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Interesting. I don't really know if this is the case, but I do use those streaming services only to demo music but actually purchase the original CDs if I liked the album. Also, Japanese CD press are mostly from UMG and as such have the watermark compared to the USA/Mexico CD press (discs are made in Mexico) and thus the claim that the Japanese CD sound better is the result of this watermarking
I just find that the volume normalization with Pandora is a lot lower than Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal and Apple Music. However, when the track calls for complex passages, Pandora doesn't have the range to go loud without plateauing on the loudness while the rest of the streaming services can sound very loud without feeling that the sound is lacking drive.
I’m not sure about Pandora, but most streaming services allow you to download the track. If someone with multiple accounts could download the same track and then share them, we could analyze them for differences. Thanks.
Almost 4 years old, and it doesn't deal with hi-res streaming, but interesting nonetheless? It suggests that tracks be mastered on a service-by-service basis to avoid over-compression.
I’m not sure about Pandora, but most streaming services allow you to download the track. If someone with multiple accounts could download the same track and then share them, we could analyze them for differences. Thanks.
I don't think it's the files but the DSP applied (volume normalization which is different than replay gain) by those players before the stream is sent to the DAC. Extracting the files should not provide meaningful difference on the spectrum that can be audible unless there are watermarks applied for copy protection. However, capturing that analog audio out of the DAC might reveal the differences between the files if Pandora really applies DSP before the stream is sent to the DAC
In my case, to eliminate the DSP differences between the players (whether those DSP differences from players are audible to me or not), I use a third party program such as Audirvana or others use Roon for streaming. Using Audirvana, there is essentially zero audible difference between Tidal and Qobuz to me, but one needs to really perform a DBT volume matched test between the streaming services to ensure that the differences are audible with absolute certainty
When I listen to a 16/44.1 cut on Tidal and compare the playback volume to a FLAC ripped from the same CD in Foobar, 9/10 times the playback in Tidal is obviously louder. I just checked and reconfirmed that volume normalization is off in my Tidal settings.
I know that my Foobar chain has no attenuation as I have played a 0 dBFS 1 kHz test tone and a DMM always shows 2.0 Vrms, +/- a few hundredths of a volt at the output of the DAC.
I agree, I use roon and on a shuffle it mixes locally stored FLAC with tidal hifi streams. I've noticed the local files need me to up the DAC volume one or 2 places to give the same kind of volumes as tidal. I've tried volume levelling but it seems to flatten everything too much for my taste.
I don't think it's the files but the DSP applied (volume normalization which is different than replay gain) by those players before the stream is sent to the DAC. Extracting the files should not provide meaningful difference on the spectrum that can be audible unless there are watermarks applied for copy protection. However, capturing that analog audio out of the DAC might reveal the differences between the files if Pandora really applies DSP before the stream is sent to the DAC
In my case, to eliminate the DSP differences between the players (whether those DSP differences from players are audible to me or not), I use a third party program such as Audirvana or others use Roon for streaming. Using Audirvana, there is essentially zero audible difference between Tidal and Qobuz to me, but one needs to really perform a DBT volume matched test between the streaming services to ensure that the differences are audible with absolute certainty
If you wanted to perform a properly controlled DBT, you could use a DAW to loop the output back digitally and record it, then use the recordings to perform an ABX test in Foobar or similar. Unlike trying to record the audio output post-DA conversion, this approach would ensure the DBT used the unmodified output of each streaming service.
I agree, I use roon and on a shuffle it mixes locally stored FLAC with tidal hifi streams. I've noticed the local files need me to up the DAC volume one or 2 places to give the same kind of volumes as tidal. I've tried volume levelling but it seems to flatten everything too much for my taste.
Is this also the case when you compare the volume of the same recording stored localls and stored on Tidal? And is it the same for all recordings? If Tidal is normalising each track (or each album), some recordings should be louder and others quieter (depending on the LUFS of the original master).
If you wanted to perform a properly controlled DBT, you could use a DAW to loop the output back digitally and record it, then use the recordings to perform an ABX test in Foobar or similar. Unlike trying to record the audio output post-DA conversion, this approach would ensure the DBT used the unmodified output of each streaming service.
Is this also the case when you compare the volume of the same recording stored localls and stored on Tidal? And is it the same for all recordings? If Tidal is normalising each track (or each album), some recordings should be louder and others quieter (depending on the LUFS of the original master).
I just find that the volume normalization with Pandora is a lot lower than Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal and Apple Music. However, when the track calls for complex passages, Pandora doesn't have the range to go loud without plateauing on the loudness while the rest of the streaming services can sound very loud without feeling that the sound is lacking drive.
Never tried the others so I wouldn't know. Steaming has always been secondary for me. I stuck with Pandora for a long time because I liked its recommendations, but I hadn't been using it much so I let my subscription expire along with my credit card last year.
Given how all the services seem to differ slightly they must be running their own DSPs on everything. Most tracks wouldn't have that many different masters for each service to get a different one and there's no way anyone is spending the labor to re master several million tracks over again for each service.
