Qobuz review 2022

In this article, I review the Qobuz music streaming service. I will be raving about the sound quality offered by the streaming service before sharing my disappointment about Qobuz inability to help you discover new music.

I reviewed the Windows and Android variants of the application, and most of the listening happened via the IfI ZEN DAC. The review was carried out over a couple of weeks while using the free trial on offer.

Why don’t I start my review with what I consider to be Qobuz best feature? Music quality.

Qobuz music streaming quality

Qobuz can stream music up to 24 bits with a 192Khz sample rate. Music is streamed using the FLAC format. You can find out more in our guide to audio formats.

The sound quality is superb and is the best sounding music streaming I have experienced so far. Many of the tracks I listened to was available in 24 bits with a sample rate between 44 and 96Khz.

If you are only concerned about sound quality, then you should try out Qobuz music for yourself now.

Qobuz new music discovery

Now let us take a look at the Qobuz music streaming service as a way to discover new music.

Qobuz offers a selection of playlists put together curated by Qobuz members of staff. There were a number of playlists for various music genres, including those that I enjoy, and the selection was good.

My problem was the lack of suggested music based on what you enjoyed. Every other music streaming service that I have used will constantly look to provide suggestions on the music you like

Every Monday, Qobuz publish a monthly discovery list. I was quite taken aback by the selection offered to me. It hadn’t taken any account of the music I listened to and liked over the last few days.

The windows app supported functionality which allowed you to play a selected track you might want to listen to based on that track. I was unable to find similar functionality on the Android app.

On the Android app if you could select a single track. Qobuz would then start to stream a selection of tracks based on the original tracklist. Similar to a track radio station that many other music streaming services support. It worked well enough, but I always felt like I was fighting against the system.

Qobuz User Interface

I found the User Interface for both the Android and Windows applications to be clean, functional and user friendly. However, I did find some functional inconsistencies between the Windows and mobile applications.