Headchef
Active Member
- Thread Starter
- #21
They may well be different but so what? They may be sourced from different masters or otherwise have different pedigrees. I don't think anyone knows for sure how the various streaming services source their tracks and in what format - or what happens to the tracks after the services get them. No doubt it's a constantly changing hodgepodge of formats and distribution methods depending on country, record company, streaming service or licensing deal.
Every service has undoubtedly some standardized 'master' format they use for distribution. There will be automated systems to convert tracks from one format to another, add metadata and watermarks etc. I think most of us know how challenging it can be just to maintain consistent metatagging and cover-art of a personal flac library. I imagine it's a bit more complicated to maintain a library of hundreds of millions of tracks sourced from god-knows-where in any consistent manner.
My point is whatever 'difference' you may find between streaming services in any one track or album will not necessarily be the same for any other album. And since every service is constantly changing features, updating licensing, formats etc. even if today one service sounds consistently 'better' for a sample of tracks it may not do next week. Or it may just be some upstream encoding error that is not representative at all ...
This is why I just stick with Spotify. They have the largest library, the best discovery, decent useability and competitive pricing. And of course sound just fine. Do you really expect perfection for $10 a month? If you want the guaranteed best unadulterated quality then buy the CD.
well the point is that higher res (higher quality than CD) services are supposed to be just that, if we were to extrapolate upon your surmising there’s little point in measuring anything, such as DAC’s, Amps, etc.
what I’m trying to point out is there is a marked and noticeable difference in playback reproduction across the currently available sources, something that if say you were considering dropping a substantial sum on say a new DAC it’s worth considering which streaming service might suit it best, for example an overly bright cheaper DAC might sound far better if fed Tidal or Amazon due to what I’m inclined to think is a degree of hi/low roll off within their services…