Will you stop using Spotify now? Vote

[sergeauckland]

It's Bollocks, not bullocks! And yes that announcement was.

S

 

[DanielT]

It's Bollocks, not bullocks! And yes that announcement was.

S

He he.Okay. Then I learned that.... A little giggle at in this,otherwise, bad-tasting lossless soup.

Edit:
And, no I do not know if I would hear any difference. That's the principle as it is about.
(that comment is not aimed at you sergeauckland)

 

[BN1]

Just saw on Audioholics that Qualcomm is bringing lossless to Bluetooth for Android. I'd expect Apple will soon follow for their devices. In time, more pressure on Spotify to honor their commitment to lossless streaming.

 

[MaxBuck]

Joe Rogan remains an insignificant factor for me. There's absolutely no reason for me to subscribe to Spotify when Qobuz is available.

 

[Booker]

I was just curious what is behind the question "Will you stop using Spotify now?" Which lead to me opening Spotify, log into my obsolete account, and starting to listen with a free tier. Currently, I am using AM for mobile listening. But where Spotify is number one to me, is the recommendation, that I am missing in AM. So, I will try one month after AM subscription will expire.

If possible, there should be a possibility to vote "Starting now".

OK enough, I just canceled the subscription of Spotify premium tier, due to their iOS app. When listening with AirPods Pro and switching between apps or loading app, there is a lot of sound stuttering, unwanted pausing, etc. Their recommendations are really good to my taste, but the issues with apps are roadblocks. Back with AM, currently three months for the price of one month.

 

[DanielT]

The delay of Spotify lossless is due to fact that they do not really know how to license. Which is probably because Spotify has not figured out how much extra (if anything considering what the competitors are now offering) they can charge for lossless services / quality.That's my speculation, or hypothesis.
(not a fresh news so this may have already been mentioned in the thread, or in some other thread regarding Spotify)

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has hinted that the delay of the streaming service’s HiFi subscription tier is related to licensing issues. Speaking to analysts and investors during Spotify's quarterly and annual earnings release on Wednesday, I stated that the company does not have much to share about its plans for the HiFi tier, but noted discussions were ongoing.

In response to a direct question about Spotify’s failure to bring the HiFi service to the public as promised, Ek only provided a vague answer before moving on.

“Many of the features that we talk about and especially that’s related to music ends up into licensing,” Ek told investors. "So I can not really announce any specifics on this other than to say that we are in constant dialogue with our partners to bring this to market."

Spotify CEO hints HiFi tier delay is related to licensing issues | TechCrunch

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has hinted that the delay of the streaming service's HiFi subscription tier is related to licensing issues. Speaking to analysts and

techcrunch.com

This was expected:

Spotify pulls out of Russia, citing new laws restricting free expression

Spotify is pulling out of Russia entirely because recent laws restricting news operations could put the streamer's employees and listeners at risk.

www.cnbc.com

 

[xpop]

Spotify is not a service for audiophiles, period. It's time to try real quality-oriented services like Qobuz or even Apple.

 

[sonitus mirus]

Spotify is not a service for audiophiles, period. It's time to try real quality-oriented services like Qobuz or even Apple.

It is already a real, quality-oriented service to many audiophiles. That should continue regardless of what eventually comes from a potential lossless option.

 

[bkdc]

Lossless streaming is HIGHLY overrated. Why is it that my CDs sound better than many lossless streams from Tidal? Either the the Lossless files were ripped from CD's as fast as possible with tons of errors and then resampled up to whatever the lossless bitrate they claim to be streaming it as or it's a lie, with music stored as lossy compression and then upsampled to be streamed to you as 192/24. At least Qobuz has a better reputation for sound quality. But again, a 192/24 file does not sound better to the human ear than the same resampled to 44.1/16.

It's all marketing. The streaming services should spend more effort in making sure that the compressed lossy audio in their libraries are of high quality and transparent. High quality compressed audio is indistinguishable from CD or even hi-res on a ABX test. Period.

If lossless streaming services sound better to you it's because you are used to the crappy low quality audio files you have been streamed in the past. I refer folks to the original website in which I learned how to rip an mp3 that sounds better than your neighbor's.

Chris Myden dot com

If any objectivists here think lossless sounds better, than they are not objectivists. Lossless sounds better than crappy lossy. But good lossy sounds better than the crap that is being advertised as "lossless" on some streaming services.

Some time on HydrogenAudio might help since people here tend to espouse objectivism and tend to be engineering oriented.

I will trust my CD over any lossless from a streaming service. I do trust the quality of the lossless files if directly from the source (a direct download of a 192/24 or 96/24 from 2L or Chandos or Stockfisch Records or some other audiophile label) but even then these do not sound better than 44.1/16 CD.

 

[hdspeakerman]

I just cancelled Spotify and signed up for Tidal. Very happy with it.

