So help me understand why I seem to hear a difference (and I don't want to).

[Geertidow]

Dear forum members,

I have Spotify, Tidal and about 600 albums on a Subsonic server (through Symfonium).
I happily use all services, but I'd like to fully commit to Spotify so there is no confusion in the car and most of my friends use Spotify.
However, when listening, also when level matching (using a dB meter on my phone) I seem to hear a small difference in favour of Tidal or my own music as compared to Spotify.

Tidal has a higher resolution (up to 24-bit/192kHz) than Spotify does (up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz).
My music is generally ripped on 16-bit/44.1 kHz), and sometimes higher (bandcamp purchases).

Can someone help me understand why I hear a difference?
I'm open to the conclusion that it's still between my ears.

It's played on 2 KEF R3 metas with 2 SVS 2000 pro subs with Dirac ART.

What am I missing?

 

[staticV3]

Record the data, put it in https://deltaw.org/, and you'll have your answer.

No use in speculating on sighted listening impressions.

 

[Geertidow]

Record with my UMIK-1 in REW you mean?
Or through a digital-only measurement?

 

[staticV3]

Ideally, record the digital signal using Audacity Wasapi Loopback recording, or a SPDIF to USB converter like the HiFime UR23/UR27.

If that's not an option, then you can record with a mic, but it must be set up on a mount/tripod, with identical room acoustic and no auto gain control in the system.

And since you only want to capture a response difference, the mic's frequency response doesn't matter much so long as it has sufficient bandwidth.

Low self-noise and distortion matter most then.

 

[Geertidow]

I'll see what I can conjure . Thanks for the tip

 

[EERecordist]

The mastering engineer would produce different masters following all their requirements and metadata for each platform. Then the platform will reconform/remaster, automatically.

 

[CrankyFrank]

I kind of agree with the mastering part. I'm fairly happy with Spotify lossless for casual listening. Just make sure to have the settings set up correctly so that it really is streaming at lossless level.

I've been checking the compression levels on my albums with Foobar2000, with the DR plugin installed. Like, mid-80s CDs are quite often mastered better than 24/96 remasters which are compressed. Some exceptions. A Chameleons UK release that I own is crazy bad, including a channel imbalance on one of the songs.