Spotify to launch 'Hi-Fi' CD Quality Tier.

[Brian Hall]

Question for the group here - if I don't care about lossless in this context, which service other than Spotify works best with WiiM?

They all work well with the wiim devices.

 

[Brian Hall]

There's a big difference between MP3 and lossless
I'm amazed that some people can't hear it especially audiophiles with amazing systems like people on ASR

There is very little audible difference between spotify on highest settings compared to Tidal or qobuz.

Definitely not a night and day difference as some claim.

 

[sigbergaudio]

It's the entire video. Play it at 2x.

I've now listened to the 10 first minutes and he doesn't even mention Spotify once. So I will stop there and rest my case until further evidence is presented.

 

[Tell]

I guess you guys missed the memo!!!

Yeah I don't know what we specifically should take away from that long video, but I know that Amir claims that he "can" hear a difference between 16bit and 24 bit, but that's when just listening to a fade out at seriously high gain, sort of like zooming 100% into a 10gigapix and a 100gigapix photo saying you can see a difference between them. I mean yeah sure you can and so can I, but that's not how you look at photos or listen to music.

 

[Sal1950]

Interesting. My experience is quite the opposite. However, I never 'like' single tracks and always add whole albums to my library. Certainly if I've been playing a certain artist or genre a lot the recommendations will reflect this but as soon as I play a couple of different albums the recommendations are mostly broad and on point.



Spotify's ethics are definitely questionable. But which large multinational capitalist organization isn't? Pick your poison ... ;-)

I don't believe there's any streamers with good ethics towards the musicians.
Market competition has driven down their to-customer pricing down that there's little left over to pass back out.
I'm not excusing them, just putting down the facts.

There's a big difference between MP3 and lossless

I wouldn't call it big, but it is audible if one knows what to listen for.
And like so many other things in audio, once you hear it, you can't unhear it.

Spotify is indeed the best in business for those things, but not everyone cares about those features.

In fact the less any on-line provider attempts to keep track of my preferences the better and more comfortable I am with them.

 

[sigbergaudio]

@PristineSound Skipped through the rest of the video. While I still didn't find any reference to Spotify, I guess the cumulative information in the video could be derived to imply that Amir could possibly hear the difference of a specific part of a track of lossless vs Spotify. Despite that, the overall point of the video seems to be the complete opposite, that it is extremely difficult to hear, and even Amir with his traning would have no chance to do so in a "normal" listening situation (on a stereo system in a normal living room just listening to music).

 

[Joramun]

Hopefully they're finally going to add WASAPI exclusive mode support to the Windows app.

Pigs will fly before that happens.

 

[Sal1950]

How many years now has Spotify promised that lossless was just around the corner?
Any corporation that can lie publicly to my face, over and over, I've no desire to do business with at all.

 

[sigbergaudio]

How many years now has Spotify promised that lossless was just around the corner?
Any corporation that can lie publicly to my face, over and over, I've no desire to do business with at all.

First announced February 2021. Would be interesting to know what the reason behind the delay is.

 

[Tell]

Not that I care about getting lossless, but yeah I agree that their constant promises but nothing to deliver is weird.
But as I've said before, I'd way rather have them give me the possibility to pay more where all that money goes directly to the artist instead of some random lossless that no one actually needs.

 

[obsessive9119]

I don't believe there's any streamers with good ethics towards the musicians.
Market competition has driven down their to-customer pricing down that there's little left over to pass back out.
I'm not excusing them, just putting down the facts.

I believe qobuz are (or at least, were) pretty good in this regard.

 

[PristineSound]

@PristineSound Skipped through the rest of the video. While I still didn't find any reference to Spotify, I guess the cumulative information in the video could be derived to imply that Amir could possibly hear the difference of a specific part of a track of lossless vs Spotify.

The point is the audible difference between lossy low bit rate vs. lossless high bit rate. Spotify = lossy low bit rate.

Despite that, the overall point of the video seems to be the complete opposite, that it is extremely difficult to hear, and even Amir with his traning would have no chance to do so in a "normal" listening situation (on a stereo system in a normal living room just listening to music).

