I went from a major streaming service to this niche platform for audiophiles: that’s why I’m glad I made the switch.
With 751 million users, streaming giant Spotify is the most popular streaming service and has become a destination for many music lovers around the world.
And I can see why; its massive music library, combined with its endless catalog of audiobooks and podcasts, makes it a great hub for all your listening needs. And, after years of waiting, the service finally started offering its Premium subscribers 24-bit hi-res audio quality.
High quality sound for Qobuz
There’s an immediately clear difference between Qobuz and Spotify’s sound quality that’s hard to deny. Listening through the Award-winning Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones, Qobuz delivers a highly engaging, detailed and exciting musical performance.
When playing Aurora Another Skin TypeQobuz offers a much more dynamic range than Spotify, which feels shallow and uninspiring by comparison. Its bass handling is incredibly diverse but powerful as well, giving each track a great sense of timing that will get your toes tapping.
It sounds like Qobuz puts more care into their music that sounds great, with a real passion for high quality sound.
I have to warn that my daily listening experience is with Bluetooth headphones connected to my phone, so technically I don’t get the full quality of the analysis without using a DAC and wired headphones.
But, even with this compressed listening, Qobuz still stands out as a cleaner, more detailed player. A big tick for the underlings, here.
Well written and detailed content on albums
The French forum’s sense of passion and care for music is carried over when it comes to the content written on the site. With the magazine feature, you can access a series of thought-provoking articles discussing the latest music events or featuring older artists.
From features about the importance of Bad Bunny’s recent Super Bowl performance to a weekly roundup of new must-listen albums, it feels like a slower, more targeted experience browsing the service.
Even the artist descriptions are well researched and full of ideas on where to start if you haven’t listened to any of their content yet.
Qobuz is run by a relatively small team (especially compared to Spotify), which helps recommended content feel more personal than its larger competitors.
Spotify has faced a fair amount of backlash recently over the distribution of revenue to artists, and Qobuz is the first streaming platform to officially disclose its royalty rate per stream.
That makes the smaller platform an easier choice from a music lover’s point of view, in terms of access to popular content and more transparent income for artists.
A less intuitive user interface
Where Spotify is limited, however, is its intuitive user interface, which makes finding the music you want that much easier.
If you use Qobuz’s search feature to find a song or artist, you have to be very precise. Misspelling a single word can completely skew your results, which can be very difficult, especially if you’re using the app on the go.
Spotify, on the other hand, is able to match what you’re looking for with more accurate results. So searching for artists if you don’t know the correct spelling is not a problem.
We experienced the same issue with Tidal, so it’s far from being a problem with Qobuz. But it means that Spotify is easier to navigate in this regard.
Spotify has more accurate recommendations
In addition, Spotify’s algorithm-driven configurations (such as ‘Personalised’ and ‘Customized’) are based on your listening habits and can recommend more accurate tracks as a result.
Music discovery mixes like ‘Discover Weekly’ and ‘Release Radar’ are also at the forefront of Spotify’s experience and arguably this is where the service still has the edge over its competitors.
We said in our review of the streaming service: “Typically, such playlists are straightforward, offer a good mix of both old and new, and include remixes of new songs by artists you listen to.”
As we said, Spotify has a much bigger team behind it than Qobuz. Its algorithm-led feel differs from Qobuz’s approach which relies heavily on top picks from the editorial team.
Qobuz offers you its curated playlists with a mix of your favorite tracks and recommended discs. These are called the DailyQ and WeeklyQ playlists, and they do a decent job of figuring out what kind of music you might be excited about, even though it’s not perfect.
For example, I’ve been listening to tons of music since I had Qobuz (don’t judge me), but none of the tracks are included in any list.
Spotify, however, features a specific playlist that includes a number of music tracks that I listen to regularly, as well as similar tracks that suit my tastes better than Qobuz’s recommendations.
There’s an argument that Qobuz’s strategy helps introduce me to more songs, but with a personal playlist, I expect to hear a few tracks that the service knows I listen to a lot.
Still, I’m very happy to have made the leap from Spotify to the niche platform Qobuz.
Simply put, high sound quality is worth a little compromise in terms of UI and intuitive personalized recommendations.
Qobuz is available with a one-month free trial so, if you find your eyes popping out of Spotify and wondering what other options are out there, I recommend giving it a go.
MORE:
Here’s our full review Qobuz
Check out our guide to the best music streaming platforms
And this is our review Spotify
