spotify quality vs "hi-fi" lossless options, i cant tell a difference.

[pablolie]

...

For me it's not limited to specific recordings. And knowing I already 'annoyed' this forum too much with my subjective and impossible to prove claims, I will dare to use some more words that are the epitomy of subjectivity Sound is more full, more substantial in all the spectrum of the frequencies. It is not a matter of sharp percussion or deep bass. It is a richer, full body and more layered in a way sound. And maybe I need to stop as I am eventually taking it to far. After all, if I am happy like this you should also be happy for me I am very curious to do Archimago's tests. I will also post my results.

Yes, and none of that reflects the actual reality of what you could possibly hear as a difference. Another fact it that you need to be *trained* to truly attempt to tell the difference between good compressed and uncompressed, and you need to pick the right recordings to do so. You use all the wrong words to describe the differences you have convinced yourself -as many others have- you can hear.

You're just rehashing platitudes, sorry. I don't believe for a single micro-second your claims are defendable if they are put to a test. It's been said a thousand times before, and disproven just as many times.

 

[ahofer]

impossible to prove claims

No, it’s quite possible to prove them, or at least back them up. And it’s certainly also possible to disprove them. If you are willing.

Don’t take it personally, nobody knows you and you’ve made a highly improbable assertion. If someone comes into a runner’s forum and says they can run a 3:50 mile, the forum members will ask for official times.

 

[bigscreentom]

Disappointed with apple lossless. I just listened for an hour to the exact same classical music tracks/movie soundtracks, side by side, on my HQ Ultrasone hfi-680 headphones. I connected them directly to my macbook pro M1 MAX. I consider myself to have a trained ear as I work in the industry. Apple lossless on one hand, Spotify highest quality on the other. Unfortunately, on many occasions apple lossless sounds WORSE... Quite frequently there is a slight 'clicking' sound, only noticeable if you pay attention to it. Also, somehow, I feel the music coming from Spotify sounds warmer and 'more direct'. I wish I could say that the difference is subtle, but it isn't. When performing the same test on my KEF LS50 speakers, Apple DOES sound better, particularly in the high tones. This might have to do with the KEF software dealing better with Apple than Spotify. In my opinion, the experience with Apple lossless is not consistent. It depends on circumstances (both during recording as well as playback) and on the equipment. This means that finding out whether it is worth it for you, will be a trial and error procedure depending on your setup...

 

[kemmler3D]

Disappointed with apple lossless. I just listened for an hour to the exact same classical music tracks/movie soundtracks, side by side, on my HQ Ultrasone hfi-680 headphones. I connected them directly to my macbook pro M1 MAX. I consider myself to have a trained ear as I work in the industry. Apple lossless on one hand, Spotify highest quality on the other. Unfortunately, on many occasions apple lossless sounds WORSE... Quite frequently there is a slight 'clicking' sound, only noticeable if you pay attention to it. Also, somehow, I feel the music coming from Spotify sounds warmer and 'more direct'. I wish I could say that the difference is subtle, but it isn't. When performing the same test on my KEF LS50 speakers, Apple DOES sound better, particularly in the high tones. This might have to do with the KEF software dealing better with Apple than Spotify. In my opinion, the experience with Apple lossless is not consistent. It depends on circumstances (both during recording as well as playback) and on the equipment. This means that finding out whether it is worth it for you, will be a trial and error procedure depending on your setup...

Welcome to ASR!

I'll just skip the formalities and give you the stock reply here -

If there's a difference in audio quality between two digital formats, the first things to rule out:

1. Are they definitely the same master?
2. Did you level match within 0.1dB or so? (not trivial, can't really do this by ear)

Either a different master or a slight level difference will create a much bigger subjective difference than pretty much any technical disparity between digital audio formats.

If the answer to 1 and 2 are both yes, then there's:

3. Did you test blind?

Heard differences will almost always happen if you expect them, as I am sure you have experienced working in the industry.

