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Apple Music or Spotify...can't decide
- Thread starter telemike
- Start date
Zensō
Major Contributor
Level matched and blind? Just curious because I’ve found Tidal to be slightly louder. When level matched the differences disappeared for me. This might be insightful:
ABX High Fidelity Test list
A set of browser-based ABX tests comparing lossless and lossy music samples
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- Thread Starter
- #43
Nothing scientific. Just comparing same songs.Level matched and blind? Just curious because I’ve found Tidal to be slightly louder. When level matched the differences disappeared for me. This might be insightful:
ABX High Fidelity Test list
A set of browser-based ABX tests comparing lossless and lossy music samplesabx.digitalfeed.net
So Apple and Spotify low fi does not sound as good as Tital hifi. How about Apple hifi against Tital? Spotify doesn’t have hifi so I get that.Level matched and blind? Just curious because I’ve found Tidal to be slightly louder. When level matched the differences disappeared for me. This might be insightful:
ABX High Fidelity Test list
A set of browser-based ABX tests comparing lossless and lossy music samples
- Thread Starter
- #45
I think Volumio’s AirPlay is AirPlay 2 which means 256k AAC not lossless. I would need a DAC to USB connect my iPhone. Prefer not to be tethered to stereo.
I have an old AirPort Express which can do lossless AirPlay 1 but again I’d prefer to hand off the stream instead of going thru the phone.
Thought about getting an iPod Touch or old iPhone to use for Apple Music Airplay...but that's extra $$$ and another device to manage.
I have an old AirPort Express which can do lossless AirPlay 1 but again I’d prefer to hand off the stream instead of going thru the phone.
Thought about getting an iPod Touch or old iPhone to use for Apple Music Airplay...but that's extra $$$ and another device to manage.
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Last I checked Volumio was Airplay NOT 2
- Thread Starter
- #47
More comparing. Apple and Tidal are very close. I can almost go with Apple except Airplay is not as good as Tidal Connect
Agree - AirPlay is one notch down . But using apple Music lossless from USB out to dac is just as good sounding as TIDAL - for half the price.
Spotify is worse sounding than Apple Music with AirPlay .
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I don't know how you can say that unless "Tidal Connect" is a bit louder. There simply couldn't be an audible difference.
- Thread Starter
- #50
I'm talking not about sound quality, but how the stream is either Airplayed thru the phone or handed off to the streamer with Connect
Maybe factor in the service that pays the artists more per stream? => Tidal in your case.
Zensō
Major Contributor
Honestly, if you're not being scientific about it and you're just comparing sighted, cognitive bias will totally swamp these types of subtle differences in sound quality.
- Thread Starter
- #53
Understood. It's more about which works better for ME. Airplay or Tidal Connect. I'm going to give TIdal and Tidal Connect a few months. If Spotify ever launches the lossless service I'll probably go back to that.
I haven't been able to find any real specs for Tidal Connect, Apples specs are hard to find as well but have been published. I think it comes down to how much you want to pay and what environment you're in. My son worked for Apple so we're loaded with it. The one thing I absolutely do like about Apple is the privacy. Yes Apple get to know but you don't have to let anyone else like Meta or Google.
Balle Clorin
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2017
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Why on Earth would you sponsor Apple?
All they aim for us to lock you into their universe and make you pay endlessly
All they aim for us to lock you into their universe and make you pay endlessly
Sponsor, yeah no. But I trust them with my privacy unlike hmm,m all the rest.
Seems google likes Apples privacy as well
Google plans privacy change similar to Apple's, which wiped $230 billion off Facebook's market cap
Google said it will continue to support the current identifiers for the next two years.
Zensō
Major Contributor
Got it. Functional differences are clearly obvious and our subjective impressions in UX are of utmost importance. For me, the ability to stream any audio source on the device (Apple Music, BandCamp, SoundCloud, YouTube, Safari, et al) using the same controls makes Airplay the obvious choice. Of course it comes with some trade-offs and others will have different priorities.
Zensō
Major Contributor
If you prefer the Spotify UX, you might want to take this ABX test that pits Spotify Premium against lossless. My bet is that you won’t hear a difference.
Is your audio system really ready for lossless?
Do an ABX test in your browser, and see if you can tell the difference between lossless and Spotify-compression quality audio
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