In the fast-paced world of music streaming, where mainstream platforms race for user numbers and mass-market appeal, one brand has chosen to walk a different path — a path paved with uncompromising sound quality, fair artist compensation and a deep respect for the art of music itself. That brand is Qobuz. Founded in France in 2007 by Alexandre Le Forestier and Yves Riesel, Qobuz emerged not to chase the biggest audience, but to serve the most discerning listeners: the audiophiles, the music purists, the classical connoisseurs and every lover of music who believes that sound quality is not an afterthought, but the very soul of musical experience.
From its humble beginnings as a niche digital music store to a global leader in high-resolution (Hi-Res) audio streaming, Qobuz has weathered financial crises, industry skepticism and fierce competition from tech giants. It rejected the mainstream “freemium” model, abandoned compressed low-quality audio, and doubled down on a core promise: to deliver studio-grade sound to listeners, and to reward artists for their work at a level that truly honors their creativity. Today, Qobuz stands as a rare beacon in the streaming industry — a profitable, independent platform with over 100 million tracks, available in 26 countries worldwide, renowned for paying artists five times more per stream than the world’s largest music streaming services. Qobuz’s story is not just a tale of a streaming platform’s survival; it is a triumph of quality over quantity, a testament to the enduring power of true high-fidelity audio, and a revolution that redefines what a music streaming service can and should be for artists and listeners alike.
As a leader in premium multi-room smart amplifiers, we understand that true high-fidelity audio is a marriage of exceptional content and superior playback technology — and Qobuz’s unwavering commitment to Hi-Res sound perfectly complements the immersive audio experience our hardware is engineered to deliver.
1. The French Origin: Born for Audiophiles, Against the Tide of Compressed Sound
The late 2000s was an era of great upheaval for the global music industry, a time when the digital revolution was in full swing and the streaming era was just beginning to take shape. In 2007, Spotify was yet to launch its European service, Deezer had just debuted in France, and Apple’s iTunes dominated the digital music market with its pay-per-song model. Piracy still ran rampant, and the few streaming platforms that existed all shared one fatal flaw: sound quality was sacrificed for convenience.
To cut bandwidth costs and reach mass audiences, these platforms streamed music in heavily compressed formats — 160kbps MP3s for free users, 320kbps at best for premium subscribers. For casual listeners, this was acceptable, but for serious music lovers and audiophiles, it was a travesty. Compressed audio stripped music of its depth, its nuance, its dynamic range: the soft whisper of a violin’s bow, the warm resonance of a jazz piano, the layered harmonies of a classical symphony — all were lost to the pursuit of speed and scalability. Worse still, artists were being paid a pittance for their work, their creative efforts undervalued by a system that prioritized user growth over fair compensation.
It was in this landscape that two French music industry veterans, Alexandre Le Forestier and Yves Riesel, had a vision that would set Qobuz apart from every other platform from day one. They named their venture after the Kobyz, a traditional Central Asian stringed instrument — a nod to their reverence for musical heritage and acoustic purity — and launched Qobuz on September 18, 2007, with a single, unwavering mission: to build a music platform that puts sound quality first, and artists at the center.
Unlike its competitors, Qobuz was not designed for the casual listener scrolling through playlists on a smartphone speaker. It was built for the audiophile with a high-end home sound system, the classical music lover who craved the clarity of a live performance, the jazz enthusiast who wanted to hear every breath of a saxophonist. From its inception, Qobuz offered lossless CD-quality audio (16-bit/44.1kHz) as its baseline, with high-resolution (24-bit/96kHz, even 24-bit/192kHz) audio as its flagship offering — a standard that most mainstream platforms would not adopt for more than a decade. It also launched as a digital music store, allowing users to own their music in Hi-Res formats, a feature that remains a cornerstone of its identity to this day. This was a radical choice in 2007, but it was the right one: Qobuz immediately found its tribe, a loyal community of music lovers who were tired of compromising on sound.
2. Survival Through Crisis: Near Collapse, Acquisition, and a Bold Pivot to Premium Only
Qobuz’s founding vision was clear, but its early years were fraught with struggle — a battle to survive in an industry that favored scale over specialization, and free access over paid premium quality. For the first eight years of its existence, Qobuz operated as a hybrid platform: it offered a limited free streaming tier with compressed audio, a paid subscription for lossless quality, and a digital download store for Hi-Res music. It carved out a loyal niche audience, particularly among classical and jazz fans, and partnered with iconic publications like Gramophone magazine to curate expert playlists and editorial content, cementing its reputation as a platform for “serious” music lovers.