 

[dfuller]

I can't reliably tell an MP3 at 320k CBR apart from 44.1/16 WAV. I've tested it.

Spotify, on the other hand, sounds noticeably different. It's much darker, and it seems to lose some of the low level side information in encoding. This even at highest quality. I've yet to figure out why this would be, and it bothers me that I don't know why because other lossy compression doesn't sound that way to me.

The story behind this is that I switched to Tidal after one of Spotify's myriad UI changes that nobody asked for, and without even listening for it - like I had it on in the background while I was doing something else - I noticed that cymbals and reverbs were different on Tidal lossless (not MQA, mind - just lossless 44.1/16 FLAC). So I found a CD, did a rip of the CD, and then used a D/D converter I had at the time (an Apogee Rosetta 200) to do a loopback of Tidal and Spotify into Pro Tools. I aligned them as closely as I could. Tidal and the CD rip nulled as I expected. Almost all of the differences when I did a null test for Spotify vs the CD were high end and low level signals.

 

[kemmler3D]

I can't reliably tell an MP3 at 320k CBR apart from 44.1/16 WAV. I've tested it.

Spotify, on the other hand, sounds noticeably different. It's much darker, and it seems to lose some of the low level side information in encoding. This even at highest quality. I've yet to figure out why this would be, and it bothers me that I don't know why because other lossy compression doesn't sound that way to me.

The story behind this is that I switched to Tidal after one of Spotify's myriad UI changes that nobody asked for, and without even listening for it - like I had it on in the background while I was doing something else - I noticed that cymbals and reverbs were different on Tidal lossless (not MQA, mind - just lossless 44.1/16 FLAC). So I found a CD, did a rip of the CD, and then used a D/D converter I had at the time (an Apogee Rosetta 200) to do a loopback of Tidal and Spotify into Pro Tools. I aligned them as closely as I could. Tidal and the CD rip nulled as I expected. Almost all of the differences when I did a null test for Spotify vs the CD were high end and low level signals.

Would be interesting to capture the stream from Spotify and compare it to a WAV or MP3 version in Deltawave...

 

[Philbo King]

This is simple to test for. Put an MP3 track into a wav editor. Invert the polarity. Add in the original, using care to time-align the two to sample time. To encode it I used LAME 320K MP3 with all filtering turned off. (Some encoders default to using a 16KHz LPF.)

Play back the two subtracted files, adjusting the level of one of the input tracks to achieve a minimum output. Whatever is left is what the MP3 encoding removed, the 'residue'.

In my testing, the residue was nearly always 90 dB or more below the original level. Enough said.

Of course, lower MP3 bit rates and those that use LPFs will give higher numbers than the -90dB...

 

[Axo1989]

Disappointed with apple lossless. I just listened for an hour to the exact same classical music tracks/movie soundtracks, side by side, on my HQ Ultrasone hfi-680 headphones. I connected them directly to my macbook pro M1 MAX. I consider myself to have a trained ear as I work in the industry. Apple lossless on one hand, Spotify highest quality on the other. Unfortunately, on many occasions apple lossless sounds WORSE... Quite frequently there is a slight 'clicking' sound, only noticeable if you pay attention to it. ...

Re clicks (or stutters, gaps etc) are you running current macOS ie Sonoma? There's a thread here about audio issues running prior OS on Apple Silicon Macs. That started about USB DACs but it the issue appears to relate to memory pressure and fixed by the current OS (I still sometimes notice what sounds like a skip/adjustment 10-20 sec into the first track of a session, but nothing continuous). I expect you'd be current but just something to get out of the way.

Also, somehow, I feel the music coming from Spotify sounds warmer and 'more direct'. I wish I could say that the difference is subtle, but it isn't. When performing the same test on my KEF LS50 speakers, Apple DOES sound better, particularly in the high tones. This might have to do with the KEF software dealing better with Apple than Spotify. In my opinion, the experience with Apple lossless is not consistent. It depends on circumstances (both during recording as well as playback) and on the equipment. This means that finding out whether it is worth it for you, will be a trial and error procedure depending on your setup...

