Qobuz is reneging on the recordings it made available when one signs on.

I asked some very well known reviewers, some who had featured Qobuz reviews and interviews with the company's CEO, but none answered, and one is "sponsored" by Qobuz.

Qobuz has to answer to its customers and be forthcoming about the real problem and let us know if this problem can be solved or not. If not, they will be losing a lot of customers to others. A very bad way to run a business.
brucknermahler
Have you checked out Idagio?  It sounds as if it might cater better to your tastes.  
“Neither Qobuz or Tidal guarantee the availability of any specific files, as far as I can tell.”

Exactly! There isn’t a single streaming site I’ve found that’s got it all. Being an early adopter of Qobuz, I say they have come a long way. If I see a album missing, I let Qobuz know via email and so far they have not disappointed me.

A missing album or album no longer available from their extensive catalog is hardly a ‘serious’ problem :-)
Why do the words "whiner" and "entitled" come to mind? 

If you're unhappy with the service, stop paying for it and cancel it. If it doesn't meet your needs, move on.

You have choices, but as someone famously said "You Can't Always Get What You Want."
I think somebody here needs to take some lessons on a way to carry on a dialogue. I do not came here to Audiogon to be called a "whiner". I am ENTITLED to say what I have been exposing because I am a paying customer and have the right to express my dissatisfaction with a service provider or any business that does not behave well with its customers. Protesting a bad treatment from a business is not whining. It is a right that every paying customer has.