Qobuz.com streaming plugin

[SamY]

Why do you believe so? The replay gain data is part of the track data. As it's simply called "replayGain" it's not clear whether this is album gain or track gain. If it's treated as album gain, then this actually might be a bug.

After skimming the code dealing with this I would assume this was treated as track gain.

I have a feeling that Tidal is implementing its version of album gain by supplying the same replay gain value for every track in an album, which means that a given track will always be played at that gain-adjusted volume for all player Replay Gain options other than 'None'.

To test my hypothesis, please run the Squeeze Ctrl app and turn on the option to show replay gain values for tracks in the player queue. Then add a Tidal album to the queue. Here is what a Qobuz album looks like in that case:



Let's compare that to Tidal or, for that matter, the other streaming services. This could be interesting.

[SamY]

Hypothesis verified! Here is the same release in Tidal. It cost me $10USD, but it was worth it.

[SamY]

Here's something I never knew until looking at the LMS code. Whether it is a bug or a feature, I'll leave for you to decide:

The "Default Adjustment for Remote Streams" player preference is only applied to remote tracks (including Qobuz, Tidal, etc.) if the "Replay Gain" option for the player is set to something other than "None", i.e. "Track gain", "Album gain" or "Smart gain". Now that I know this, I don't have to worry about it interfering with my desire to have something approaching "bit perfect" playback for a certain player. As long as "Replay Gain" is set to "None" for a player, "Default Adjustment..." will not change the bit stream. On the other hand, if I really need to use the "Default Adjustment.." option in order to avoid very large level differences between local and remote content, I am forced to set the "Replay Gain" option too. My personal preference would be to make them independent of one another. That way, if you strive for bit perfect nirvana, you can just set "Default Adjustment" to 0 but, if you really need to use it, you can do it without having to also use "Replay Gain".

[slartibartfast]

Here's something I never knew until looking at the LMS code. Whether it is a bug or a feature, I'll leave for you to decide:

The "Default Adjustment for Remote Streams" player preference is only applied to remote tracks (including Qobuz, Tidal, etc.) if the "Replay Gain" option for the player is set to something other than "None", i.e. "Track gain", "Album gain" or "Smart gain". Now that I know this, I don't have to worry about it interfering with my desire to have something approaching "bit perfect" playback for a certain player. As long as "Replay Gain" is set to "None" for a player, "Default Adjustment..." will not change the bit stream. On the other hand, if I really need to use the "Default Adjustment.." option in order to avoid very large level differences between local and remote content, I am forced to set the "Replay Gain" option too. My personal preference would be to make them independent of one another. That way, if you strive for bit perfect nirvana, you can just set "Default Adjustment" to 0 but, if you really need to use it, you can do it without having to also use "Replay Gain".

The reasoning is probably that the volume difference between local and remote content is normally due to Replaygain on the local content making it quieter than Radio stations. The Default Adjustment brings then in line with each other. If Replaygain is off then the volume difference is normally much less (unless you have needledrops with very low Replaygain values)

[SamY]

The reasoning is probably that the volume difference between local and remote content is normally due to Replaygain on the local content making it quieter than Radio stations. The Default Adjustment brings then in line with each other. If Replaygain is off then the volume difference is normally much less (unless you have needledrops with very low Replaygain values)

That makes sense as far as explaining why it might have been done that way. However, making them independent of each other would give the user more options with no down side that I can see. Just something to be aware of for now though.

[cortegedusage]

Here's something I never knew until looking at the LMS code. Whether it is a bug or a feature, I'll leave for you to decide:

The "Default Adjustment for Remote Streams" player preference is only applied to remote tracks (including Qobuz, Tidal, etc.) if the "Replay Gain" option for the player is set to something other than "None", i.e. "Track gain", "Album gain" or "Smart gain". Now that I know this, I don't have to worry about it interfering with my desire to have something approaching "bit perfect" playback for a certain player. As long as "Replay Gain" is set to "None" for a player, "Default Adjustment..." will not change the bit stream. On the other hand, if I really need to use the "Default Adjustment.." option in order to avoid very large level differences between local and remote content, I am forced to set the "Replay Gain" option too. My personal preference would be to make them independent of one another. That way, if you strive for bit perfect nirvana, you can just set "Default Adjustment" to 0 but, if you really need to use it, you can do it without having to also use "Replay Gain".

