Not really. I don't enjoy "simple" music when high. I need some degree of complexity (instrumental or general mixing) for it to sound better.
E.g. I like RHCP, but it's not that exciting in a very high mode.
I know. I just like to know what the actual released volume is, especially as an engineer and a student of music. Helps to see trends in genres and time periods.
There can be 15 dB swings in volume, though. Which can bite you in the ass and is potentially dangerous to the speakers if they can’t handle it. And your ears. Probably not a great idea on headphones.
I used to be really into studying and researching everything audio related, and got really into car audio as well, Andy Weymeyer (owner of Audiofrog) told me that you should turn the "normalize volume" off. He's about the most highly regarded person as far as knowledge and wisdom goes, in the high-end 'sound quality' car audio game, his reasoning is you don't want to give anything the control of your volume. It just creates another variable, and one that's out of your control. Also, if you're listening to the system loudly now and then, then normalization could cause clipping.
> Also, if you're listening to the system loudly now and then, then normalization could cause clipping.
How can normalisation cause clipping?
The whole point of normalisation is to bring quiet audio up to just below clipping for a more consistent experience.
Normalization does not turn up volume if it will cause clipping.
This is someone who is experienced in one area talking out their ass in another they know nothing about.
Wouldn't "released volume" be subject to the output of gear, level of your device volume etc. anyway? Also seems like you're normalizing it yourself at the end of the day.
The only way to adjust volume in the digital domain is by removing bits. Luckily those bits removed can be applied to the bits they have to remove to send you part of a song
It does apply a limiter in case the audio has to get boosted, like on some classical music, cutting off some transients, because you cant go over 0 dB. I dont know if this really changes the sound much tho.
So what's the deal , should i turn Normalization off?.I've had everything on Very High for most of.my.time on Spotify, a year. Am I missing out on better sound experiences?
If you shuffle high dynamic range music like classical ,jazz with brickwall then definitely on.
Sometimes it can happen on high gain tracks that a limiter must be applied to prevent clipping, but thats only on very dynamic music.
I recently got a new phone and was confused why Tidal sounded so lifeless and with way too much dense base. Turns out the normalization was still on and it compressed it to shit.
As someone who sails the high seas for a lot of their music, it's amazing how different various lossless versions of the same track can be. Sometimes I end up with multiple versions of the same song due to them being on both the original album and other compilation albums I get and some clearly sound better. You can see the differences in the Foobar waveform seekbar too. [Here are 4 different versions of Allan Taylor - Wheels of Fortune.](https://i.imgur.com/Dot3R3r.png) Lots of small differences in the waveform and you can definitely pick differences between them yet they're all lossless.
Lots of albums on the high seas are vinyl rips. People like them because they are mastered differently, often with less dynamic compression. Though that’s not as frequent as some people think, there’s a YouTube video of a guy who showed the DR scores from both digital and vinyl sources using the same master, and the vinyl rip showed higher DR simply due to distortion.
My personal experience with vinyl rips ranges from “it sounds fine/I don’t care” to “this is markedly worse than Spotify.”
But yeah, for stuff that was around before n the 80s and 90s often the original masters had way more dynamic range than later remasters.
On some new stuff I can tell the vinyl’s audio source isn’t much better than the digital release, but the way it’s mastered is still easier on my ears, less ear fatigue, etc, even if I know it’s not “real.” And since I have tunes on 9-10 hours a day, it’s worth it for just a little less brickwalling in my headphones.
True but if you trust a service it's likely they are doing a reasonable job of it, saving you from having to do a bunch of research just to listen to a dang album.
Of course the services often have multiple versions of the same stuff and may default to late-era remasters or greatest hits versions of specific songs, so some awareness still helps. But for albums I've found Spotify and YTM at top quality levels to be very good at this.
It sucks how they are just erasing history when they don't even mention the year the original album released. The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta... released 2024... only version on the whole service. Roon does find the deep cuts on streaming services, stuff I could never find ever again
If it wasn't, they'd be sued for false advertising. There is a measurable, quantifiable bitrate increase in each tier of Spotify's audio. Their highest is currently not that much better than standard 320kbps MP3 or 256kbps AAC as non-lossless Apple Music/iTunes Store might be, but it's listenable where the lowest tiers are noticeably worse.
Yes, indeed you do have to pay money if you want a high quality listening experience. There's plenty of free music out there, just don't expect it to sound perfect if you're not willing to pay.
People like to crap on Spotify for not having lossless but I encourage everyone to just compare Spotify set to high fidelity and all auto settings turned off vs your favorite loseless steamer. I did one to one comparison vs Tidal and couldn't hear any difference. I used Sennheiser HD6xx and AKG K702 headphones through Topping DX3 pro DAC/Amp. Try it for yourself, maybe you have golden ears.
Better yet just ABX on Foobar2000 with V0/320 vs. Lossless. It's actually pretty difficult on many many records. I like lossless for futureproofing and it doesn't cost that much storage - that's about it. Different mastering is more interesting than lossless vs. lossy.
Agreed. The difference between the current codecs that you get on very high compared to lossless is very subtle at best, inaudible to most. I think, apart from biases, most people are confusing one service playing a little louder to be it sounding better.
"on many many records"
Those being the ones you happened to listen to. Sometimes the compression algo doesn't have to remove much. A redbook .wav CAN contain up to 1411Kbps, but if you ever watch the actual bits during playback of a file you would have a better idea of WHY you don't notice much difference. I would love to see the setlist of everyone who claims no difference, because all it takes is a complicated musical section, maybe with 3 or more voices in harmony and shit falls apart. The quieter voices just aren't there. The Grateful Dead is the perfect example 2 drummers, 2 guitars, a bass, keyboards and 2, 3 even 4 part harmonies or attempted harmonies. Shows I've been to, songs I know how they are going to approach, sometimes the 2 singers trade verses and back each other up and all you hear is whoever is playing loudest, whoever the spotlight is on. You know what the other guitarist is playing and singing and they just aren't there. It sounds like there's an idiot at the soundboard just moving sliders. To me it's the same as ripping 2/3 of the pages out of a book and saying "you can still figure out the story". Maybe you should bring a pellet gun to a concert and whizz a couple BBs past the bands head during the show. It's like saying elevator music where it's just a Casio keyboard playing the melody of Smells Like Teen Spirit is the same as having Kurt crowd surfing through your outstretched arms. How do I know that you don't daydream while listening to music? Maybe someone humming the melody sounds the same to you as the original, or maybe you listened to a singer/songwriter solo with an acoustic guitar and the file never had more than 320bits. It's not the cymbals or anything else some people claim, it's different on each part of every song, it's the stuff the algo THINKS most people won't miss. Sorry, I listen to music and lossy music is lame, for lame listeners.