Correlates with @dfuller's comment but keep in mind @kemmler3D's caveat. I don't use Spotify to compare.

 

[Mnyb]

Have someone mentioned that to really try this , you should do converting yourself from a known source .

Whaterever streams on a service, is probably not the exact same master as your CD ?

I have tried with small artists on obscure labels, then it was no different. But it was a while ago

But who knows how they process stuff nowadays

I think your compared a streaming service vs your CD rather than the lossy format itself ?

 

[kemmler3D]

Almost all of the differences when I did a null test for Spotify vs the CD were high end and low level signals.

Interesting. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Spotify had some crappy transcodes or simply lied about the underlying bitrate for some of their stuff. While OGG @ 320 or even 256 should be transparent almost all the time, if they transcoded that from a lossy format, who knows? Free Spotify is only 128 ... maybe not that hard to notice a problem with good 'phones / speakers.

Spotify just transcodes whatever people upload, so if someone uploaded a FLAC transcode of an MP3 or whatever, then... there's your answer. Sounds improbably dumb, but I'm sure we've all seen improbably dumb things done by professionals in our careers...

 

[bigscreentom]

Re clicks (or stutters, gaps etc) are you running current macOS ie Sonoma? There's a thread here about audio issues running prior OS on Apple Silicon Macs. That started about USB DACs but it the issue appears to relate to memory pressure and fixed by the current OS (I still sometimes notice what sounds like a skip/adjustment 10-20 sec into the first track of a session, but nothing continuous). I expect you'd be current but just something to get out of the way.



Correlates with @dfuller's comment but keep in mind @kemmler3D's caveat. I don't use Spotify to compare.

Hi, thanks for your reply. Yes, I do use the latest mac OS Sonoma.

 

[bigscreentom]

Welcome to ASR!

I'll just skip the formalities and give you the stock reply here -

If there's a difference in audio quality between two digital formats, the first things to rule out:

1. Are they definitely the same master?
2. Did you level match within 0.1dB or so? (not trivial, can't really do this by ear)

Either a different master or a slight level difference will create a much bigger subjective difference than pretty much any technical disparity between digital audio formats.

If the answer to 1 and 2 are both yes, then there's:

3. Did you test blind?

Heard differences will almost always happen if you expect them, as I am sure you have experienced working in the industry.

Hi, thanks for your reply.
Yes, as far as I can tell, they are the same master: same album art, same artist, same track, same producer... As for the 0.1 db: no, I didn't level match to 0.1 db. I did my best to keep the same levels when comparing though, and also tested at several different levels... With headphones on, Spotify always came out best.

 

[NiagaraPete]

Hi, thanks for your reply.
Yes, as far as I can tell, they are the same master: same album art, same artist, same track, same producer... As for the 0.1 db: no, I didn't level match to 0.1 db. I did my best to keep the same levels when comparing though, and also tested at several different levels... With headphones on, Spotify always came out best.

Question? Have you tried or are you using the Apple Classical music app?

 

[Yuhasz01]

Listen and subscribe to the streaming service you enjoy listening to the most; reason why we are all fooling around with the technology and services.

 

[bigscreentom]

Question? Have you tried or are you using the Apple Classical music app?

Hi, I have tried it but I haven't tested it. For my comparison, I was using the regular Apple Music app.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Interesting. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Spotify had some crappy transcodes or simply lied about the underlying bitrate for some of their stuff. While OGG @ 320 or even 256 should be transparent almost all the time, if they transcoded that from a lossy format, who knows? Free Spotify is only 128 ... maybe not that hard to notice a problem with good 'phones / speakers.

Spotify just transcodes whatever people upload, so if someone uploaded a FLAC transcode of an MP3 or whatever, then... there's your answer. Sounds improbably dumb, but I'm sure we've all seen improbably dumb things done by professionals in our careers...

