I've never met anyone that uses those super low bitrates, and I'm the sort of weirdo that asks people this, so can you point me at a survey or some other evidence.
Here's what Grace Digital said about Pandora (at
https://support.gracedigital.com/hc...ora-One-only-stream-in-128K-?mobile_site=true):
Grace Digital said:
What is Pandora high quality bitrate?
Pandora on the Web plays 64k AAC+ for free listeners and 192kbps for Pandora One subscribers.
All in-home devices play 128kbps audio, and mobile devices receive a variety of different rates depending on the capability of the device and the network they are on, but never more than 64k AAC+.
So, according to that, mobile users don't have a choice to go above 64kbps.
Spotify's own pages say this about their rates on iPhones and iPads (at
https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/system_settings/high-quality-streaming/):
Spotify said:
You can choose from the following audio quality settings, all in the Ogg Vorbis format:
- Low – Equivalent to approximately 24kbit/s.
- Normal – Equivalent to approximately 96kbit/s.
- High – Equivalent to approximately 160kbit/s.
- Very high – Equivalent to approximately 320kbit/s.
- Automatic - Dependent on your network connection.
Interestingly, under Android, the "Low" bitrate is specified as being in HE-AACv2:
"Low - Equivalent to approximately 24 kbit/s (HE-AACv2 format)." All other bitrates for Android and iPhone/iPad are the same and in Ogg Vorbis.
I don't have statistics on what percentage of Spotify users configure their Spotify apps to stream music at some bitrate other than what Spotify considers "Normal," but judging by the name alone, and the existence of an even lower bitrate, I have to think that it's very commonly used. I realize that's a bit of an assumption, but I think it fair given the information I have.
The vast majority of people have never cared about sound quality, and are probably never going to...
That's why I believe it should be legal to beat them.
but it's what comes after the source that has always been the real problem.
If one chooses carefully, even at a modest budget, that's no longer the case . There are inexpensive USB DACs and headphone amps of fine quality that can be paired with good, but affordable, headphones like Sennheiser HD600s. That audio gear can quickly reveal deficiencies in much of the commercial source material played through it. That's what frustrates me: For such a small investment, people can have fantastic sound that prior generations could only dream of.
I think things have changed -- for the worse -- when it comes to consumers and audio. I'm going to date myself here (and at my age, no one else is going to date me), but I graduated high school in 1980 and worked a summer job at Lafayette Radio and Electronics in a shopping mall. People would routinely come into Lafayette and drop several hundred dollars on mid-fi Japanese consumer stereo components. So let's say they spent $300 on a Pioneer/Technics/Kenwood receiver. Adjusted for inflation, that's over $900 now -- and they still needed speakers and/or headphones to hear anything. The average buyer probably invested over $3,000 in today's dollars by the time they assembled a full system (receiver, speakers, turntable, cassette deck). Today's consumer, when presented the opportunity to spend a third that much for sound quality that is orders of magnitude better, scoffs and stuffs a pair of free-with-phone earbuds into his or her ears and moves on.