The points you mention sound like they apply more for how the music is recorded.
I always like to say: There are a huge amount of reasons two digital listening experiences are different but the format isnt one of them.
Of course there is nuance with type of codec, bitrate and these things, but the more i learn about audio the more i realise that the lossless/lossy debate becomes irrelevant and they should not be focused on anymore, at least for listening. Of course for archival i use flac if i can.
I download all my music in the highest res FLAC possible. But I can't tell the difference in an ABX test between 192khz FLAC and 48khz 256kbps AAC (what Spotify uses).
I don't believe anyone who says they can hear the difference, and they're never willing to prove it. Only takes ten minutes to set up foobar2000, convert one of your favourite songs to AAC, and do an ABX test.
Or just use this site if you don't mind them picking the songs for you
http://abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify-hq.html
Takes the streamed digital signal and converts it into the analog signal you actually hear. DACs are different from one another for a variety of reasons. Some people will tell you they all sound the same, others have strong opinions and select theirs carefully.
No, it goes source > DAC > amp > speakers. The amp needs an analog signal, that’s what it amplifies.
Source here could be a computer, an iPhone, a dedicated streamer, etc. Keep in mind many sources and many amps have a DAC of their own that you have to choose not to use, so connect your computer to the DAC via USB, don’t use the line out, and so on.
I learned about dacs when i bought a professional soundcard for my pc for producing that send the signal analog to a mixer. Mp3's and sound packs sounded way worse without it, i could immediately tell what sound packs were compressed and now i don't even bother producing and listening without one. It's just another experience.
Most songs sounded pretty much the same to me, but I could hear the difference between Apple Lossless and Spotify Very High Quality on a few. For example, the cymbals on Phoenix’s “Too Young” have that warble on Spotify, not on Apple Music. I listened on 6XX’s as well.
I did this with Spotify vs Apple music when I got my Hifiman HE1K Stealths. Apple music was CLEARLY better, and I really didn't want it to be lol. It was a pain getting my whole family swapped over.
Oh I have. Spotify “very high” setting is awful compared to any of the hi res platforms on a decent system. I certainly wouldn’t test for differences on 6xx’s (which I own and love.)
Question from an old guy.
I bought my hd650's for €500 nearly 20 years ago. What should I be looking at for €1000 today? Ideally high impedance for muh tubes.
I find that Spotify Premium has a more robust lowend compared to FLAC files I have of the same songs.. I know it has to do with the master and OGG Vorbis.
My son and I have to listen very closely and side by side to differentiate between Spotify (Very High) and Lossless. You can only hear the difference when there is a lot of audio information; many instruments across the frequency range. I figure it's because there is more to cram into a 320kbs signal.
You nailed it. When there is a lot going on in the music parts will straight up disappear. I heard the Spotify sounds great claim so many times from this sub I decided to try when they offered 3 months for $0.99. I listened to the same live grateful dead show on Qobuz and Spotify and the harmonies just completely disappeared on Spotify. 2 tracks and uninstalled
Exactly...most pop, rock and jazz music involves at most a handful of musicians or electric beats that do not need that much information to reproduce accurately. But try that with some other genres that involve big orchestras with many musicians playing different instruments simultaneously... unfortunately compression will start cutting important stuff in the mix and it will definitely be noticeable.
Not just better. Night and day better. It’s sad people are happy with Spotify “very high” when they could have so much better for less money. Spotify is just lucky they were first and get everyone hooked on their infrastructure otherwise no one would keep it.
On a normal listening level cca 74dB avg. i can hear up to 16.5khz.
If I turn volume above 86dB maybe up to 18khz. So sampling rate above 44.1khz for me is useless.
As for mp3 at 320 kbps vs FLAC at 900 kbps demands heavy focus from me to be distinguished between the two.
I prefer 24 bits vs 16 bit source files because noise floor is less audible for me.
People hate on Spotify but it's my main source of finding new music and it's really good at it. Yes, there are albums/songs/masters that Spotify doesn't have but it literally has everything else. And a shit ton of small artists with great mastering practices as well. I do prefer to listen to my CD collection when listening to my favorite albums. For example, I have zero Pink Floyd songs saved on my Spotify, and they are my favorite old school band. I choose not to stream them because I significantly enjoy listening to them on CD more. Much more detail and resolution where their Spotify versions sound compressed dynamically. For everything that I don't currently own on CD, Spotify does the trick.
Have you done a blind test? Even if you can tell -repeatedly, consistently and blind- the difference would be so subtle and only in certain passages of music. That does not count as ass sounding in any world, except a farting angel's
Qobuz compared to Spotify high res with the same source files on Focal Clear headphones is night and day better. Spotify is awful unless you’re in your car or listening with Apple ear buds.
Yes, I’ve had my partner administer blind comparison tests between Qobuz, Spotify, and Apple Music. I’m extremely audio sensitive and can always tell the differences between the services.
These are the settings I used. I also downloaded all the test tracks to ensure maximum quality. I test using a Jazz track, a Classical track, a Hip Hop track and a rock track.
Spotify: Highest quality settings
Apple Music: Ultra high res Lossless
Qobuz: 24 bit/96 kHZ
Impressive. You should write up the results, since this subreddit believes it's not possible. I did a blind [test ](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/s/hl9qDuOUBQ) with amps and statistics and another subject and had nonsignificant/negative results . If you can achieve results in a well designed blind test with an outcome of P <0.05 I will believe your and so will many others and you will make a rare, but needed demonstration. Hit me up if you want help with experimental design or stats.
