Streaming services sound quality

[sonics]

I was reading this BBC article about Neil Young and Spotify. The last paragraph reads:

Most of Spotify's biggest rivals - including Apple, Tidal, Amazon Music and Qobuz - offer lossless audio, which is closer to CD quality than the compressed files served by Spotify.

Wrong, obviously, but it had me wondering. Has anyone noticed any difference or real, verifiable improvement in streaming music at higher-than-CD data rates?

I have the option (with Tidal) but just leave it turned off, as it's more work for the connection and the devices, and I don't believe I'll hear anything anyway. I'm thinking of null-testing some direct captures just to see what they're streaming, though. I believe the streams may have different sources, so I'm expecting some differences there. That will affect things.
I've already done this with a few tracks. I noticed remastered versions not clearly marked as such (with higher average levels and clipped peaks), as well as audible distortion in a few tracks (although I don't own the originals so don't know who is responsible for that).

As an aside, it looks like Tidal have removed their deceptive "stair step" audio quality graphic but now tell us that 44/16 is "studio" quality, but their higher tier streams are, by definition, even better. Better than studio, thus better than the original? It's all marketing rubbish.

[ajay_m]

Well a quick test would be, take a track you have on cd and rip to a wav file. Then record the same track off Spotify and then put both tracks into your daw. Then phase invert one and line up the waveforms then mix for a null. Any residual is then the loss. When I tried this once with a wav to MP3 the residual was always at least -50dB with respect to the signal at any time and thus inaudible. Which of course is the whole idea of lossy compression. It removes what you can't hear anyway.

[sonics]

Well a quick test would be, take a track you have on cd and rip to a wav file.

It's not quite as simple as that. CDs can be mastered from various sources. Streaming audio likewise. I refer to this in my post. I would expect to hear differences in many cases.

[RichardT]

I did a blind test a couple of years ago and I couldn’t reliably distinguish 44 from 96 using wav files of the same master. Though I was 60 at the time and had the usual HF loss you might expect.

[tea for two]

I have a really simple test nowadays.
If anything in an instrumental song hurts my ears then it's not mixed mastered properly : flawed I know still I gotta go on something.
All mixing engineers mastering engineers should be in their late 40s-70s 80s.

I just listen to stuff on utuub. Shazam is the only app I use a fair amount when in coffee shoppes pubs to find a song. So I can't say aboot zitify et al.

[Drew Stephenson]

The last paragraph reads:

Most of Spotify's biggest rivals - including Apple, Tidal, Amazon Music and Qobuz - offer lossless audio, which is closer to CD quality than the compressed files served by Spotify.

Wrong, obviously,

Just to be clear is it the "lossless audio = closer to CD" that you're saying is wrong or another bit of that sentence?

In terms of better than 44.1/16 for audio, I did have a mastering engineer on a course playback some 96k stuff on his big ATCs and compared it with the 44.1 and I must confess that I couldn't hear a difference.
Which is possibly why he is a mastering engineer and I am not.

[James Perrett]

In terms of better than 44.1/16 for audio, I did have a mastering engineer on a course playback some 96k stuff on his big ATCs and compared it with the 44.1 and I must confess that I couldn't hear a difference.
Which is possibly why he is a mastering engineer and I am not.

Or maybe there simply was no difference. I only really notice a difference when I'm using certain processing where it is a bit like running tape at 30ips rather than 15ips. Possibly I might notice something if I was still in my teens but not these days.

[sonics]

Just to be clear is it the "lossless audio = closer to CD" that you're saying is wrong or another bit of that sentence?

Yes, lossless audio IS CD quality, not "closer to" it. That's what's wrong. Unless it's lossless 22/8.

I'm not concerned about processing, or working in a DAW. Simply what's the point of ultra-hires audio for playback if no human can hear the difference.

[Eddy Deegan]

In an A/B comparison I can reliably tell the difference between MP3 and WAV-or-FLAC (and I enjoy the listening more when it's lossless) despite the fact I'm not great at hearing frequencies above 12kHz or so. There's something about the dynamic range that I pick up on readily.

I don't think I could identify a difference between 16-bit and 24-bit uncompressed audio though*. CD works well for me and I use/buy FLAC wherever possible (one of the reasons I like Bandcamp).

* I like to think that I could have done in my teens but I loved listening to music on cassette then and didn't give it a second thought so that's somewhat moot in 2024

[BWC]

Simply what's the point of ultra-hires audio for playback if no human can hear the difference.

Simply, it's easy to convince people that they can (should) hear it, and then take their money.

It's all marketing rubbish.

Yup.

I certainly wouldn't pay more for "better than CD quality" but Tidal places the "spatial" stuff on the same tier (which, I assume, is why you have that option).

[Tomás Mulcahy]

10 years ago I did the Philips hearing/ training test when it was still available online. Above 170kbps I could not tell the difference between MP3 and WAV. But like Eddie I find enjoy stuff more when it is not compressed at such a low rate. I enjoy things fine on Apple Music they don’t futz with the rate (AAC 256kbps sounds fine) as much as Spotify do. Their “normal” quality rate is noticeably poor on headphones, worse than Apple’s high efficiency rate. Spotify nomenclature is misleading.

[rggillespie]

To me things sound flatter on Spotify and more spatially developed and detailed when I stream on higher definition from quboz. I find its reasonably clear to hear the difference between them. I listen to new music on Spotify and if its worth it I might buy the cd. My best source seem to be playing cds which sound better than any streaming, and good old vinyl!

[Moroccomoose]

For balance, it should be noted that Tidal are changing thier pricing structure from 10th April 24. So the additional revenue stream to justify the very high res formats shall become a moot point- on Tidal at least.

They currently have 'Hifi' (44.1/16) @ £10.99 and 'Hifi plus' which includes flac and upto 192/24 @ £19.99. This is being flattened to a single tier and charged at the 'Hifi' price of £10.99.

Unlike spotify, I don't believe there is a free-with-adverts option.

[tea for two]

When Tidal say 192/24 : then the original albuumes songs would have to have been recorded in 192/24 and tidal would need access to these : else it's as similar as upscaling vhs, 1080p to 4K.

128Kbps is most of my listening on utuub free version.
320Kbps even 256Kbps mp3 of my tunes is alrighty with me.

[sonics]

My best source seem to be playing cds which sound better than any streaming, and good old vinyl!

So you've found CD sounds better than CD-quality streaming? That must be caused by differences in the playback equipment, surely?

If you only have Spotify then that will probably be the reason.

I've not mentioned normalisation issues in this thread, either!

[rggillespie]

So you've found CD sounds better than CD-quality streaming? That must be caused by differences in the playback equipment, surely?'

Yes I think it must be that. I'd assumed a 192/24 stream would be better sound than the same music on a cd but I've not found that to be the case for me. I was burning off cd's for friends of the music I've recorded only to find they now have no cd players, they all stream. Even the keenest music listeners I know are all happy with Spotify and the quality that gives. Each to their own I suppose......

[Wonks]

192kHz sampling can introduce its own artefacts and so offers little advantage over 44.1kHz. You really don’t want to go higher than 96kHz.