Yet niche appeal alone was not enough to sustain the business. Qobuz struggled to secure consistent financing, a common challenge for independent European tech startups competing against well-funded global giants. Its commitment to licensing high-quality audio masters also came with higher costs, and the platform’s refusal to prioritize user numbers over quality meant its growth was slow and steady, not explosive. By 2015, the financial pressure had become insurmountable: Qobuz was on the brink of bankruptcy, its dream of a Hi-Res audio utopia hanging by a thread.
This moment of crisis would prove to be Qobuz’s greatest turning point. In late 2015, the French media and technology company Xandrie SA acquired Qobuz, saving the platform from closure and installing a new leadership team led by Denis Thébault. The new management made a decision that many in the industry deemed reckless, even suicidal: Qobuz would abandon its free ad-supported tier entirely, and become a premium-only platform. No more compressed audio, no more free access — every user would pay for a subscription, and in return, they would receive nothing but uncompromising lossless and Hi-Res sound quality. It also doubled down on its download store, expanding its Hi-Res catalog to include millions of tracks from independent labels and mainstream artists alike.
This pivot was a masterstroke. By shedding the free tier, Qobuz eliminated a major source of operational cost and aligned its entire business model with its core values: quality for listeners, fair revenue for artists. It no longer had to compete with mainstream platforms for casual users; it could focus entirely on serving its core audience of audiophiles, who were more than willing to pay a premium for a superior experience. The gamble paid off: Qobuz’s subscriber base grew steadily, its revenue stabilized, and the platform finally found its financial footing. For Qobuz, survival was not about becoming bigger — it was about becoming more authentic. It chose to be a great platform for a dedicated few, rather than a mediocre one for the masses.
3. Core Identity: The Three Pillars That Make Qobuz Irreplaceable (Hi-Res, Fair Pay, Curated Discovery)
If Spotify’s greatest strength is its algorithmic personalization and mass-market appeal, Qobuz’s unshakable core advantage lies in three non-negotiable pillars — pillars that no mainstream streaming service has been able to replicate, and that have turned Qobuz into an irreplaceable brand for audiophiles and artists worldwide. These pillars are not just features; they are the very heart of Qobuz’s mission, and they define everything the platform does.
3.1 Uncompromising Hi-Res Audio: Studio-Grade Sound as a Standard, Not a Luxury
Qobuz’s defining feature is, and always has been, its commitment to high-resolution audio perfection. While mainstream platforms like Spotify only rolled out basic lossless CD-quality audio in 2025 (24-bit/44.1kHz), Qobuz has offered 24-bit/192kHz Hi-Res FLAC streaming as its premium tier for over a decade — a quality standard that delivers audio files with nine times more data than compressed 320kbps MP3s. This is not just a technical difference; it is a transformative listening experience. Hi-Res audio preserves every detail of the original studio recording: the subtle reverb of a vocal track, the crisp attack of a guitar string, the deep, rich bass of an orchestral piece. It is sound that feels alive, sound that transports the listener into the studio with the artist.
Qobuz is also the only major European streaming service to hold the official Hi-Res Audio certification from the Japan Audio Society, a mark of rigorous quality control that guarantees every Hi-Res track on the platform meets the highest global standards. Its catalog now boasts over 100 million tracks, with millions available in Hi-Res formats — including rare classical recordings, independent jazz albums, and mainstream releases from top artists. For audiophiles, this is non-negotiable: Qobuz is not just a streaming service, it is the gold standard for how music should sound.
3.2 Fair Artist Compensation: Paying Creators What They Deserve (5x More Than Spotify)
The second pillar, and perhaps Qobuz’s proudest achievement, is its industry-leading commitment to fair artist compensation. This is where Qobuz truly stands alone in the streaming world, and it is a choice that has earned it the unwavering loyalty of musicians and record labels alike. In March 2025, Qobuz made history by becoming the first major streaming service to publish its verified, audited royalty rates — a radical act of transparency in an industry notorious for its opaque payment structures.