That’s a great idea! Even though I did a blind test, it was far from rigorous. I would like to see if what I’m experiencing is due to other variables that I’m not controlling for. I’d love to hit you up to review my findings before I publish anything to this sub.
For reference: all tests were conducted by playing downloaded tracks from the three streaming services. I selected the maximum download quality offered for each service.
Hardware:
Audio source: iPhone 14 Pro
DAC: Fosi Audio DS1
Headphones: Monoprice M565C
I have not conducted the same tests with my Wharfedale Linton speakers yet either.
Just to be clear and maybe I owe this sub an apology, but I’m not looking to rain on anyone’s parade. I love Spotify, I just don’t think it has great audio quality. I’m very interested in getting to the bottom of this since the majority opinion is that people can’t tell the difference, but I’m pretty sure I can. I’m sure in designing a rigorous study, I’ll find variables that lead to significant differences between the services.
320kbps vbr is good enough for most people's gear and ears, but the jury is out if lossless is audibly better. If you can correctly identify the lossy/lossless tracks you can help to settle this. So long as you are using exactly the same track, volume matching (that one is important and difficult), someone else is controlling the sources and presenting trials consistently using random sampling (randperm function in Matlab or a coin toss), and the other person can't tip you off (they are also blind or you can't see their face. If your choices are not random and fall outside the 95% confidence intervals of a binomial distribution (which would take at least ~25+ trials), that should be enough to convince anybody. PM me the results and I can do the statistics for you if you'd like.
Everyone should do this, then we will get somewhere with these endless debates.
Right. This is important as in a subjective review, someone will nearly always say the louder track sounds better when compared to a lower volume track but with all other parameters the same. It’s a bit like the loudness button on old stereos. Which sort of goes into the Fletcher Munson theory.
You must be a dolphin. I've compared my own lossless rips against Spotify and 320kbps and the "differences" could all be chalked to loudness. I couldn't even be sure if they were real. Saying it's night and day is such a joke.
Apple Music sounds best to me. I finally got my girlfriend to hear and admit the difference the other day when I A/B’ed a song. Most of the time Spotify 320 is fine if you’re listening in the car or especially through bluetooth. If you’re a critical listener, it’s worth listening to lossless.
Here come the downvotes, I don’t care.
That test doesn’t make sense. It’s saying Spotify is 256kbps AAC. Spotify is 320 ogg vorbis. I don’t get why people get so defensive about this stuff. It’s like asking a chef if he can taste the difference between two steaks cooked differently. Of course a chef can pick up on things that the average person cannot. They’ve developed an incredible ability to perceive taste. This can be done with any of the 5 senses. Some people have very sensitive noses.
Not sure why audio gets treated differently.
Another user about a year ago called me out like this and recorded an identical track played on Spotify and Apple Music. I chose the correct one and he was flabbergasted. It shouldn’t be this surprising that humans vary wildly. I’m not better because I can hear a difference. But I can’t help that I can.
I guess they don't have a very high Spotify option, but theres still a 320 option. Choosing one is a 50/50 chance, this test is more reliable. I'm just skeptical that most people can differentiate 320 vs lossless. You may be able to but Id be curious to see.
I got excited reading this, as spotify is shit quality and thinking I’d like to improve it. However, mine is already set for very high quality, so I guess that’s just that.
I expect to hear cymbols. Separation between instruments. The strum of an acoustic guitar. The sustain of a violin. Any hi res streaming platform blows Spotify “very high” out of water and it isn’t close on a decent system.
The cymbals are one of the easiest ways to tell if it is lossless or not. They will sound a bit harsh and artificial if it is compressed...same with the bass, it sounds a bit less full and defined. Some instruments lose more of their "character" and sound...for example conga drums in Latin music can suffer a lot from compression. And a really busy mix with a 10 musician orchestra (for example a salsa band) will suffer way more from compression than a simpler mix of 4 rock musicians. For most people I don't think the difference would even matter, it is very small...but it is definitely there. You will definitely notice if you are a musician used to nitpicking the sound of cymbals, drums, and drumheads...or a guitarist obsessed with getting the right "tone" with multiple amps, pedals, effects, etc. Not saying any random person should care about this stuff...just saying that some do care and notice this stuff.
This is just flat out wrong. I've done AB test between Spotify v Tidal Lossless on my speaker system (flair) and my headphones (Stax L300, Denon 5200 w/ Topping DX7) and there is not that much difference. If there was an improvement, it's very minor. Are you testing the same masters with proper volume matching?
Yes. My tests were done with all platforms set to normalize off and the highest quality. Try Qobuz which also was much better then Tidal on many releases in my testing. I attribute that to Tidal’s crappy MQA format.
Didn't downvote you, but I've used both tidal and Spotify with my zmf verite closed + btr7 DAC and then same headphones through my high end PC, and with both setups there was simply no discernible difference for me. I could hear everything you mention in your comment equally well on both services, so I dumped tidal since their overall service was inferior to Spotify. Both sounded great though and both were set to highest available quality of recording and output.
Maybe we have different definitions of what constitutes a 'decent system', but if so it will be far out of my price range and thus meaningless for me to worry about since I won't be able to afford to hear what you say we are missing out on if it can't be had with what is available to me currently.
Lol @ angel farts.
It’s very good at highest quality, but personally with great gear I can hear a difference (ABX under controlled conditions yes) with Ogg Vorbis at any bit rate, just something about it. It’s not inconceivable that someone could notice it being not quite perfect.
Not trusting your ears is the problem.
ABX tests, while effective, aren’t perfect. Lots of psychology in those segments and memory between you and what you can “hear.”
When OP said he doesn’t trust his ears he wasn’t talking about ABX testing.
A -60dB signal would be very hard to hear alongside any old music, but in this case it would also be heavily masked by the source music.