Precisely everything I said. . .multiple times.

I'm willing to bet $50 that no one can tell the difference between high res vs MP3 without doing back to back AB.

There is very little difference, so little that without back to back AB, I'm pretty sure no one can tell the difference.

An ABX is a back to back. I can tell the difference between 16bit and 24bit ABX.

But take a 24bit down sample it to MP3, have someone randomly select between the 24bit and the MP3, play it back without ABX. You won't be able to tell which one it is.

With back to back, such as ABX, with training, one can very very reliably tell the difference as does Amir can.

But without back to back, I'm 99.99% confident no one can tell the difference.

 

[Pearljam5000]

You can easily hear the difference with good headphones or studio monitors.

 

[Brian Hall]

The point is the audible difference between lossy low bit rate vs. lossless high bit rate. Spotify = lossy low bit rate.

Spotify on high settings uses 320kbps. The compression algorithm they use is very good and there is very little if any useful audible information removed, mostly consisting of high frequency noise.

 

[PristineSound]

You can easily hear the difference with good headphones or studio monitors.

If you live in the NY, NJ, CT, PA Quadrangle area of the eastern seaboard of the US, I invite you to my house, where I will down sample a 24 bit track it to MP3, play it back to you blind, without comparison. You won't be able to tell if it is high bit rate, lossless vs low bit rate lossy. I can supply the wine or whiskey and you can supply dinner.

Open invitation to anyone. . .assuming none of you are a serial killer

 

[sigbergaudio]

The point is the audible difference between lossy low bit rate vs. lossless high bit rate. Spotify = lossy low bit rate.

Spotify Premium is 320kbps, this is lossy, but not low bitrate. Given how lossy compression algorithms work, it's a high bitrate. The average bitrate of lossless compressed CD quality is around 900kbps. So we're at less than 3x. The only time lossy compression was discussed that I noticed (again I didn't watch the entire thing) was in the beginning where 128kbps MP3 was discussed. And even there Amir said it was very difficult.

Precisely everything I said. . .multiple times.

Feels like you are arguing against yourself. Can Amir hear the difference between Spotify Premium and lossless on a random song in an ABX test? We don't know. I feel like it's not super likely to be the case.

 

[Brian Hall]

You can easily hear the difference with good headphones or studio monitors.

My hearing cuts off at 16khz. I hear no audible differences using my HD800s.

I understand there may be some very slight differences that could be possibly be detected if someone really concentrates and really wants to hear the differences, but nothing that would make me feel I am missing out.

 

[Palladium]

What mainstream streaming service even does an ancient format like MP3?

 

[PristineSound]

Spotify Premium is 320kbps, this is lossy, but not low bitrate. Given how lossy compression algorithms work, it's a high bitrate. The average bitrate of lossless compressed CD quality is around 900kbps. So we're at less than 3x. The only time lossy compression was discussed that I noticed (again I didn't watch the entire thing) was in the beginning where 128kbps MP3 was discussed. And even there Amir said it was very difficult.

What you described is the current Spotify, it's lossy, 320kbps is generally considered low bit rate.

Per ChatGPT, the upcoming Spotify "Music Pro" is CD quality 1,411 kbps.

Feels like you are arguing against yourself.

Not at all. Nothing I said is contradictory. I am making two distinct points (1) there is absolutely an audible different (2) but without doing a back to back comparison, you simply can't tell

Can Amir hear the difference between Spotify Premium and losssless on a random song in an ABX test? We don't know. I feel like it's not super likely to be the case.

Amir already have hard evidence in the form of Foobar ABX log that he can tell the difference between MP3 vs CD quality 16 bit vs 24 bit. With random song, Amir demonstrated that with his knowledge of audio compression and signal processing, he knows what to identify. But can he do this for every single track that ever existed? Probably not, but I think he can do it for most. I personally have tried it on 3 random tracks and I can identify all 3, but that can just be luck.

 

[bluefuzz]

Maybe it depends on the client you use.

I mostly use the Mac desktop client but I don't remember being bothered by podcasts or anthing else on the rare occasions I've used the mobile app ...