 

[DanielT]

It is already a real, quality-oriented service to many audiophiles. That should continue regardless of what eventually comes from a potential lossless option.

There is, as you can see in this thread different views on regarding that.To hear or not to hear the difference lossless if you call yourself an audiophile, that is the question.

The competitors now offer lossless at the same or lower price than Spotify premium.Had it not been for this with usability, Spotify would not have been an issue.

Incidentally, as pointed out by many in this thread and in many other threads. I'm posting a favorite again. Short video but, spot on and pedagogically illustrative. You immediately understands the problem:

To keep Spotify? At the moment there are different opinions here at ASR. That decision is not based solely on the lack of lossless. If I were to ask the same question about other streaming providers, I might get the same result. A lot is happening in the streaming market.

 

[Phoney]

Lossless streaming is HIGHLY overrated. Why is it that my CDs sound better than many lossless streams from Tidal? Either the the Lossless files were ripped from CD's as fast as possible with tons of errors and then resampled up to whatever the lossless bitrate they claim to be streaming it as or it's a lie, with music stored as lossy compression and then upsampled to be streamed to you as 192/24. At least Qobuz has a better reputation for sound quality. But again, a 192/24 file does not sound better to the human ear than the same resampled to 44.1/16.

It's all marketing. The streaming services should spend more effort in making sure that the compressed lossy audio in their libraries are of high quality and transparent. High quality compressed audio is indistinguishable from CD or even hi-res on a ABX test. Period.

If lossless streaming services sound better to you it's because you are used to the crappy low quality audio files you have been streamed in the past. I refer folks to the original website in which I learned how to rip an mp3 that sounds better than your neighbor's.

Chris Myden dot com

If any objectivists here think lossless sounds better, than they are not objectivists. Lossless sounds better than crappy lossy. But good lossy sounds better than the crap that is being advertised as "lossless" on some streaming services.

Some time on HydrogenAudio might help since people here tend to espouse objectivism and tend to be engineering oriented.

I will trust my CD over any lossless from a streaming service. I do trust the quality of the lossless files if directly from the source (a direct download of a 192/24 or 96/24 from 2L or Chandos or Stockfisch Records or some other audiophile label) but even then these do not sound better than 44.1/16 CD.

Being advertised as lossless doesn't mean that it's lossless. Tidal is known for using MQA on all of its master files, even if you set the track to the "hifi" option. Therefore, if the file has the master option, the file will (most likely if not definetly) be lossy nomatter what you do.

Ofcourse it's hard to objectively just say that something is "better", in just about any case. I don't understand his statement because he says "if you say lossless is better, then you're not an objectivist", followed by "good lossy sounds better than the crap that is being advertised as "lossless" on some streaming services."

If something is being advertised as lossless but it's actually lossy (like mqa), then it's not lossless... So he's basically saying that good lossy is better than some other form of lossy crap, as an argument for saying that you can't prefer lossless as an objectivist? There's no good type of lossless and "crap lossless". Lossless is just that, if there's differences between two lossless files of the same song, then one of them ain't lossless.

 

[hdspeakerman]

When I brought up Tidal after having Spotify I heard bass that had more body, cymbals that had sparkle and voices that I felt were clearer. After two songs, I was ready to switch. I know these are subjective measures but I felt confident in what I was doing.

 

[DanielT]

When I brought up Tidal after having Spotify I heard bass that had more body, cymbals that had sparkle and voices that I felt were clearer. After two songs, I was ready to switch. I know these are subjective measures but I felt confident in what I was doing.

Your subjective experiences are just exactly that, your subjective experiences. No one can take that away from you and if you are you satisfied and happy with your choice, so congratulations, but are you not curious if what you think you hear in difference is imaginary or not?
Now we end up with blind tests and it takes a lot to get them to be performed in a sensible way, but you can, if you feel like it, ask your wife, girlfriend or friend to switch between Spotify and Tidal.You do not know then from which of them the music is played .If you can not hear the difference then you know that you imagined. IF you can hear the difference so it can indicate .... on a lot of different things ...

Do the test with at least 30 randomly selected songs (also write down which one you think sounds best, it might be Tidal ... or Spotify or there is no difference. You do not know before you do that test. Randomly the pairs of songs should be played. If you feel like testing. If you do not do it and are happy with your choice, as it is now it is of course ok. I may be more curious about your result of this test than you are.

Or another variant. If the mentioned above says they do NOT hear any difference ask them to pick out songs that you then test blindly, Spotify vs Tidal. Interesting if in that case you can hear the difference between them.
You choose songs you hear the difference between and test them blindly on your friends. There are many different variations.

Edit
OT. Sooner or later you hear differences. It's like what we have our ears for, to hear differences. The question when we manage to hear differences.Test here:

How Much Distortion Can you Hear?

