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

[the_hamster 2]

Can’t be bothered going through all the comments on this thread, but FWIW always enjoyed music quality streaming 320K Spotify over CCA...no glitches, no stutter, no drops, just all-round nice sounds. Quite honestly, if pressed, hard to hear audible diff between Spotify and Qobuz..yes, YMMV, but that’s me. OK, the rest of you, be honest...can you?

 

[cany89]

OK, the rest of you, be honest...can you?

I guess it’s because majority just listen to music while doing something else, and only critically listen when swapping a component or challenge yourself to see if you can hear it - for 15 mins. only to hear nothing. How many hours you only listen to music, instrument sustains, releases, etc. on your sweet spot, without a mobile phone...

No one can pick the 24/192 over 16/44 (or even 320 mp3) because the material that makes highres better are unknown and subjective. (I’m not talking about on paper comparison) Let’s say the low end bass resolution is a bit bad on lowres vs highres. How do you process this and determine which one is bad in quality. If you never paid attention to what you listen, and don’t have a clue on what to expect from each instrument. You can’t. But, if you listen carefully, the same material, on the same system, you can pick the version that you listen. And easily spot if something is different.

i.e.: Shofukan from Snarky Puppy. Live recorded, very good DR, well produced. Just listen to the trumpet solos - and you can pick something is different on a different setup/source etc. Bass and snare are also good for this but it’s harder to understand what you are looking for on those than the trumpet.

 

[jannek]

I can throw out name of albums I tested, but it is also pointless as you still need my CD rip as well as the bought download from qobuz. And I can't provide my Rip as it is not allowed.

No need to provide any music - just name it. And maybe compare your rips with bought downloads with the DR Meter provided at the DR Database.

 

[ThatM1key]

I guess it’s because majority just listen to music while doing something else, and only critically listen when swapping a component or challenge yourself to see if you can hear it - for 15 mins. only to hear nothing. How many hours you only listen to music, instrument sustains, releases, etc. on your sweet spot, without a mobile phone...

No one can pick the 24/192 over 16/44 (or even 320 mp3) because the material that makes highres better are unknown and subjective. (I’m not talking about on paper comparison) Let’s say the low end bass resolution is a bit bad on lowres vs highres. How do you process this and determine which one is bad in quality. If you never paid attention to what you listen, and don’t have a clue on what to expect from each instrument. You can’t. But, if you listen carefully, the same material, on the same system, you can pick the version that you listen. And easily spot if something is different.

i.e.: Shofukan from Snarky Puppy. Live recorded, very good DR, well produced. Just listen to the trumpet solos - and you can pick something is different on a different setup/source etc. Bass and snare are also good for this but it’s harder to understand what you are looking for on those than the trumpet.

Yes for me its harder to see hear the difference between 24/192 and 16/441 but with MP3 320 and 16/441, I can tell the difference. As the mp3 bitrates get worse, the more I can tell. Sure theres better compression formats but I can tell the difference. Its mainly the aritfacts, the waterly sound.

 

[voodooless]

Yes for me its harder to see hear the difference between 24/192 and 16/441 but with MP3 320 and 16/441, I can tell the difference. As the mp3 bitrates get worse, the more I can tell. Sure theres better compression formats but I can tell the difference. Its mainly the aritfacts, the waterly sound.

Also do not forget that Vorbis, used by Spotify, is much more efficient than MP3. a 320 kBit Vorbis file will be even harder to distinguish than the MP3 version. see: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,36465.0.html

 

[Zensō]

Darko’s take on Spotify HiFi:

 

[ThatM1key]

Darko’s take on Spotify HiFi:

Darkos usually a goof but that video is pretty good.

 

[Emlin]

Darko’s take on Spotify HiFi:

Yet more meaningless waffle from dar.co.

 

[Taddpole]

Darko’s take on Spotify HiFi:

so what?

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

Yet more meaningless waffle from dar.co.

“Sonos is the only place where you can integrate with Spotify without the Spotify app”.

Huh. News to me, I do it every day without the Spotify app, via LMS Material Skin, and via voice control on Nest and Amazon devices.

 

[vavan]

you can't select an output device on the PC. It uses the default Windows sound device and the Windows mixer. You can’t select a USB DAC unless you make it the default Windows sound device and you can’t set it for exclusive mode or bypass the Windows sound mixer

That's unfortunate if correct as tidal allows to choose output device

 

[Music1969]

Spotify sound quality is sketchy, and won’t improve with lossless because of technical reasons and weirdness.

Can you please expand on these points you mentioned?

 

[ThatM1key]

Like I said earlier, theres a Spotify plugin for foobar2000. When you use both you can select the output directly. The plugin supports the current highest quality setting.

Edit: This not piracy as the plugin requires your account info.

 

[Sal1950]

I'd love to see Atmos files on Spotify that can be accessed thru Spotify Connect.
That would make them the only multich supplier accessible without some proprietary hardware.

 

[Rntlee]

Has anyone taken the test and if so how did you do?
http://abx.digitalfeed.net/list.html
http://abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify-hq.html

https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2021...fy-hifi-try-to-pass-this-lossless-audio-test/

Haven’t tried these but did do abx of flac vs various compressed files via foobar a few years ago. No matter how I scrutinized even tiny passages of the music, I couldn’t get a statistically significant result on anything >256kbps, listening through my 2 channel setup or my best headphones. Pretty humbling, but I think that just speaks to how good the codecs have become. I’m sure there are minuscule differences, maybe even some poeple can detect them, but certainly nothing that I’m willing to pay double the price for to Spotify or Tidal.

 

[JSmith]

Has anyone taken the test and if so how did you do?

Not too bad, got 62% correct, one was 100%, 2 were 60% and the other 2 were 40%... but a 42% chance this could be a random result also. Still was just on a lappy with crappy earphones. That's when I did 5, but when I did 10 it was only a 6% chance.



JSmith

 

[Slayer]

Well here we are May 18th and still no Spotify Hifi,
So to day i cancelled my premium and went back to Amazon HD music service. Seeing that Amazon has lowered it's price to $7.99 for prime members, one might think Spotify is going to have a hard time retaining or obtaining customers. I do not see Spotify trying to match or beat the price of Amazon. To bad, I really liked Spotify's app UI and selection better than other services.

 

[gvl]

One downside to Amazon is that it's not well supported on various free streaming software solutions, so you're limited to playing on the official app, or the hardware made by Amazon or their partners.

 

[elliott]

Don't mean to derail, but what's the current state of tech in terms of easily switching between streaming services?
I'm still stuck in flac file life mostly because i've got 1500 albums meticulously catalogued and I can even imagine that any streaming service will do justice to an old school 1tb+ library.

 

[dkinric]

Maybe sooner than we think:
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/18/spotify-lossless-hifi-option-spotted-app/