The watermarking would explain it then.
I will have to try another streaming service I think.
Any recommendations? I have tried Spotify, was great to use but I found it a bit boring to listen to I guess.
Here are my notes re. Qobuz played through wi-fi to an Auralic Aries Mini using an external (TEAC UD-503) DAC:
SSD vs. stream, both via USB - initial tests suggest that they are indistinguishable (because precisely level matched?), and both very good with good recordings:
Atterberg En varmlandsrapsodi, N Jarvi, Chandos
Bloch Symphony in C sharp minor LSO, Atlas, ASV/Naxos
However, Vaughan Williams Symphony 5 Haitink has a little more presence/"body" from SSD; stream has a (very slight, but definite) edginess by comparison - could be a different (more recent, oddly) mastering
stream via USB vs. CD via coax - Marantz good as transport; CD preferred to stream by a small margin (possibly because the TEAC DAC's coaxial input is slightly better than its USB input?)
Frank Bridge: Summer - BBC NOW, Hickox, Chandos
very slightly more immediate/present from CD? a little more air, sense of the acoustic? both fine - perhaps limited by the recording, rather than the delivery medium
Sallinen 6, last movement - Malmo SO, Kamu, BIS
decidedly more presence and body to drums from CD
Kancheli ...a la Duduki ECM
*slightly* more immediate from CD, with a little more detail discernible, but stream is perfectly listenable - perhaps a little smoothed-over, except in loud passages where it is a bit harder to hear into the music (a very fine recording)
SSD via USB vs. CD via coax
Bloch Symphony in C sharp minor LSO, Atlas, ASV/Naxos
cannot hear any difference on this recording, which suggests that the DAC's coaxial input is indistinguishable from its USB input
The outcome is that differences are only detectable in direct comparisons and so slight as to be not worth worrying about. I am perfectly satisfied with Qobuz.