The numbers spoke for themselves: Qobuz pays an average of €0.01802 per stream, or €18.02 for 1,000 streams. For comparison, Spotify pays just €0.003 to €0.0039 per stream (€3-3.89 for 1,000 streams), Apple Music pays €8.90, and Amazon Music pays €3.58. Put simply: Qobuz pays artists FIVE TIMES more per stream than Spotify, and twice as much as most other premium streaming platforms. This is not an accident; it is a deliberate business choice. Qobuz has no free tier to dilute its revenue, its subscription prices are set at a premium (starting at €14.99/month in France, vs. €11.12 for Spotify), and it allocates 70% of all its revenue to artist and label royalties — a far higher percentage than any mainstream competitor.
For independent artists and small labels, this is life-changing. It means that their music is not just being heard, but being valued. For Qobuz, this is non-negotiable: the platform was founded on the belief that music is art, not a commodity, and that artists deserve to be paid fairly for their work. In an industry that often treats creators as an afterthought, Qobuz is a rare champion of artistic integrity.
3.3 Curated Discovery: Human Expertise Over Algorithmic Homogeneity
The third pillar is Qobuz’s commitment to human-curated music discovery, a stark contrast to the algorithm-driven playlists that dominate mainstream streaming. Spotify’s strength is its ability to predict what you might like; Qobuz’s strength is its ability to introduce you to music you never knew you loved. Its editorial team is made up of professional music journalists, classical scholars, jazz experts and industry veterans — people who live and breathe music, who craft playlists with intention, who write deep artist biographies and album reviews, who curate collections of rare and underappreciated music. There are no algorithmic shortcuts here: every recommendation is a labor of love, every playlist a carefully crafted journey through sound.
This focus on human curation is perfect for Qobuz’s core audience: audiophiles who do not want to be trapped in a “filter bubble” of the same music, who crave discovery, who want to learn about the stories behind the music. It is a reminder that music is not just a collection of tracks — it is a culture, a history, a conversation between artist and listener. For Qobuz, this is what makes music special: it is human, and it deserves to be treated that way.
4. Steady Global Growth: Slow, Strategic Expansion for the Audiophile Niche
Qobuz’s growth strategy has always been the antithesis of Spotify’s rapid, global blitz. It has never chased market share or user numbers; it has grown slowly, strategically, and intentionally, expanding only when it can deliver its full Hi-Res experience to a new market, and only to countries with a strong culture of audiophile appreciation and high-quality audio hardware adoption. This is a growth model built for longevity, not hype — and it has worked brilliantly.
After its 2015 acquisition and premium pivot, Qobuz first solidified its position in its home market of France, then expanded across Europe, launching in Germany, the UK, Spain and Italy — all countries with thriving classical and jazz scenes, and a large community of Hi-Fi enthusiasts. In 2019, it made its boldest move yet: entering the United States, the world’s largest music market, where it competed head-to-head with Tidal (another Hi-Res platform) for the audiophile crown. Qobuz did not try to beat Tidal on user numbers; it beat it on quality, on catalog depth, and on fair compensation — quickly earning a loyal following among American audiophiles.
In recent years, Qobuz has continued its measured expansion: it launched in Canada in partnership with Quebecor in 2020, debuted in Japan (a global hub for Hi-Res audio and Hi-Fi hardware) in October 2024, and now operates in 26 countries worldwide. Crucially, Qobuz has never compromised its core values for growth: every new market gets the same Hi-Res audio quality, the same fair artist compensation, and the same human-curated discovery experience. It is a global platform with a local heart, a niche player that has built a global brand by staying true to its roots.
5. Technological Evolution: Qobuz Connect & The Seamless Hi-Fi Integration (Made for Premium Audio Hardware)
For a platform built for audiophiles, seamless integration with high-end audio hardware is not just a feature — it is a necessity. Qobuz has always understood this, and its most important technological innovations have been designed not for smartphones or headphones, but for the home Hi-Fi systems that its core users own: multi-room amplifiers, wireless speakers, DACs, turntables and premium soundbars. This focus on hardware integration has made Qobuz the de facto streaming service for high-end audio brands, and it has solidified its position as the bridge between digital music and physical Hi-Fi.
The pinnacle of this evolution came in May 2025, when Qobuz launched Qobuz Connect at the Munich High End Show — the most prestigious audio trade show in the world. This game-changing feature allows users to stream lossless and Hi-Res audio (up to 24-bit/192kHz) directly from the Qobuz app to any compatible Hi-Fi device, with no third-party software, no compressed audio, no loss of quality. It is a seamless, direct connection between the digital music library and the physical sound system, a feature that eliminates the frustrating “middleman” of smartphone audio outputs and ensures that every note is played exactly as the artist intended.
