Qobuz Sublime+
Impressive and expanding hi-res catalogue Expensive; not the last word in timing or dynamics
Qobuz, the French streaming-anddownload service, has a new top tier called Sublime+. And it’s safe to say the company is bullish about it, calling it “the best music subscription in the world”.
Although we’ve expressed reservations, we’ve been positive about Qobuz since it became an international brand in 2013. Our positivity peaked towards the end of 2016, when we reviewed Sublime, Qobuz’s hybrid streaming-and-download tier. Combining Cd-quality (16-bit/44.1khz) streaming with hefty discounts on hi-res (24-bit/44.1khz – 24-bit/192khz) downloads, it got five stars.
Awkward rivalries
Since then, rival Tidal has upped the hi-res streaming ante with its Masters tier, which utilises MQA technology to stream in better-than-cd quality. Apparently Qobuz doesn’t consider a Tidal a rival, yet Tidal isn’t a rival to Qobuz in the same way BMW isn’t a rival to Mercedes-benz.
Now Qobuz is back on the offensive with Sublime+. It’s the Sublime service we’ve enthused about, now with hi-res streaming smarts – 24-bit/192khz audio files don’t need buying and downloading before you can stream them in all their glory.
Qobuz isn’t forthcoming about how it’s managed to shoehorn 24-bit/192khz audio files into packages small enough to be reliably streamed. Certainly MQA has been on a far bigger mission to educate and enlighten. All we’re told is that Qobuz can squeeze all that info into a Flac-format file and stream it without compromising sound.
Growing catalogue
The Qobuz catalogue of hi-res audio tracks (‘hi-res’ for them means 24-bit/anything from 44.1 to 192khz) is 70,000-strong. And 90 per cent is available for Sublime+ customers to stream, with more to come.
While there’s no shortage of eclecticism, the high-profile acts are coming on-stream nicely. From new Gorillaz album Humanz (24-bit/96khz) through to David Bowie’s swansong Blackstar (24-bit/96khz), the Qobuz catalogue caters for everyone.
We cue up The Velvet Underground’s What Goes On (24-bit/192khz) and Grace Jones’ Pull Up To The Bumper (24-bit/ 96khz) using the desktop app on a Macbook Air, a Chord Hugo DAC and Bowers & Wilkins P9 headphones. What’s impressive about the sound (aside from its stability, which is affected only when the computer is multi-tasking in the background) is the remarkable level of detail.
Velvet sounds
The Jones tune is a multi-layered affair, but Qobuz gives the bass guitar, rattling percussion and idiosyncratic vocal ample subtlety and nuance. It’s an entirely convincing presentation.
The Velvet Underground song is a much more rudimentary recording, and Qobuz makes that plain. There’s tape hiss. Lou Reed’s vocals sound heartfelt, while the repetition that was the band’s stock-in-trade has its tiniest variation – in rhythm guitar strum, in organ chord-change – made obvious. The song is presented on an explicit soundstage, wide open.
Lack of drive
Qobuz is more than a match for any of its rivals (even non-rivals) when it comes to detail. But that’s not the full Sublime+ story. For all its insight, there isn’t the sort of drive or dynamism to the Qobuz sound that we’d like. What Goes On is a spindly, trebly recording, so we’re not expecting seismic low-end, but Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly (24-bit/ 44.1khz) most certainly is not. Yet Sublime+ neuters the album’s bass presence, rendering what should be a hard-hitting recording a little tentative.
Timing is also not all it might be. For all the detail in a Qobuz stream, instruments and frequency areas do not knit together seamlessly.
From the lower midrange down, there’s a lack of unity to the sound when compared with Tidal Masters. The founding principle of MQA is that the time domain is more important to the way we hear than frequency information is – on the basis of this comparison, we’d have to agree.
He y price tag
Then there’s the price; £350 a year is a fair whack. It’s 50 per cent more than Tidal Hi-fi and has to be paid upfront. It’s mobile as well as desktop (Tidal Masters is desktop only), which may sway some, but it’s still a lot.
If Sublime+ was unarguably “the best music subscription in the world” then we’d say you’re best off sucking up the cost. But it isn’t – not definitively – and so our recommendation must be qualified.