Why do some YouTube videos sound better than streaming music files ?

[Sigfried]

Byron Metcalf "Spirit Gathering" Was listening to this album last night on Youtube. Tried to post the youtube vid here but said not available for some reason? Just copied and pasted the url. Anywhooo....sounded really good to me! Had never heard it before. Amazing drumming btw. Decided to try and find it on Qobuz. I was able to. Was really disappointed listening back to on Qobuz and much preferred the Youtube dynamics I had just heard. Don't know why this happens but it definitely happens to me from time to time where I'm actually astonished how good some free Youtube music sounds. Typed into a search to see what Google came up with regarding this and found this thread.

 

[RDoc]

In comparing Spotify and YouTube, are we really just hearing the difference between digital and tube sound?

 

[pablolie]

Youtube is never better than 256k (AAC/Opus) (and that's only for Premium subscribers, otherwise you get 128k). You *can* upload uncompressed audio when you submit content, but people tuning in will only hear 256k at most. So what you're basically saying it that 256k sounds very good (provided you're a premium customer).

 

[staticV3]

You *can* upload uncompressed audio as Premium customer

You do not need YouTube Premium to upload uncompressed.

Also, YouTube streams 99% of audio in 128k Opus.

 

[pablolie]

...
Also, YouTube streams 99% of audio in 128k Opus.

Not if you are premium and the person uploading content cares about sound quality. Naturally a bad recording will sound bad no matter what.

 

[tmtomh]

You do not need YouTube Premium to upload uncompressed.

Also, YouTube streams 99% of audio in 128k Opus.

Interesting - I've always been under the impression that most YT audio is 128k AAC. Every time I've ever used a YT audio downloading tool, AAC has been the only option presented to me that does not include a transcoding step.

 

[danadam]

otherwise you get 128k)

Literally 3 post earlier I showed examples where you get 160k.

So what you're basically saying it that 256k sounds very good (provided you're a premium customer).

Sure... and is that controversial or something?

 

[staticV3]

Interesting - I've always been under the impression that most YT audio is 128k AAC. Every time I've ever used a YT audio downloading tool, AAC has been the only option presented to me that does not include a transcoding step.

Simply enable the "Stats for nerds" in the player settings.

Listed under Codecs are the Video and Audio codecs.

Codec 251 is ~128k Opus.

 

[pablolie]

Literally 3 post earlier I showed examples where you get 160k.

Sure... and is that controversial or something?

I question that, since YouTube clearly states what their encoding standards are for different membership levels. As non Premium things are 128k. Not in any claiming that can't be perfectly enjoyable. And in fact I have often stated that if it was for music enjoyment only, I can completely enjoy good recordings at anything between 256 to 320. Lossless to me is mostly about archiving.
And Opus is known to be pretty darn good at 128. I would not be surprised if the main difference between free and premium is a stricter service level guarantee rather than a clear SQ difference.
I do have a premium YT account, but on one of my devices I was using a free account with a different email, and I actually hadn't noticed.