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Song that exposes - CD, SACD, Apple Music, Amazon HD - sound quality differences

MasterApex

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2022

During this holiday, I received a gift which is a limited pressing (2000) 32-bit mastering process CD, Cantate Domino, Oscar's Motet Choir.

I compare :
A) Apple Music, coded as Hi-Res Losses, 24bit/88.2kHz, - Apple TV HDMI Out to AVP 7706
B) Amazon Music HD, coded as Ultra HD, 24bit/48kHz - Apple TV HDMI Out to AVP 7706
C) The Cantate Domino CD, 16bit/44.1kHz - Oppo 105D HDMI out to AVP 7706
D) The Cantate Domino CD, 16bit/44.1kHz - Oppo 105D XLR Analog out to analog pre-amp

My favorite is the song titled "Hosiana Dvaids Son".
I uses Apple TV 4k as music stream, its HDMI out feeds to AVR-7706 and use Oppo105D to play the CD.

C) and D) sounds similar but way better than A) and B). B) has the least sound quality presentation/impression.
Playing from CD via Oppo 105tD, the Choir has more life-like dynamic, the articulation has more fidelity and the trumpet, the background organ notes are more defined and the trumpet sounds have more texture.

This song clearly shows the superiority of good CD pressing and the nuance details differences over the streaming Apple Music version at 88.2kHx and Amazon HD's 48 KHz. Could the digital jitter in streaming or the chosen master in which Apple music or amazon HD coded them into file matters?

I played it loud to make it sounds like you were there with the choir .
I wanted to share so you guys can appreciate it especially if one has highly resolving speakers/amp to appreciate the soundstage of such good recording
If anyone know of other songs/albums that provide good quality recording that exposes the differences with bit rate or mastering , please share.

Thanks.
 

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LaL

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Wonder if there's any difference?
if you download the 24 bit Amazon HD file and play it off your Hard drive as opposed to streaming it.

Amazon.jpg
 
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fun

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I have the SACD copy for this album, which has the same album cover as the Apple Music version, so maybe from the same master? They both sound great to me, so I would just enjoy the music and not worry too much about the differences, if any :).
 

ThatM1key

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There's no way on knowing what's been done to the files by each service.
There's always a way

I tried to searching up the album on Amazon and all I got was a podcast with a ugly cat lady.

cdef46c7-f243-44b5-b653-a8ab98949302-1142513553._SX768_SY768_BL0_QL100__UX358_FMwebp_QL85_.jpeg
 

restorer-john

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This song clearly shows the superiority of good CD pressing and the nuance details differences over the streaming Apple Music version at 88.2kHx and Amazon HD's 48 KHz. Could the digital jitter in streaming or the chosen master in which Apple music or amazon HD coded them into file matters?

Like @sq225917 said, you/we have absolutely no idea what the various streaming services do to the original files. There is no guarantee of anything, letalone supposed superiority, or lack thereof. But, the same can be said of the CD.

Streaming is just a convenience thing, like FM radio. You just enjoy it, but don't take the sound quality remotely seriously. If you like the music enough, buy it on a proper physical format and keep it. Play it forever and never 'wonder' about its provenance.
 

ThatM1key

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There's no way on knowing what's been done to the files by each service.
There's tools to download the files directly from Tidal, Qobuz & Deezer. Even if those tools are gone, you can bit-perfect record songs using "WASAPI Loopback" from any service. I do know when it comes to 44.1khz/16 bit files, it's mostly the same on these streaming services. I can imagine the 24-48 (and above) being different on each service but I could be wrong.
 

ThatM1key

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blueone

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C) and D) sounds similar but way better than A) and B). B) has the least sound quality presentation/impression.
Playing from CD via Oppo 105tD, the Choir has more life-like dynamic, the articulation has more fidelity and the trumpet, the background organ notes are more defined and the trumpet sounds have more texture.
I'm very skeptical of these results. The first thought that comes to mind is: what sort of distortion would cause these audible effects? "... the organ background notes are more defined...". Equalization? If it was equalization, why would the objective be making the sound worse? And Amazon Music, for example, stores about 60 million songs. So are they all manipulated, or only selected ones? Manually, or some sort of generic filter? Since the Amazon would never use a bootleg copy of a song or an album, why wouldn't the record label supply the best possible master? They get paid by the number of streamings, correct? Lots of money is made by licensing songs to streamers. It just seems illogical that digital masters are being knowingly manipulated to sound worse. And if the distortion is due to a bad processing chain, why are the described anomalous effects so much like audiophile magazine descriptions?

I'm also not seeing the business case for making CDs sound better. CDs are a market with declining unit volumes and falling prices.

Personally, I own many CDs which hold content available on Amazon and Apple Music, and I've never heard a difference when the recordings are from the same masters.
 
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NiagaraPete

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I'm going to go out on a limb and say "none".
 
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