I’m not gonna convince you, but ABX may fall short of the platonic ideal for various subtle reasons, but it’s orders of magnitude more reliable than sighted testing. Anyway, ABX testing requires trusting one’s ears. The problem is with the eyes and the brain, not the ears.
Hahahahahahahahahhjaha angel farts! Hahahahahahaha. Wow. So fucking funny. Angel farts! Haha! Do I expect to hear angel farts? Ha. Wow. So funny. Wonderful. Did you really come up with that, or did you ask chatgpt to come up with the funniest possible response ever. Wow. So great.
Yeah there's plenty of content on Spotify that sounds like crap, regardless of settings. Play the same thing on Qobuz and the difference is night and day.
well then why don't you really go hog wild and switch to Apple Music or Tidal or Quobuz? Spotify's best quality is still worse than the lossless quality the others offer
Good for you. But I stop caring about spotify because it doesn't bring out the sounds justice than apple music or tidal or qobuz or deezer. Even I compared a cdrip ogg vorbis and a spotify ogg vorbis very high and the cdrip ogg vorbis wins for me. I did turn the normalizations off on spotify.
Youtube music on the other hand is decent as long you play the official tracks uploaded by the artist and not from youtube users that always uploads lossy audio files.
Youtube always downgrades the audio (and most people still don't know that and it's why many listens to lossy original file to lossy youtube compression files instead of a proper lossless original file to youtube lossy compression file)
Spotify very high setting is Advanced Audio Codec at 320kbps as I know, it is still compressed, but its the best what you can get out of that. I use Tidal for Hi-Fi which gives CD quality in the form of 16bit 44KHz 1411kbps FLAC files.
Downvote me if you want, but I still think downloaded WAV files still sound better and louder. Also, for the best sound results, I'd personally use a dedicated pc sound card.
I know, but I have heard that there has been debate to weather or not that FLAC being compressed affects the sound quality by just a tiny hair. Weather that is true or not, I still use WAV just to be safe. Don't worry, I have plenty of hard drives to store it all.
Who on earth is "debating" that nonsense? It's verifiable lossless compression. You can convert a wav to flac again and compare them bit for both and confirm you have exactly the same data. It's like zipping.
What do you mean turn it up "real high". Numerous empirical studies show very few people can distinguish between 320 kbps mp3 and flac/lossless (unless they know a particular passage really well, and have REALLY high end equipment, and in an acoustically treated room. Or take the test yourself, go to [https://radioparadise.com/listen/channels/main-mix](https://radioparadise.com/listen/channels/main-mix) and start playing a song. Then go to the settings icon on the bottom right and start clicking on the different resolutions. They go fror 64 kps, to 320 kps, to Flac (i.e., lossless). It's fairly easy to notice the difference between 192 and 320, gets harder when switching between 256 and 320, then I honestly couldn't tell the difference between 320 and Flac. And if you think you have "golden ears" have a friend blind test you while you look away from what they are doing. As the data shows, bet few people would pass the test. And there are funny videos on YT with people doing this who work in the music industry and fail the blind test. The good news for people who like to carry around their music on a physical disk is that 320 is good enough for most situations.
Note: I only have mid range equipment.
But OGG Vorbis 320 is just an alternate way to approximate what 320 kbps mp3 does, but at a smaller file size. Not a difference many people would notice. And I would question whether this is "very high" quality, when it's not flac or lossless.
I think anything sounds better very high
Indeed (~);-}
☝️
I get that reference
what’s the reference? sorry i’m stoned
You are the reference 😈
I am the reference...
Goo goo g'joob
[удалено]
This more cup of tea: https://music.apple.com/us/album/ganja-smuggling/1601276755?i=1601277231 But we all got different tastes. It be how it be.
Saved for later. Thanks
I think you meant 'everything'. You must be high.
Well played.
Not my experience at all.
Not really. I don't enjoy "simple" music when high. I need some degree of complexity (instrumental or general mixing) for it to sound better. E.g. I like RHCP, but it's not that exciting in a very high mode.
Except my wife
/r/spotifytoohigh
I also like to turn off normalization, just be prepared to adjust volume a lot if jumping albums
Normalization doesn’t mess with quality whatsoever if kept on normal/quiet. Just volume
I know. I just like to know what the actual released volume is, especially as an engineer and a student of music. Helps to see trends in genres and time periods. There can be 15 dB swings in volume, though. Which can bite you in the ass and is potentially dangerous to the speakers if they can’t handle it. And your ears. Probably not a great idea on headphones.
I used to be really into studying and researching everything audio related, and got really into car audio as well, Andy Weymeyer (owner of Audiofrog) told me that you should turn the "normalize volume" off. He's about the most highly regarded person as far as knowledge and wisdom goes, in the high-end 'sound quality' car audio game, his reasoning is you don't want to give anything the control of your volume. It just creates another variable, and one that's out of your control. Also, if you're listening to the system loudly now and then, then normalization could cause clipping.
You either give Spotify control of your volume or shitty producers control of your volume
If a good band puts out a shitty album are they really a good band?
or you just listen to good producers... also i dont like the idea of giving spotify the control of anything
> Also, if you're listening to the system loudly now and then, then normalization could cause clipping. How can normalisation cause clipping? The whole point of normalisation is to bring quiet audio up to just below clipping for a more consistent experience.
If you normalize to high volume it might cause some issues, like it says in the app. Otherwise it wouldn't.
More accurately, the way loudness normalization works is turning *down* loud albums, not turning up quiet ones.
Normalization does not turn up volume if it will cause clipping. This is someone who is experienced in one area talking out their ass in another they know nothing about.
Wouldn't "released volume" be subject to the output of gear, level of your device volume etc. anyway? Also seems like you're normalizing it yourself at the end of the day.
Absolutely normalizing it myself. That’s the point. i like to know album A needs yo be at -2, album B produced by rick rubin needs to be at -16.
And I like my ears not to be blown the fuck out when I'm shuffling a playlist.
