"Testing" Qobuz vs Amazon Music HD vs Spotify Premium vs Youtube Music Premium vs Youtube video vs CD

[jwmitchell]

For casual listening, all would do.
If you had a well room equalized, highest res system, perhaps on some tracks you could tell a 48kHz track from an mp3.
16 bit is sufficient, so 24 is overkill.
48kHz sampling, can push the HF well beyond audiblity.
HOWEVER!
Hires tracks are from different masters to CD masters, and that can make a difference.

This last is a question I have. First, I strongly suspect Amazon of upsampling to produce Hires. Second, I find that most Hires tracks on all services I have used are “remastered” often with excessive loudness. For example, I love the Beatles “Sargent Pepper’s Hearts Club Band” on record but I find the remasters unlistenable and excessively uniform
volume. No dynamics left.

 

[jwmitchell]

This last is a question I have. First, I strongly suspect Amazon of upsampling to produce Hires. Second, I find that most Hires tracks on all services I have used are “remastered” often with excessive loudness. For example, I love the Beatles “Sargent Pepper’s Hearts Club Band” on record but I find the remasters unlistenable and excessively uniform
volume. No dynamics left.

I find the 44.1 on Apple Music generally true to the CD, but still not to the record if “remastered”. I am aware of the “loudness wars” but didn’t experience the results until I started Hires streaming on Amazon and later Apple. Horrible! Ruining the Beatles is a crime against humanity!
Someone's going to have to tell me to stop.

View attachment 387797

Wow.Never saw this.

 

[EJ3]

Yez, exactly my thoughts too. I selected that one because it popped up recently and has the congruent mix deck graphics. It's relevant in another way too, I'll pop back in later to explain.

This Ambispheric mix has a nice twin turntable skin as well, but the music is more mature....Alan Watts? These guys should know who that is...

Alan Watts - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If someone listens to this whole mix and still tells me that DJ 12" did not save vinyl, I'll send them $20

I was born in Salzburg, Austria when he was 42. So: Just now read all about him but never heard of him.
This mix has some interesting concepts, though.

 

[LtMandella]

@jwmitchesll re: your attachment:
I recall when cassette tapes were first invented and marketed (yes I am that old). The record company executives went absolutely bonkers, screaming at congressional hearings that tape recorders must be banned, otherwise the music industry would be totally destroyed.
Stupid fools they were. I would accuse them of being greedy, but they were too stupid to be greedy.
Or maybe their greed made them stupid.
Because cassettes and recorders for dubbing and recording off the air were - at the time - one of the best things that ever happened for the music industry. Right up there with the invention of stereo.

 

[womanofscience666]

I recall when cassette tapes were first invented and marketed (yes I am that old). The record company executives went absolutely bonkers, screaming at congressional hearings that tape recorders must be banned, otherwise the music industry would be totally destroyed.

and yet years later they didn't realise the threat from the internet that actually did end up damaging the industry irreparably

 

[LtMandella]

[[ the threat from the internet that actually did end up damaging the industry irreparably]]
Hmm, can't say I am convinced of that, but I am open to persuasion.
As a woman of science, presumably you can point us to the data to back up your claim?

 

[womanofscience666]

[[ the threat from the internet that actually did end up damaging the industry irreparably]]
Hmm, can't say I am convinced of that, but I am open to persuasion.
As a woman of science, presumably you can point us to the data to back up your claim?

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:
Napster was released in 1999, Limewire in 2000, and Kazaa in 2001 and led to a significant drop in people purchasing music

 

[LtMandella]

that data is about purchasing physical media, not music. Correct?

 

[LtMandella]

that data is about purchasing physical media, not music. Correct?

also that graph looks like it could be comparing apples and oranges: revenue of manufacturers of the physical media vs. revenue paid to content creators of music?
a meaningful comparison would be net revenue paid to content creators regardless of distribution technology used?

 

[krabapple]

HOWEVER!
Hires tracks are from different masters to CD masters.

Not necessarily.

 

[womanofscience666]

that data is about purchasing physical media, not music. Correct?

it's about the revenue from music whether purchased on CD, digital download, or streaming

revenue of manufacturers of the physical media vs. revenue paid to content creators of music?

No, the image explicitly states it's the combined revenue of the artists and the copyright holders (labels etc). It shows how much the people involved with the music itself are making, not the manufacturers of physical media

a meaningful comparison would be net revenue paid to content creators regardless of distribution technology used?

That would be a worthwhile analysis as well but is not indicative of the revenue of the recorded music industry as a whole as the money is split, usually quite unfairly, between the artist and the label

 

[gorman]

If you want to stress test lossy codecs vs. lossless, I only know of one song that even kind of works well:

The lead bass synth uses a rectified waveform (unipolar, the waveform only goes up, not below zero) with a lot of nearly pure impulses, which is highly unnatural and IMO stresses lossless codecs in a way they're not designed for. I don't think it's possible to generate a waveform like that except via synthesis.

Voice, guitar, piano? They're designed for normie crap like that.

Wow! Love this! Will try to ABX with Vorbis (my portable codec of choice)

 

[Count Dacula]

Not that long after cassette decks were arriving on the scene, I Remember the record companies testifying before the U.S. congress claiming that cassette player/recorders would destroy the music industry due to LP copying. What a gang of knee-jerk fools they were...

My favorite thing about CDs was using them to make "master" cassettes. Remember how bad prerecorded ones were, with rust for tape and recorded at 2x speed. I loaded up on chrome tapes burned a little hot. I actually regarded the finished output levels to be more important than the inputs. Thats' partly why I'm banned from every studio on the East coast.

 

[EJ3]

My favorite thing about CDs was using them to make "master" cassettes. Remember how bad prerecorded ones were, with rust for tape and recorded at 2x speed. I loaded up on chrome tapes burned a little hot. I actually regarded the finished output levels to be more important than the inputs. Thats' partly why I'm banned from every studio on the East coast.

That & I also have a SONY RCD-W500C CD recorder: fun all the way around.
MAXELL UDXL II's were a minimum & for those of us without perfect hearing, at the very top end, could be made to be "good enough".
(I do not know what others where hearing but I know for certain that, back then, I could hear 19K pretty clearly).