That's some weird speculation, isn't it?

On the contrary I would be very surprised if they lie about the bitrate. Could you imagine when it get's out? -That the largest streaming service lie to their customers?

There are of course outliers. Old tracks that come from old vinyl masters or something like that. Music from the sixties etc. Those are not expected to carry the fidelity of tracks from the CD era, surely.

 

[Ze Frog]

Me neither most of the time. I only briefly dabbled with streaming a couple of years ago, just to see what the fuss was about. Anything that sounded better was likely due to being based on different recordings, I have had CD's that differ slightly according to release year or country of release.

For me I just found it really rather odd, I want a physical copy personally. Add in the fact of bit rate anxiety, constantly trying to see if you are getting the advertised and it just becomes a bit of an annoyance and defeats the object of music in the first place, be that stimulating thought, relaxing etc. And the absolute fuss over DAC chips and the latest and greatest, makes it like a phone where people want to upgrade. It's a total gift to the Hi-fi industry, that's for sure. I don't stream anymore, predominantly CD now although I will Bluetooth from YouTube on the odd occasion for songs I don't have or can't find on physical media. The enjoyment of actually interacting with my system is part of the whole experience, didn't realise how much until I dabbled briefly in streaming. It's definitely the future though sadly, people want an algorithm to do all the work and never have to lift a finger, people think CD's and Records are clutter these days, we really are diving into the whole WEF dystopia, and willingly. Everything will be subscription in say 20 year's, hell even car companies are charging subscriptions for heated seats etc despite you buying the bloody thing.

 

[Mnyb]

Interesting. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Spotify had some crappy transcodes or simply lied about the underlying bitrate for some of their stuff. While OGG @ 320 or even 256 should be transparent almost all the time, if they transcoded that from a lossy format, who knows? Free Spotify is only 128 ... maybe not that hard to notice a problem with good 'phones / speakers.

Spotify just transcodes whatever people upload, so if someone uploaded a FLAC transcode of an MP3 or whatever, then... there's your answer. Sounds improbably dumb, but I'm sure we've all seen improbably dumb things done by professionals in our careers...

This is probably the reality of streaming services *they* don't convert or upload anything or do any QC , how could they with million's of tracks ? ( they should put an AI on to it btw ? ) .

So labels upload whatever they see fit .

Therefore i find "hifi tiers" in streaming services a bit of a joke sure they put out some lossles format that insures against further weird artifacts as double lossy encodings or manipulations in their own apps ?
But no human is put to the task of actually select and curate the "hifi tier library" so its still the labels that uploads whatever they have in the requested format regardless of pedigree .

So it's like the SACD/DVDA debacle again where the masters are rarely hi-rez at all an mp3 to flac conversions would not be surprising at all , by some intern just rigth cliking and convert the stuff wo any clue

A real hifi streaming service would select and curate their library manually ...

 

[stoo23]

This guy is a rather talented Studio Engineer, that I have 'followed' for some time.
He does some great 'Honest' reviews of real Hardware, Plug-Ins and stuff and this is an iinteresting comparison

 

[antcollinet]

Hi, thanks for your reply.
Yes, as far as I can tell, they are the same master: same album art, same artist, same track, same producer... As for the 0.1 db: no, I didn't level match to 0.1 db. I did my best to keep the same levels when comparing though, and also tested at several different levels... With headphones on, Spotify always came out best.

If you had read all this thread, you would already know:

There is no point comparing sighted - you subconscious biases (you can't avoid them) are likely to create differences in your perception of sound. These differences sound real and significant.

Even if you test blind, there is no point unless you have accurately level matched as described above. Small level differences that you cannot hear as a level difference can create a "perception of quality" difference.

Descriptions of sound quality differences based on comparisons lacking those basic controls are value-less, and will be pretty much ignored here.


PS - Welcome to the forum.