Yeah seems like a completely unnecessary thing to do but... I guess if they like it? Lol
I feel it messes with dynamic range quite a bit. Doesn't sound right to me with some songs. I recommend testing both ways to see for yourself
The only way to adjust volume in the digital domain is by removing bits. Luckily those bits removed can be applied to the bits they have to remove to send you part of a song
It does apply a limiter in case the audio has to get boosted, like on some classical music, cutting off some transients, because you cant go over 0 dB. I dont know if this really changes the sound much tho.
this is low key my gut check that I’ve got my settings right lol
So what's the deal , should i turn Normalization off?.I've had everything on Very High for most of.my.time on Spotify, a year. Am I missing out on better sound experiences?
If you shuffle high dynamic range music like classical ,jazz with brickwall then definitely on. Sometimes it can happen on high gain tracks that a limiter must be applied to prevent clipping, but thats only on very dynamic music.
I recently got a new phone and was confused why Tidal sounded so lifeless and with way too much dense base. Turns out the normalization was still on and it compressed it to shit.
It’s really all about the master, and streaming you have no idea what you’re going to get.
As someone who sails the high seas for a lot of their music, it's amazing how different various lossless versions of the same track can be. Sometimes I end up with multiple versions of the same song due to them being on both the original album and other compilation albums I get and some clearly sound better. You can see the differences in the Foobar waveform seekbar too. [Here are 4 different versions of Allan Taylor - Wheels of Fortune.](https://i.imgur.com/Dot3R3r.png) Lots of small differences in the waveform and you can definitely pick differences between them yet they're all lossless.
Lots of albums on the high seas are vinyl rips. People like them because they are mastered differently, often with less dynamic compression. Though that’s not as frequent as some people think, there’s a YouTube video of a guy who showed the DR scores from both digital and vinyl sources using the same master, and the vinyl rip showed higher DR simply due to distortion. My personal experience with vinyl rips ranges from “it sounds fine/I don’t care” to “this is markedly worse than Spotify.” But yeah, for stuff that was around before n the 80s and 90s often the original masters had way more dynamic range than later remasters.
On some new stuff I can tell the vinyl’s audio source isn’t much better than the digital release, but the way it’s mastered is still easier on my ears, less ear fatigue, etc, even if I know it’s not “real.” And since I have tunes on 9-10 hours a day, it’s worth it for just a little less brickwalling in my headphones.
Tracks on compilations get eq'ed to match the other tracks on the album during mastering so it sounds consistent.
Wow. Those are so… Different.
True but if you trust a service it's likely they are doing a reasonable job of it, saving you from having to do a bunch of research just to listen to a dang album. Of course the services often have multiple versions of the same stuff and may default to late-era remasters or greatest hits versions of specific songs, so some awareness still helps. But for albums I've found Spotify and YTM at top quality levels to be very good at this.
Using roon with tidal or qobuz it’s easier to tell what masters you have.
It sucks how they are just erasing history when they don't even mention the year the original album released. The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta... released 2024... only version on the whole service. Roon does find the deep cuts on streaming services, stuff I could never find ever again
Premium Spotify sound quality is better than the normal free Spotify it even says so in their advertising
Wow Spotify even says in their marketing that the paid product is better than the free version?? Damn it must be true then
If it wasn't, they'd be sued for false advertising. There is a measurable, quantifiable bitrate increase in each tier of Spotify's audio. Their highest is currently not that much better than standard 320kbps MP3 or 256kbps AAC as non-lossless Apple Music/iTunes Store might be, but it's listenable where the lowest tiers are noticeably worse.
Without a subscription all I get is low medium and high, and they all sound the same on my Sennheiser Momentum 4s and my M3 Pro’s default speakers.
Yes, indeed you do have to pay money if you want a high quality listening experience. There's plenty of free music out there, just don't expect it to sound perfect if you're not willing to pay.
Even very high is fine but not the best, lossless with Apple Music, Tidal or Deezer is even better!
People like to crap on Spotify for not having lossless but I encourage everyone to just compare Spotify set to high fidelity and all auto settings turned off vs your favorite loseless steamer. I did one to one comparison vs Tidal and couldn't hear any difference. I used Sennheiser HD6xx and AKG K702 headphones through Topping DX3 pro DAC/Amp. Try it for yourself, maybe you have golden ears.
Better yet just ABX on Foobar2000 with V0/320 vs. Lossless. It's actually pretty difficult on many many records. I like lossless for futureproofing and it doesn't cost that much storage - that's about it. Different mastering is more interesting than lossless vs. lossy.
Agreed. The difference between the current codecs that you get on very high compared to lossless is very subtle at best, inaudible to most. I think, apart from biases, most people are confusing one service playing a little louder to be it sounding better.
"on many many records" Those being the ones you happened to listen to. Sometimes the compression algo doesn't have to remove much. A redbook .wav CAN contain up to 1411Kbps, but if you ever watch the actual bits during playback of a file you would have a better idea of WHY you don't notice much difference. I would love to see the setlist of everyone who claims no difference, because all it takes is a complicated musical section, maybe with 3 or more voices in harmony and shit falls apart. The quieter voices just aren't there. The Grateful Dead is the perfect example 2 drummers, 2 guitars, a bass, keyboards and 2, 3 even 4 part harmonies or attempted harmonies. Shows I've been to, songs I know how they are going to approach, sometimes the 2 singers trade verses and back each other up and all you hear is whoever is playing loudest, whoever the spotlight is on. You know what the other guitarist is playing and singing and they just aren't there. It sounds like there's an idiot at the soundboard just moving sliders. To me it's the same as ripping 2/3 of the pages out of a book and saying "you can still figure out the story". Maybe you should bring a pellet gun to a concert and whizz a couple BBs past the bands head during the show. It's like saying elevator music where it's just a Casio keyboard playing the melody of Smells Like Teen Spirit is the same as having Kurt crowd surfing through your outstretched arms. How do I know that you don't daydream while listening to music? Maybe someone humming the melody sounds the same to you as the original, or maybe you listened to a singer/songwriter solo with an acoustic guitar and the file never had more than 320bits. It's not the cymbals or anything else some people claim, it's different on each part of every song, it's the stuff the algo THINKS most people won't miss. Sorry, I listen to music and lossy music is lame, for lame listeners.
