How To Correct Your Hearing With Qobuz And ARIA ONE

What This Does

This guide shows how to route Qobuz through ARIA ONE on Mac or Windows. Qobuz plays into a virtual audio device, ARIA ONE reads that signal, applies your hearing correction, and sends the result to your headphones or speakers.

Qobuz has its own audio device setting on both Mac and Windows. That means only Qobuz needs to be routed, and the rest of your computer stays on its normal output.

Before You Start

You need Qobuz and ARIA ONE installed on a Mac or Windows computer, plus an Altitude Audio account. If you do not have one yet, ARIA ONE can create it the first time you open the app.

Open ARIA ONE and sign in. On first launch, choose Cloud Mode so your profiles and presets stay in sync across devices.

Use the INSTANT Onboarding Pathway

On first launch, ARIA ONE opens onboarding automatically. To get listening quickly, choose the Instant pathway and continue. Available pathways include:

• Instant — no test. ARIA ONE loads an age-matched hearing profile so you can finish onboarding and start listening immediately.
• Quick Results — the full hearing test without setup and calibration. Around ten minutes.
• Full Accuracy — the complete test with setup and calibration. Fifteen to twenty minutes, and the best result.

Use Instant to finish onboarding now with an age-matched profile. When you have more time, come back to SETUP and take the full test so ARIA ONE can replace it with a profile built from your own results. At the end, choose Simple View for music listening.

Set Up The Audio Routing In ARIA ONE

ARIA ONE needs to sit between Qobuz and your physical output. Qobuz plays into a virtual audio device, ARIA ONE reads from that device, applies correction, and sends the result to your headphones or speakers.

If you have not installed a virtual audio device yet, start here: what is a virtual audio device and which one should I install? That page covers the setup on Mac and Windows.

Then open Audio Settings from the gear in ARIA ONE. Set INPUT to the virtual audio device and OUTPUT to your headphones or speakers. Set the sample rate here to match the virtual audio device; 44.1 or 48 kHz is a safe choice.

Point Qobuz At ARIA ONE

Qobuz has its own audio device setting, so you do not change your computer’s system output. Click the audio output icon in the bottom right of the Qobuz window, or open Qobuz Settings and go to Music playing, and choose the virtual audio device. The device list is split into Internal, meaning outputs on this computer, and External, meaning Qobuz Connect and Chromecast devices. The virtual audio device is under Internal.

On a Mac, pick the virtual audio device from the list and you are done.

On Windows, Qobuz asks for a driver type before it shows devices. Choose WASAPI, then pick the virtual audio device. Do not choose WASAPI Exclusive or ASIO; virtual audio devices usually do not appear under ASIO at all, and exclusive drivers lock ARIA ONE out.

Only Qobuz now goes through ARIA ONE. Notifications, video calls, and every other sound on your computer stay on your normal output.

Qobuz Settings To Check

Only two Qobuz settings matter for this setup.

Exclusive Mode. Leave it off. It gives Qobuz sole control of the audio device and locks ARIA ONE out. For the simplest setup, do not let Qobuz take exclusive control.

Streaming quality. Set it as high as your plan allows. The correction can only work with what is in the stream.

Qobuz’s desktop app has no loudness normalization and no equalizer, so there is nothing else to change here.

Sample Rate Is Handled For You

Qobuz’s catalogue mixes sample rates. With Exclusive Mode off, Qobuz hands its audio to your computer, and the computer converts each track to whatever rate the virtual audio device is running at.

The only thing to keep matched is the rate on the virtual audio device and the rate in ARIA ONE’s Audio Settings. 44.1 or 48 kHz is a stable choice for both.

If those two disagree you will usually hear clicks between tracks, the first second or two of a song missing, or playback at the wrong pitch. Set them to the same value and it stops.

Check That It Is Working

Start a track in Qobuz. The input meter along the bottom of ARIA ONE should move with the music. If it does, Qobuz is reaching ARIA ONE and the routing is correct.

Toggle the correction off and on to hear the difference. In Simple View, open Sound and tap PERSONAL AUDIO / ORIGINAL AUDIO. In Advanced View, use Bypass in the top bar. Listen for clarity, detail, and changes in the sound image.

If the meter does not move, the routing is not complete. Confirm ARIA ONE’s INPUT is the virtual audio device, that Qobuz’s audio device is set to the same device, and on Windows that the driver type is WASAPI.

Qobuz Connect And Casting Bypass The Chain

Qobuz can hand playback to a network streamer or a Chromecast device, with the desktop app acting as a remote. The music then goes straight from Qobuz to that device, never through your computer, and ARIA ONE receives nothing.

Click the audio output icon in the bottom right of Qobuz and confirm the selected device is the virtual audio device under Internal, not something under External. If the music is playing and ARIA ONE’s input meter is still, check this first. This also catches a subtle case: if you started playback from your phone to a streamer, the desktop app shows that track playing with full controls even though this computer is producing no audio.

Using It Day To Day

Once the routing is set, daily use is simple: open ARIA ONE, open Qobuz, and listen. Because Qobuz routes itself, there is nothing to switch back when you are done; the rest of your computer stays on its normal output.

If you switch between headphones and speakers, save a preset for each in ARIA ONE. The correction that suits one is rarely right for the other.

When you have time, rerun SETUP and take the full hearing test. ARIA ONE replaces the Instant profile with one built from your own measurements.

What About Your Phone

This routing is for Mac and Windows. On iPhone and Android the operating system does not let one app capture another app’s audio, so Qobuz cannot be routed through ARIA ONE on a phone.

On mobile, ARIA ONE can still play music files you own with your correction applied using its built-in player. Your hearing profile stays synced across devices.

Common Problems

Known-Good Details

Qobuz changes menu names and placement on its own schedule. Everything in this list was accurate when this page was last updated. If a setting has moved, look for it by name; the routing logic above is unchanged.

• Audio device — the audio output icon in the bottom right of the player, or Qobuz Settings under Music playing.
• Driver type (Windows) — shown alongside the device list. Options are typically DirectSound, WASAPI, WASAPI Exclusive, and ASIO. Choose WASAPI.
• Exclusive Mode — a toggle next to the audio device. Leave it off for this setup.
• Streaming quality — Qobuz Settings, under Music playing. Hi-res tiers depend on your subscription.
• Qobuz sample rates — 44.1 kHz for CD quality, up to 192 kHz for hi-res. Qobuz has no user sample rate setting. With Exclusive Mode off, your computer converts to the virtual audio device’s rate automatically.
• Qobuz Connect and Chromecast — the audio output icon in the bottom right of the player shows the current playback device.
• ARIA ONE Audio Settings — the gear in the top bar. INPUT, OUTPUT, and sample rate are all set here.

Summary

Qobuz routes through ARIA ONE cleanly because it has its own audio device setting: choose the virtual audio device in Qobuz, and ARIA ONE reads from that device, applies your hearing profile, and sends the result to your headphones or speakers. On Windows, pick the WASAPI driver type first. Leave Exclusive Mode off, set streaming quality as high as your plan allows, keep the virtual audio device and ARIA ONE on the same sample rate, and make sure Qobuz Connect or casting is not sending playback to another device.