Tidal HiFi vs Spotify Premium? Can you hear the difference?

[Mehdiem]

I can work around the limitations in playlist management by online services by creating playlists in Logitech Media Server.

That said, it is annoying - I would guess many online streaming services are governed by some revenue optimization stuff in the back when they insert unasked tracks into your playing queue or make it artificially hard to curate playlists with full control. They prefer to default to an online radio station model, and many customers that are just consumers probably love that - but as music lovers we like full control over playlists. Two completely different models.

Interesting take on revenue optimization. It makes sense.

 

[Steve Rogers]

The issue I have with Deezer having been a subscriber in the past (noting these comments are mainly related to Jazz and Blues) is that many album releases are from non-name labels.

If you look at the same album on Qobuz, the label is correct.

This doesnt inspire confidence in the quality/provenance of the Deezer version.

Deezer is also populated with lots of crappy compilation albums that pollute your searches.

I used Deezer for a short period but moved onto Qobuz.

Now, these issue might not exist to the same degree in other genres.

Peter

I havn't noticed this problem on Deezer, can you give an example?

 

[DanielT]

But do not these streaming providers employ skilled experienced librarians, archivists so that clutter and search capabilities can be sorted out?
Or is what is addressed in the thread now regarding lack of functionality only a problem for a few and thus nothing the streaming providers want to fix?

But being able to easily sort playlists should be a basic feature of functionality and user-friendliness. I think, anyway.

 

[fireboy1968]

When I switched from Spotify to Amazon, I really wanted to stay with Spotify. But Spotify just sounds worse. But I am not sure it is a matter of codec. I think some things are going wrong behind the scenes in Spotify. Maybe part of the problem is the process they use to compress their Flaq masters.

 

[Oso Polar]

I've never compared Spotify to Amazon but when I was comparing Tidal vs Qobuz vs Deezer vs Spotify (and it was quite some time ago, probably about two years ago or so) not all of them had the same volume level: some services were a bit louder than others, so were sounding "better". I don't remember which anymore, too much time passed. Out if these four, Tidal had a horrible app, Qobuz - horrible catalog (half of the songs missing) + bad app, Deezer - good catalog and decent app, except for the fact that smartphone app was VERY buggy (main issue was that it was just randomly stopping and not resuming playback if Internet connectivity was not perfect, so basically it was never working properly on the move). So, Spotify it is... Otherwise it would have probably been Deezer.

 

[hucifer]

When I switched from Spotify to Amazon, I really wanted to stay with Spotify. But Spotify just sounds worse. But I am not sure it is a matter of codec. I think some things are going wrong behind the scenes in Spotify. Maybe part of the problem is the process they use to compress their Flaq masters.

To be honest, this is most likely expectation bias.

There was a very interesting post in r/audiophile recently which included blinded samples taken directly from Spotify, Tidal, and Qobuz.

I couldn't for the life of me tell the difference between any of them, nor does there appear to be any post-processing being added that would make Spotify sound noticeably worse.

 

[pablolie]

To be honest, this is most likely expectation bias.

There was a very interesting post in r/audiophile recently which included blinded samples taken directly from Spotify, Tidal, and Qobuz.

I couldn't for the life of me tell the difference between any of them, nor does there appear to be any post-processing being added that would make Spotify sound noticeably worse.

I agree - and to hear the difference, you have to immerse yourself in silly artifacts so much -and that only works with the very best recordings, which probably only represents 5% of the combined catalog of all services combined- that you stop *enjoying* the music. I have done the comparison between Spotify and FLAC CD rips and even 192/24 HDtracks downloads very often - and I have a very accurate system that can allow me to hear the minor differences that exist with a minority of recordings. But they are immaterial to my music enjoyment, honestly.

 

[Mulder]

Spotify, Tidal etc. is not just a matter of the sound quality of the files being streamed, I think it's more important how the apps work. Spotify on a PC for example cannot be connected via ASIO or WASAPI but has to go through windows mixer, with the potential problems this entails. Spotify has also an internal normalization that can reduce the resolution. Tidal's app, on the other hand, can connect to ASIO etc., which simplifies things. When it comes to streaming via mobile phones, you should bear in mind that Bluetooth in the case of Spotify will act as an lossy decoding upon already lossy files.

 

[delta76]

Spotify is superior in searching and has much, much better games and movies OST collection. I know I can't hear the difference, but knowing I'm playing on 320KBps will make me less happy. So I stick with Tidal

 

[hucifer]

Spotify, Tidal etc. is not just a matter of the sound quality of the files being streamed, I think it's more important how the apps work. Spotify on a PC for example cannot be connected via ASIO or WASAPI but has to go through windows mixer, with the potential problems this entails. Spotify has also an internal normalization that can reduce the resolution. Tidal's app, on the other hand, can connect to ASIO etc., which simplifies things. When it comes to streaming via mobile phones, you should bear in mind that Bluetooth in the case of Spotify will act as an lossy decoding upon already lossy files.

The Windows mixer is perfectly fine, especially since no resampling is taking place. Neither WASAPI nor ASIO are needed in this case.

All normalization does is raise the loudness in LUFS, which doesn't affect sound quality except in very specific circumstances (i.e. if the track was mastered without enough headroom and the user sets it to LOUD). In any case, this can be disabled completely in the settings.

 

[Mulder]

The Windows mixer is perfectly fine, especially since no resampling is taking place. Neither WASAPI nor ASIO are needed in this case.

Still, if streaming over Bluetooth there is a lossy process uppon the already lossy Spotify files. And WASAPI is a much easier and convenient way of getting it right.