Looking at the same code, (not that I really understand it) I'm in the understanding that even if there was album gain information in the Qobuz meta data it wouldn't be picked up by LMS because remote streams always are forced to use trackgain.

# only support track gain for remote streams
	if ( $track->remote ) {
	return preventClipping( $track->replay_gain() || $prefs->client($client)->get('remoteReplayGain'), $track->replay_peak() );
	}

I Was wondering this, because I really like the smart gain function in LMS where LMS decides whether it uses track gain or album gain.
Now I was wondering if we could aply a default album gain for qobuz files, so the smart gain function would work.

anyhow, for now you really rock, giving all this extra functionality to this plugin, and me as a humble user, can only be thankfull.

cheers
Dennis

[SamY]

Looking at the same code, (not that I really understand it) I'm in the understanding that even if there was album gain information in the Qobuz meta data it wouldn't be picked up by LMS because remote streams always are forced to use trackgain.

True.

I Was wondering this, because I really like the smart gain function in LMS where LMS decides whether it uses track gain or album gain.
Now I was wondering if we could aply a default album gain for qobuz files, so the smart gain function would work.

That's exactly the goal and we are currently looking at a couple of possible ways to achieve it. If successful, Qobuz will be the only streaming service available in LMS (AFAIK) with support for both track gain and album gain.

anyhow, for now you really rock, giving all this extra functionality to this plugin, and me as a humble user, can only be thankfull.

Thanks for your support!

[darrell]

Moving away from replay gain for just a second, Have any Qobuz users out there ever seen anything other than the booklet under the "Qobuz Goodies" section? I'm wondering if I should make a change so that the booklet can be accessed directly from the main album listing.

[mherger]

We should probably take the Gain discussion to its own thread, as this is way beyond Qobuz.

[d6jg]

We should probably take the Gain discussion to its own thread, as this is way beyond Qobuz.

I agree but there is a definite Qobuz only part to this.
Are we saying that both Track and Album gain is carried in the Qobuz metadata but LMS has not been set up to use it? Or are we saying that there is only Track gain - which seems logical to me - but LMS currently doesn't use it?

[darrell]

I agree but there is a definite Qobuz only part to this.
Are we saying that both Track and Album gain is carried in the Qobuz metadata but LMS has not been set up to use it? Or are we saying that there is only Track gain - which seems logical to me - but LMS currently doesn't use it?

The latter. SamY has already coded a fix for this. But there could be unintended consequences resulting in startled dogs. As Sam alludes to above, there's also the issue of how to simulate album gain given the lack of that tag in Qobuz metadata..

[d6jg]

The latter. SamY has already coded a fix for this. But there could be unintended consequences resulting in startled dogs. As Sam alludes to above, there's also the issue of how to simulate album gain given the lack of that tag in Qobuz metadata..

Thanks. I thought that was the case but had lost track.

On the "Default Adjustment for Remote Streams" issue wouldn't it be simpler to just exclude Qobuz (and Tidal) from this setting once a full solution that supports RG is in place?

[SamY]

Thanks. I thought that was the case but had lost track.

On the "Default Adjustment for Remote Streams" issue wouldn't it be simpler to just exclude Qobuz (and Tidal) from this setting once a full solution that supports RG is in place?

The change I'm working on will exclude it for Qobuz tracks until a more general (LMS) solution is in place.

[hsmeets]

Moving away from replay gain for just a second, Have any Qobuz users out there ever seen anything other than the booklet under the "Qobuz Goodies" section? I'm wondering if I should make a change so that the booklet can be accessed directly from the main album listing.

nope, never seen anything else last few years.

thumb up for a tweak to take out that menu nesting.

[cortegedusage]

nope, never seen anything else last few years.

thumb up for a tweak to take out that menu nesting.

Yeah would be great, thank you