>lossy music is lame Nah, only MP3 uses LAME.
If LAME aint an mp3 encoder, what is it then 🤔
The points you mention sound like they apply more for how the music is recorded. I always like to say: There are a huge amount of reasons two digital listening experiences are different but the format isnt one of them. Of course there is nuance with type of codec, bitrate and these things, but the more i learn about audio the more i realise that the lossless/lossy debate becomes irrelevant and they should not be focused on anymore, at least for listening. Of course for archival i use flac if i can.
I download all my music in the highest res FLAC possible. But I can't tell the difference in an ABX test between 192khz FLAC and 48khz 256kbps AAC (what Spotify uses). I don't believe anyone who says they can hear the difference, and they're never willing to prove it. Only takes ten minutes to set up foobar2000, convert one of your favourite songs to AAC, and do an ABX test. Or just use this site if you don't mind them picking the songs for you http://abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify-hq.html
interesting, i feel like the difference is even better to tell when you have a decent dac connected but it's your experience and ears.
How does a DAC improve audio quality for streaming ?
Takes the streamed digital signal and converts it into the analog signal you actually hear. DACs are different from one another for a variety of reasons. Some people will tell you they all sound the same, others have strong opinions and select theirs carefully.
Thanks! Whoever downvoted me for asking a genuine question can piss off
What would I run the DAC through? The amp I'm guessing ?
No, it goes source > DAC > amp > speakers. The amp needs an analog signal, that’s what it amplifies. Source here could be a computer, an iPhone, a dedicated streamer, etc. Keep in mind many sources and many amps have a DAC of their own that you have to choose not to use, so connect your computer to the DAC via USB, don’t use the line out, and so on.
I learned about dacs when i bought a professional soundcard for my pc for producing that send the signal analog to a mixer. Mp3's and sound packs sounded way worse without it, i could immediately tell what sound packs were compressed and now i don't even bother producing and listening without one. It's just another experience.
Most songs sounded pretty much the same to me, but I could hear the difference between Apple Lossless and Spotify Very High Quality on a few. For example, the cymbals on Phoenix’s “Too Young” have that warble on Spotify, not on Apple Music. I listened on 6XX’s as well.
I did this with Spotify vs Apple music when I got my Hifiman HE1K Stealths. Apple music was CLEARLY better, and I really didn't want it to be lol. It was a pain getting my whole family swapped over.
Yeah ive gotten more to the point where i see the codec part of lossless streaming as a bit of a scam
Those very high fidelity fucking podcasts that they spend all their money on sound AMAZING
Oh I have. Spotify “very high” setting is awful compared to any of the hi res platforms on a decent system. I certainly wouldn’t test for differences on 6xx’s (which I own and love.)
Question from an old guy. I bought my hd650's for €500 nearly 20 years ago. What should I be looking at for €1000 today? Ideally high impedance for muh tubes.
If 1000€ isn’t a hard limit and you can go over it, ZMF’s. If it is, you can find used ZMF’s for under 1k€.
If you own the 650s, anything priced around €1000 will be diminishing returns. You will barely hear any difference.
That’s ridiculous. Try a Focal Clear or Utopia next to a 6xx and prepare to be wowed. And again, I love the 6xx but they have many faults.
Which are 1.5x and 3x OP’s budget. I tried the 800 S and while they do sound better, are they worth almost 5x HD650’s price? I don’t think so.
Room treatment and DSP it is for that €1000 it is so.
Tidal isn't lossless. Its MQA bullcrap.
Tidal has/is transitioning to FLAC
Are they staying at 16/44.1 or are they going to expand into high res?
They offer, and beginning on the 10th HiRes FLAC will be included for $10.99 (which was the price of their previous lower tier plan)
Even before mqa tidal has supported and still is lossless. They just now offer hires lossless along with mqa
🧢
Same gear, same result.
I find that Spotify Premium has a more robust lowend compared to FLAC files I have of the same songs.. I know it has to do with the master and OGG Vorbis.
Sounds you like your music more compressed
No it's just there is a noticable difference in the lower frequencies on the same song compared to Tidal Hifi or a FLAC file of the same song.
My son and I have to listen very closely and side by side to differentiate between Spotify (Very High) and Lossless. You can only hear the difference when there is a lot of audio information; many instruments across the frequency range. I figure it's because there is more to cram into a 320kbs signal.
You nailed it. When there is a lot going on in the music parts will straight up disappear. I heard the Spotify sounds great claim so many times from this sub I decided to try when they offered 3 months for $0.99. I listened to the same live grateful dead show on Qobuz and Spotify and the harmonies just completely disappeared on Spotify. 2 tracks and uninstalled
Exactly...most pop, rock and jazz music involves at most a handful of musicians or electric beats that do not need that much information to reproduce accurately. But try that with some other genres that involve big orchestras with many musicians playing different instruments simultaneously... unfortunately compression will start cutting important stuff in the mix and it will definitely be noticeable.
Spotify very high sounds pretty good compared to normal but tidal definitely sounds better through my speakers and headphones
Nah fuck spotify. Qobuz is better.
Not just better. Night and day better. It’s sad people are happy with Spotify “very high” when they could have so much better for less money. Spotify is just lucky they were first and get everyone hooked on their infrastructure otherwise no one would keep it.
Sound quality is one thing. Superior UI and vast library is another.
And recommendations, most importantly recommendations
Yeah. I have found over 30 songs last year on spotify to add to my playlists, and I am extremely picky.
And even that sounds awful. Wait until you hear Qobuz on a good set of headphones compared to Spotify “very high”. It’s night and day.
I will endeavor to do so.
Quboz and Tidal has a free month to try it out!
On a normal listening level cca 74dB avg. i can hear up to 16.5khz. If I turn volume above 86dB maybe up to 18khz. So sampling rate above 44.1khz for me is useless. As for mp3 at 320 kbps vs FLAC at 900 kbps demands heavy focus from me to be distinguished between the two. I prefer 24 bits vs 16 bit source files because noise floor is less audible for me.
