Qobuz Connect

@cleeds 

No, you said "its own app" when there are multiple implementations. You and Qobuz imply there is a single app.

I am trying to find reasons why people might hear differences, and having multiple implementations allows the possibility of different bugs in each implementation!

When I said "Writing a Qobuz app to run on each DAC makes sense" it was because it gives TCP a chance to deliver bit-perfect transfers to the device that does the final digital to analog conversion.

(TCP does not stand a chance if network congestion or dropouts exceed local buffer capacity)

Delivering to a streamer which then has to communicate digital to an external DAC creates more opportunities to introduce uncorrected digital errors.  For example, I2S does not have any error detection or correction ability.  There is no guarantee the DAC receives the original digital.  USB has a special mode for streaming which has no error correction.

Forgive me for not trusting Qobuz but their website states 

An analog audio signal is composed of a sine wave, like an electrical signal. A digital signal is simply the reproduction of this sine curve which represents the sonic wave

This is a gross oversimplification as anyone familiar with Fourier analysis can attest.  Arbitrary repeating waveforms can be represented by the sum of an infinite series of sine waves, being the odd harmonics of the fundamental.

I got an email from Qobuz support today. A real person, not a bot.

The company is aware of the issue with QC and will address it coming updates.

As noted, it is fairly complicated as QC must be addressed and shown to work reliably on each streamer/DAC.

As misstl noted, an advantage to QC connect is that you can use it with endpoints anywhere.  Roon ARC is supposed to do this, but I have not been able to get it to work reliably.

Qobuz limits streaming to AC, while Roon allows multiple sources and saved music.  It is difficult for one service to provide eveything one might want.

That being said, Qobuz is a good company, best there is for streaming classical music.  I look forward to it being more reliable.

@billsw 

Have you tried Presto Classical? See Presto Music | Buy classical & opera CDs, DVDs & Blu-rays online.

They also have a streaming service for a fixed monthly rate which includes unlimited downloads at no extra charge.

Presto was designed from the outset for classical and jazz and includes extensive reviews and rankings.  It has partnered with the Gramophone in recent years.  The Gramophone has been publishing reviews and news about classical recordings for over 100 years!

All, as noted above I stopped having the issue (stop start next song) on my Auralic S1 Vega. Later 20-30 hours I had another single episode. Reported to Qobuz.

I have suspected Server issue as mentioned above.

I spent a full year getting Tidal arranged.

Qobuz can have a little more time…

I use Qobuz through Roon and it works well. Particularly if I reboot every few days, which seems to reduce the delay between tracks. I would like to use QC because I don’t tend to use DSP features on roon and could cut out a layer of software. I’ve been a little hesitant to download the firmware update for my streamer because even though the chances are slight, there are horror stories about bricking your equipment, so I tend to only download what is absolutely necessary. After reading this thread, maybe I’ll wait a little longer to let them get the issues worked out. It occurs to me that this might be why there were so many delays in releasing QC, and maybe they released it before it was ready, which wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened