How did the numbers match up with your expectations?ĭS: At first, we were meeting, or coming close to expectations. I want to send Bezos a dozen roses just for coming out with the messaging.ĪH: Qobuz had a solid launch. Since Amazon started touting their HD, the promotion of high resolution on their part helped advance our message two, three years – by my estimation. The best thing about Amazon coming into the market is recognition of Hi-Res on the whole. With the new pricing, every important metric improved and we’re moving beyond the audiophile alone. Now more mainstream music lovers are willing to give Hi-Res a try without having to spend much more than a Spotify user. Paid annually, a year subscription is actually cheaper than Amazon, at only $12.50 a month. And so instead of staying at $25 a month, we were able to renegotiate with partners and match their price at $15 per month. Amazon launched their HD service several months ago. We’ve reached an apex where not everyone has necessarily tried it, but at they least know Qobuz, what it is and there is interest and support from the audiophile community as a whole.ĪH: Both Qobuz and Amazon were subject to a bit of a price change this year, can you tell me a little about that?ĭS: Yea. Now everybody in the audio industry knows who we are and many are recommending Qobuz on a consistent basis. For many months, this was the recurring question, however, we’ve made great strides. We are finally to the point where people have stopped asking me “what is Qobuz?” or how to pronounce it. Audio-Head got a chance to catch up with US representative David Solomon at the recent Florida Audio Show and drill into some of the finer details of the past cycle for Qobuz.ĪH: We here on the one year anniversary of the US Launch of Qobuz, can you tell us what’s happened with the company in that time span?ĭS: Lets see. Most noteworthy of course is the drop in price for the high resolution Studio Premier streaming tier from $25 down to $15, but the streaming landscape continues to evolve and grow as more players enter the burgeoning field of what is sure to fully replace downloaded music in a few short years. Valentines Day marks the first full revolution around the sun since the audiophile-friendly platform was first launched in the US, it has been an interesting 12 months of growth for the France-based company. Qobuz, the music lovers’ Hi-Res streaming and download provider, is now the first music service to deliver 24-bit Hi-Res audio streaming on Sonos.It almost seems strange that the one year anniversary of high resolution music streaming service Qobuz has already crept upon us. Qobuz customers will be able to listen to studio-quality music on their Sonos speakers, preserving all of the details and color of original recordings, with the ease of simply pressing play in the Sonos app. Available with the Sonos S2 app, this new integration is one of Qobuz’s broadest expansions of Hi-Res streaming support to date. Qobuz USA Managing Director Dan Mackta said of the partnership, “Qobuz has always strived to make the highest quality audio accessible, as people become more interested in better sound. Now, on Sonos devices, we’re making it easy for millions more people to experience the improvement Hi-Res audio can make.” « Our open platform enables partners to bring the best of their experiences to the Sonos system and our mutual customers, » said Ryan Richards, Director of Product Marketing at Sonos. “Qobuz has been at the forefront of high resolution music streaming, and we look forward to customers enjoying their music with the clarity, depth, and room-filling sound of Sonos. » In 2013, Qobuz became the first music service to offer 16-bit FLAC streaming on Sonos. And now, it is continuing to expand access to higher resolution streaming on Sonos by introducing 24-bit streaming, compatible with most products on the Sonos S2 platform, which supports up to 48 kHz/24-bit audio resolution. This new integration builds on Qobuz’s continued expansion of hardware partnerships, including the addition of Hi-Res compatible hardware on the Android platform several years ago. Qobuz has always catered to the audiophile and the audio-curious market, with its expert curation, exclusive editorial content, liner notes, download store, and world-class sound quality.
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