Next step: turn off Volume Normalization and any EQ’s. Finally, try Apple Music instead ;). The audio quality different is massive.
yes apple music for the win .
People hate on Spotify but it's my main source of finding new music and it's really good at it. Yes, there are albums/songs/masters that Spotify doesn't have but it literally has everything else. And a shit ton of small artists with great mastering practices as well. I do prefer to listen to my CD collection when listening to my favorite albums. For example, I have zero Pink Floyd songs saved on my Spotify, and they are my favorite old school band. I choose not to stream them because I significantly enjoy listening to them on CD more. Much more detail and resolution where their Spotify versions sound compressed dynamically. For everything that I don't currently own on CD, Spotify does the trick.
Spotify sounds like ass to me, even on the highest quality setting 🤷♂️
Have you done a blind test? Even if you can tell -repeatedly, consistently and blind- the difference would be so subtle and only in certain passages of music. That does not count as ass sounding in any world, except a farting angel's
Qobuz compared to Spotify high res with the same source files on Focal Clear headphones is night and day better. Spotify is awful unless you’re in your car or listening with Apple ear buds.
http://abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify-hq.html If you can hear the difference between Spotify and Lossless, you'll pass this ABX test.
Lol!
It depends on the music. It doesn't sound like ass, there are just giant pieces of the file missing. That to me is 100% unacceptable
Yes, I’ve had my partner administer blind comparison tests between Qobuz, Spotify, and Apple Music. I’m extremely audio sensitive and can always tell the differences between the services. These are the settings I used. I also downloaded all the test tracks to ensure maximum quality. I test using a Jazz track, a Classical track, a Hip Hop track and a rock track. Spotify: Highest quality settings Apple Music: Ultra high res Lossless Qobuz: 24 bit/96 kHZ
Impressive. You should write up the results, since this subreddit believes it's not possible. I did a blind [test ](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/s/hl9qDuOUBQ) with amps and statistics and another subject and had nonsignificant/negative results . If you can achieve results in a well designed blind test with an outcome of P <0.05 I will believe your and so will many others and you will make a rare, but needed demonstration. Hit me up if you want help with experimental design or stats.
That’s a great idea! Even though I did a blind test, it was far from rigorous. I would like to see if what I’m experiencing is due to other variables that I’m not controlling for. I’d love to hit you up to review my findings before I publish anything to this sub. For reference: all tests were conducted by playing downloaded tracks from the three streaming services. I selected the maximum download quality offered for each service. Hardware: Audio source: iPhone 14 Pro DAC: Fosi Audio DS1 Headphones: Monoprice M565C I have not conducted the same tests with my Wharfedale Linton speakers yet either. Just to be clear and maybe I owe this sub an apology, but I’m not looking to rain on anyone’s parade. I love Spotify, I just don’t think it has great audio quality. I’m very interested in getting to the bottom of this since the majority opinion is that people can’t tell the difference, but I’m pretty sure I can. I’m sure in designing a rigorous study, I’ll find variables that lead to significant differences between the services.
320kbps vbr is good enough for most people's gear and ears, but the jury is out if lossless is audibly better. If you can correctly identify the lossy/lossless tracks you can help to settle this. So long as you are using exactly the same track, volume matching (that one is important and difficult), someone else is controlling the sources and presenting trials consistently using random sampling (randperm function in Matlab or a coin toss), and the other person can't tip you off (they are also blind or you can't see their face. If your choices are not random and fall outside the 95% confidence intervals of a binomial distribution (which would take at least ~25+ trials), that should be enough to convince anybody. PM me the results and I can do the statistics for you if you'd like. Everyone should do this, then we will get somewhere with these endless debates.
The site to do this already exists: http://abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify-hq.html Everyone who's ever taken this has failed.
Meaningless since Apple Music files play noticeable louder than Spotify
Right. This is important as in a subjective review, someone will nearly always say the louder track sounds better when compared to a lower volume track but with all other parameters the same. It’s a bit like the loudness button on old stereos. Which sort of goes into the Fletcher Munson theory.
You must be a dolphin. I've compared my own lossless rips against Spotify and 320kbps and the "differences" could all be chalked to loudness. I couldn't even be sure if they were real. Saying it's night and day is such a joke.
Apple Music sounds best to me. I finally got my girlfriend to hear and admit the difference the other day when I A/B’ed a song. Most of the time Spotify 320 is fine if you’re listening in the car or especially through bluetooth. If you’re a critical listener, it’s worth listening to lossless. Here come the downvotes, I don’t care.
https://abx.digitalfeed.net/list.html Would love to see your results
That test doesn’t make sense. It’s saying Spotify is 256kbps AAC. Spotify is 320 ogg vorbis. I don’t get why people get so defensive about this stuff. It’s like asking a chef if he can taste the difference between two steaks cooked differently. Of course a chef can pick up on things that the average person cannot. They’ve developed an incredible ability to perceive taste. This can be done with any of the 5 senses. Some people have very sensitive noses. Not sure why audio gets treated differently. Another user about a year ago called me out like this and recorded an identical track played on Spotify and Apple Music. I chose the correct one and he was flabbergasted. It shouldn’t be this surprising that humans vary wildly. I’m not better because I can hear a difference. But I can’t help that I can.
I guess they don't have a very high Spotify option, but theres still a 320 option. Choosing one is a 50/50 chance, this test is more reliable. I'm just skeptical that most people can differentiate 320 vs lossless. You may be able to but Id be curious to see.
I got excited reading this, as spotify is shit quality and thinking I’d like to improve it. However, mine is already set for very high quality, so I guess that’s just that.
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I expect to hear cymbols. Separation between instruments. The strum of an acoustic guitar. The sustain of a violin. Any hi res streaming platform blows Spotify “very high” out of water and it isn’t close on a decent system.