Qobuz Connect is more than just a technical upgrade; it is a love letter to the audiophile community. It recognizes that great music deserves great hardware, and great hardware deserves great music. For users of premium smart amplifiers, wireless speakers and home theater systems, Qobuz Connect is the missing link — the feature that turns a streaming service into a true Hi-Fi experience. It is also a perfect match for the modern audiophile: the ability to access a global library of Hi-Res music, and play it on a world-class sound system, with a single tap of a button. This is technological innovation with a purpose: to make great sound accessible to everyone who loves music enough to seek it out.
6. Standing Apart: Qobuz vs. Spotify vs. Tidal — The Great Streaming Divide
In the crowded landscape of music streaming, Qobuz occupies a unique and irreplaceable position — one that sets it apart from both the mainstream giants like Spotify and its fellow Hi-Res competitor Tidal. To understand Qobuz’s success, it is essential to understand this divide: it is not just a difference in sound quality or business model, it is a difference in purpose.
- Qobuz vs. Spotify: Spotify is the king of mass-market streaming, with 675 million users and a focus on algorithmic discovery, convenience and affordability. It offers good sound quality (now with basic lossless audio) for casual listeners, but it is built for scale, not perfection. Qobuz is the opposite: it has a fraction of Spotify’s user base, but it offers perfect sound quality for discerning listeners, and it prioritizes artist compensation over user growth. Spotify is for everyone; Qobuz is for those who care deeply about how music sounds and how artists are paid.
- Qobuz vs. Tidal: Tidal is Qobuz’s closest competitor, offering Hi-Res audio and artist ownership, but the two platforms diverge sharply in their priorities. Tidal has leaned into pop and hip-hop, partnering with superstar artists like Jay-Z and Beyoncé, and it offers spatial audio (a feature Qobuz has intentionally avoided, choosing to focus on pure Hi-Res sound). Qobuz, by contrast, remains rooted in classical, jazz and independent music, with a catalog that prioritizes depth over star power. Tidal is a Hi-Res platform for mainstream music lovers; Qobuz is a Hi-Res platform for audiophiles.
The greatest difference, however, is in their core missions. Spotify exists to make music accessible to everyone; Tidal exists to give artists ownership of their work; Qobuz exists to honor music itself. It is a platform built not for shareholders, not for superstars, but for the person who sits down in front of their Hi-Fi system, closes their eyes, and loses themselves in the sound. This is why Qobuz will never be the biggest streaming service in the world — and why it will never need to be. It is enough to be the best.
This divide in streaming quality has redefined the demand for premium audio hardware: audiophiles no longer accept compromised sound from their speakers or amplifiers, but seek out devices that can unlock the full potential of Hi-Res streaming, revealing every nuance of a recording with crystal clarity.
7. A Legacy of Fidelity: The Unfinished Journey of a French Audio Icon
Today, Qobuz stands as a rare success story in the streaming industry: an independent, profitable, premium platform that has stayed true to its founding vision for nearly two decades. It has no corporate parent to answer to, no pressure to chase endless growth, no need to compromise on its values. It is a platform run by music lovers, for music lovers — a fact that is evident in every detail, from its Hi-Res catalog to its artist royalties to its human-curated playlists.
Qobuz’s journey is far from over. It continues to expand its global reach, adding new markets and new Hi-Res tracks to its catalog. It continues to innovate, with Qobuz Connect leading the charge for seamless Hi-Fi integration. It continues to advocate for fair artist compensation, challenging the mainstream industry to do better by the creators who make music possible. And it continues to serve its core audience: the audiophiles, the purists, the lovers of music who refuse to settle for anything less than perfection.
This is Qobuz’s greatest legacy: it has proven that a streaming platform does not have to choose between quality and profitability, between serving listeners and serving artists. It has proven that there is a vast, loyal audience for high-quality audio, an audience that is willing to pay for a superior experience. It has proven that music is not just a commodity to be streamed, but an art form to be cherished.
For nearly 20 years, Qobuz has been the champion of the audiophile dream — a dream of music that sounds as good as it should, of artists who are paid what they deserve, of discovery that is guided by passion, not algorithms. In a world that often prioritizes speed over substance, quantity over quality, Qobuz is a reminder that some things are worth taking the time to do right. And for the lovers of great music, great sound, and great art — this is everything.
For every enthusiast who believes great music deserves great sound, Qobuz’s journey is a testament to what is possible when passion and quality lead the way — and we are proud to craft the hardware that brings this extraordinary audio experience to life in homes around the world.