Qobuz (, commonly mispronounced: ), often stylized as qobuz) is a French digital music store and streaming service, launched in 2007 by Alexandre Leforestier and Yves Riesel. Qobuz is now owned by Xandrie SA. In June 2023, Qobuz offers over 100 million tracks on its service. For additional subscription fees, tracks are available at CD-quality and "Hi-Res" quality (24 bits up to 192 kHz). Individual tracks can also be purchased without any DRM restrictions. Streamed music is available in

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

at 320 kbit/s,

CD-DA Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA or CD-DA), also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standardization, standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the ''Rainbow Books, Red Book'' technical s ...

quality lossless (16-bit/44.1 kHz) and hi-resolution quality lossless (up to 24-bit/192 kHz) for some tracks. The formats available for individually-purchased songs are

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced or ) is an audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on personal computers. The format was developed and published for the first time in 1991 ...

AIFF AIFF may refer to: * Audio Interchange File Format * All India Football Federation, the national governing body of Association football in India Film festivals * Addis International Film Festival, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia * Alexandria Internation ...

, ALAC and

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software ...

for hi-res quality, lossless WMA for CD quality music, and MP3, standard WMA and

AAC AAC may refer to: Aviation * Advanced Aircraft, a company from Carlsbad, California * Airborne aircraft carrier, a type of aircraft * Alaskan Air Command, a radar network * American Aeronautical Corporation, a company from Port Washington, New ...

for lossy quality (at 128 kbit/s or 320 kbit/s). Qobuz's name comes from the musical instrument kobyz/qobyz. In October 2024, Qobuz expanded its audio quality offer by introducing support for the formats DSD (

Direct Stream Digital Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is a trademark used by Sony and Philips for their system for digitally encoding audio signals for the Super Audio CD (SACD). DSD uses delta-sigma modulation, a form of pulse-density modulation encoding, a techniqu ...

) in 1bit/2.8 MHz, 1bit/5.6 MHz, 1bit/11.2 MHz, 1bit/22.5 MHz, and DXD (

Digital eXtreme Definition Digital eXtreme Definition (DXD) is a digital audio format that originally was developed by Philips and Merging Technologies for editing high-resolution recordings recorded in Direct Stream Digital (DSD), the audio standard used on Super Audio CD ...

) up to 24 Bits/352.8 kHz. The same month, it launched an offer for students, enabling them to benefit from a discount on monthly subscriptions, which must be verified every 12 months to verify eligibility.

History

Qobuz was founded in 2007 by Denis Thébaud. From 2014 to 2020 the company had a partnership with the British classical music magazine ''

Gramophone A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physic ...

'', under which the magazine uses Qobuz to publish recommended playlists. Qobuz was unable to secure financing, ran into financial difficulties, and in 2015 Qobuz was acquired by Xandrie SA. In April 2020, during the early months of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Qobuz gave 100% of the revenue from each new subscriber's first paid month back to the rights holders. In 2020 Qobuz ended its MP3-quality subscription plan, focusing instead on lossless streaming. However, MP3 is available as an option. A family plan was also added. In partnership with Quebecor, a Canadian media and telecommunications company, Qobuz launched the music streaming service QUB Music. In October 2024, Qobuz became available in Japan

Availability

Platforms

Qobuz has apps for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

compatible devices. On Windows and macOS devices, 30-second clips are available without a subscription, however a paid subscription is required to listen to full tracks. On mobile devices, a paid subscription is required to listen to any music. Qobuz can also be used on

Google Chromecast Chromecast is a discontinued line of digital media players developed by Google. The devices, designed as small dongles, can play Internet- streamed audio-visual content on a high-definition television or home audio system. The user can control ...

devices and TizenOS (as used on Samsung televisions) devices. It is also available on the music server management service ''Roon''. A web player version (accessed via a

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

) is also available.

Hardware

The Qobuz app is built in to some devices (such as

streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

amplifiers) from brands such as

Cambridge Audio Cambridge Audio is a British manufacturer of audio equipment including headphones, audio systems and components. It was founded in Cambridge, England in the early 1960s as Cambridge Consultants. The company is now independently owned by James ...

, Audio Pro and

Naim Audio Naim Audio is a British High fidelity, hi-fi manufacturer based in Wiltshire, United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1973. Following a 2011 merger with French loudspeaker manufacturer Focal-JMLab, Focal, Naim is owned by VerVent Audio Group ...

. In March 2021, Qobuz became the first music platform to offer 24-

bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communication. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented as ...

audio streaming on

Sonos Sonos, Inc. is an American audio equipment manufacturer headquartered in Santa Barbara, California. The company was founded in 2002 by John MacFarlane, Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen, and Trung Mai. Sonos has partnered with over 100 companies th ...

speakers.

Locations

Qobuz launched in eight European countries in 2014: United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands then, in 2017, in Spain and Italy. In 2019, Qobuz became available in the United States after opening a US headquarters in 2018. In 2021, Qobuz was made available in six new countries: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Australia and New Zealand. In 2022, Qobuz offered its service in six new countries: Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Portugal and in 2023 it was launched in Canada.

Business model

Plans

Qobuz offers the base subscription, Studio Premier, and Studio Sublime which adds a discount on digital purchases and can only be purchased annually. Both of these subscription plans are also available for two accounts or up to six.

Funding

In August 2019, Qobuz raised €11.7 million from Nabuboto and the Quebecor Group. In September 2020, the two shareholders raised a further 10 million euros.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Online music stores of France Music streaming services 2007 establishments in France