An interesting test probably posted before although it didn't come up in a search. Also try difference sources ie ear phones vs speakers.

audiosciencereview.com

 

[Doodski]

Do the test with at least 30 randomly selected songs

I was thinking maybe 50 or 60 songs. >^_*@< But seriously a few songs should be enough to test drive them and compare in a blind test.

 

[DanielT]

I was thinking maybe 50 or 60 songs. >^_*@< But seriously a few songs should be enough to test drive them and compare in a blind test.

Benefit with pleasure. Lots of randomly selected songs, who knows you might find some new artists you like.

Edit:
OT
Do you have some time left over ...

Hmmmm… 32 times 50,000 is 1.6 million, so if you flip the coin once a second, twenty-four hours per day, it'll take eighteen and a half days to complete the experiment….

Introduction to Probability and Statistics

Introduction to Probability and Statistics

www.fourmilab.ch

 

[Waxx]

I never liked spotify due to the very bad sound quality (i did not listen for a few years so it's based on pre-corona spotify as was used in the office where i worked). Tidal is good and Qobuz also, but in general i don't like streaming and have no subscription at all. I still buy vinyl and hi res digital (cd or online) but play all from my NAS server (cd's get ripped and then stored) anyway.

And i'm not the kind of guy that wants music everywhere, i can enjoy silence, and when there is too much background noise (like on the streets in a city or so) i prefer no music at all. So de facto I mainly listen to music at home and sometimes in the car (altough it's mostly radio there, and only classical music radio).

But if Spotify or an other streaming service wants to convince me, the sound quality should be higher, and the ease of finding your own music and making your own playlists should be better. I don't like to have music pushed in my face that i don't like, i like to choose myself.

And for low quality music streaming, youtube is for free, so no need for spotify...

 

[DanielT]

You can test this, if you feel like it. The question is how much you undertake to do? In any case, you will probably be among the first to test Spotify lossless then:

What are the Spotify Alpha and Beta programs?

By signing up as an Alpha or Beta tester of the Spotify app, you will get early versions of our new releases before we roll them out to everyone else. This is an invaluable help for us, as it allows us to find issues and crashes before we ship the release to millions of users.

The Alpha users will get new versions of the app almost daily, as soon as developers add new changes. These are early versions of the app, and there may be stability issues from time to time. The Alpha users help us find these issues as soon as they are introduced and allow us to fix them as soon as possible.

The Beta users will get new versions around a week before we roll them out to end users...Well, it was not so interesting then to become a Spotify beta , I think.

The release will be almost done, but the feedback we get from Beta users makes sure we can find and fix any final issues.

....or not...

Will Alpha and Beta users get access to new features?
We want to be very open here: in most cases, there will not be any new features in the Alpha and Beta builds. In some rare cases, we may try our new features in these programs, but most of the time new features are rolled out gradually to all users. The main reason to join the Alpha and Beta program is to help us create the best product we can.

Should I do anything special to test the app?
No, just use the app as you usually would and report any issues you find.

Note that we have a limited number of Alpha and Beta users on iOS. From time to time we will remove inactive users in order to free up test slots for new users.

How do I become a Spotify Beta tester?

Hey folks! We are excited to announce we are launching both an Alpha and a Beta program for the Spotify mobile apps Please read below for more information on how to get started. We appreciate your help in making the Spotify app the best it can be! What are the Spotify Alpha and Beta...

community.spotify.com

 

[BN1]

A few recent observations. I have come from Pandora (free), to Spotify (free), to AMHD, to Spotify (Prem). AMHD is clearly the value (Prime member) and sound quality leader (on my <$1000 HT system). AMHD, for me was a bit easier to navigate and get help for and I have found Spot Prem difficult to navigate and very difficult to get help. So why did I end up with Spot Prem ? Primarily because it integrates better with Yamaha MusicCast for distributed audio which is how I listen to music and I do like the Spotify Connect feature. For distributed audio, I can't tell the difference in 320 ov and lossless (again, significant difference on HT system). Also, full disclosure, at 77 my grasp on hi-tech is marginal so might explain difficulties (several) with Spotify support.

 

[rnj]

I certainly am no audiophile and my wife says I am a terrible listener so maybe I'm not qualified to opine on this. But I recently got into this rabbithole hobby and i was interested if i could really tell the difference between the top tier of spotify and services like Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon HD. As part of my research I came across the following article. They had professional sound and mixing engineers that have grammy nominations and other industry awards do a blind test. The results were interesting. A summary quote was "“If there’s any discernible difference, it’s so subtle and so slight, you would have to be somebody who’s been in the business for decades like me to hear it,”

High Fidelity Music Streaming: Can You Tell the Difference?

Music production instructors share their take on high fidelity music streaming and its relevance for professionals, the average listener, and audiophiles.

online.berklee.edu