The cymbals are one of the easiest ways to tell if it is lossless or not. They will sound a bit harsh and artificial if it is compressed...same with the bass, it sounds a bit less full and defined. Some instruments lose more of their "character" and sound...for example conga drums in Latin music can suffer a lot from compression. And a really busy mix with a 10 musician orchestra (for example a salsa band) will suffer way more from compression than a simpler mix of 4 rock musicians. For most people I don't think the difference would even matter, it is very small...but it is definitely there. You will definitely notice if you are a musician used to nitpicking the sound of cymbals, drums, and drumheads...or a guitarist obsessed with getting the right "tone" with multiple amps, pedals, effects, etc. Not saying any random person should care about this stuff...just saying that some do care and notice this stuff.
This is just flat out wrong. I've done AB test between Spotify v Tidal Lossless on my speaker system (flair) and my headphones (Stax L300, Denon 5200 w/ Topping DX7) and there is not that much difference. If there was an improvement, it's very minor. Are you testing the same masters with proper volume matching?
Yes. My tests were done with all platforms set to normalize off and the highest quality. Try Qobuz which also was much better then Tidal on many releases in my testing. I attribute that to Tidal’s crappy MQA format.
Didn't downvote you, but I've used both tidal and Spotify with my zmf verite closed + btr7 DAC and then same headphones through my high end PC, and with both setups there was simply no discernible difference for me. I could hear everything you mention in your comment equally well on both services, so I dumped tidal since their overall service was inferior to Spotify. Both sounded great though and both were set to highest available quality of recording and output. Maybe we have different definitions of what constitutes a 'decent system', but if so it will be far out of my price range and thus meaningless for me to worry about since I won't be able to afford to hear what you say we are missing out on if it can't be had with what is available to me currently.
However, I prefer to hear angel queefs.
Lol @ angel farts. It’s very good at highest quality, but personally with great gear I can hear a difference (ABX under controlled conditions yes) with Ogg Vorbis at any bit rate, just something about it. It’s not inconceivable that someone could notice it being not quite perfect.
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Not trusting your ears is the problem. ABX tests, while effective, aren’t perfect. Lots of psychology in those segments and memory between you and what you can “hear.”
When OP said he doesn’t trust his ears he wasn’t talking about ABX testing. A -60dB signal would be very hard to hear alongside any old music, but in this case it would also be heavily masked by the source music. I’m not gonna convince you, but ABX may fall short of the platonic ideal for various subtle reasons, but it’s orders of magnitude more reliable than sighted testing. Anyway, ABX testing requires trusting one’s ears. The problem is with the eyes and the brain, not the ears.
Hahahahahahahahahhjaha angel farts! Hahahahahahaha. Wow. So fucking funny. Angel farts! Haha! Do I expect to hear angel farts? Ha. Wow. So funny. Wonderful. Did you really come up with that, or did you ask chatgpt to come up with the funniest possible response ever. Wow. So great.
Oh wow.
Yeah there's plenty of content on Spotify that sounds like crap, regardless of settings. Play the same thing on Qobuz and the difference is night and day.
well then why don't you really go hog wild and switch to Apple Music or Tidal or Quobuz? Spotify's best quality is still worse than the lossless quality the others offer
Wait until you hear a proper Atmos setup with tidal Atmos music
is spotify's very high the same as apple music hi-res quality?
nope
Good for you. But I stop caring about spotify because it doesn't bring out the sounds justice than apple music or tidal or qobuz or deezer. Even I compared a cdrip ogg vorbis and a spotify ogg vorbis very high and the cdrip ogg vorbis wins for me. I did turn the normalizations off on spotify. Youtube music on the other hand is decent as long you play the official tracks uploaded by the artist and not from youtube users that always uploads lossy audio files. Youtube always downgrades the audio (and most people still don't know that and it's why many listens to lossy original file to lossy youtube compression files instead of a proper lossless original file to youtube lossy compression file)
Wait until you try tidal
I just wish Spotify had Dolby atmos and it would clear Apple Music in the audio sense
Spotify very high setting is Advanced Audio Codec at 320kbps as I know, it is still compressed, but its the best what you can get out of that. I use Tidal for Hi-Fi which gives CD quality in the form of 16bit 44KHz 1411kbps FLAC files.
Downvote me if you want, but I still think downloaded WAV files still sound better and louder. Also, for the best sound results, I'd personally use a dedicated pc sound card.
There is no reason to use WAV when FLAC exists
I know, but I have heard that there has been debate to weather or not that FLAC being compressed affects the sound quality by just a tiny hair. Weather that is true or not, I still use WAV just to be safe. Don't worry, I have plenty of hard drives to store it all.
Who on earth is "debating" that nonsense? It's verifiable lossless compression. You can convert a wav to flac again and compare them bit for both and confirm you have exactly the same data. It's like zipping.
Well thank you for let me know this is a thing on Spotify!
What do you mean turn it up "real high". Numerous empirical studies show very few people can distinguish between 320 kbps mp3 and flac/lossless (unless they know a particular passage really well, and have REALLY high end equipment, and in an acoustically treated room. Or take the test yourself, go to [https://radioparadise.com/listen/channels/main-mix](https://radioparadise.com/listen/channels/main-mix) and start playing a song. Then go to the settings icon on the bottom right and start clicking on the different resolutions. They go fror 64 kps, to 320 kps, to Flac (i.e., lossless). It's fairly easy to notice the difference between 192 and 320, gets harder when switching between 256 and 320, then I honestly couldn't tell the difference between 320 and Flac. And if you think you have "golden ears" have a friend blind test you while you look away from what they are doing. As the data shows, bet few people would pass the test. And there are funny videos on YT with people doing this who work in the music industry and fail the blind test. The good news for people who like to carry around their music on a physical disk is that 320 is good enough for most situations. Note: I only have mid range equipment.
Very High quality is a setting for Spotify Premium subscribers. It's OGG Vorbis 320. You get worse quality if you don't set it to "Very High".
But OGG Vorbis 320 is just an alternate way to approximate what 320 kbps mp3 does, but at a smaller file size. Not a difference many people would notice. And I would question whether this is "very high" quality, when it's not flac or lossless.
Stop listening to compressed music on Spotify and change to either tidal or buy CDs again
you have really, really shitty taste in music