The interface is a joy to navigate across the PC and mobile platforms, and an aesthetic leap above its rivals that nails the balance between space and content density. Our collective taste, though far-reaching, is by no means the rule, but it paints a picture. In fact, only once since January 2019 – 31 playlists ago – have all our 20 picks been available on Qobuz, with numbers ranging from a high of 19 in March to only 13 last April.
New music seems a particular issue, but established records are missing, too: we put together a playlist of test tracks each month and Qobuz is always the service with the most gaps.
While it's inconvenient to discover that the latest album or track by your favourite artist isn't available in hi-res on your chosen streaming service, it's downright annoying if it isn't available at all. On the flip side, however, we often find albums on Tidal, Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer that aren't available on Qobuz at all – which we would argue is a far bigger issue. Numbers rarely tell the whole story, but we regularly find hi-res albums on Qobuz that are available in only CD-quality on Tidal. Recent figures put the total number of hi-res tracks at over 2m, while Tidal claims 'only' over 1m. Qobuz's comparatively high price has always been partly justified by its exhaustive library of hi-res music (FLAC 24-bit up to 192kHz).
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