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Spotify Launching 'HiFi' Lossless Streaming Option Later This Year
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Well, that depends entirely on the type of music, most my ripped files are between 660 and 900 kbps
Well MQA is false marketing, (look at us we can deliver 24 bit 384 kHz files....well in reality they are 17 bit with some 12 dB extra noise on top)
That is IF You have payed the MQA tax and bought MQA equipment that has been crippled by lousy digital filters (dictated by MQA)
Apple has their own ALAC codec yes, known from iTunes.
The people echoing the meme about high res, lossless music files being identical in listening experience to a lossy Spotify stream are laughable. There is a clear difference and it's not even close when using proper equipment. Sure, if you're just gonna sit there with AirPods on you're probably not going to find a difference.
Cringe; using ATH M50s and using a website's built in HTML audio players to play average recordings (magna carta holy grail is not a good recording) what does he expect to happen. The fact she was able to get 4 out of 6 with everything working against her speaks to the fact that there is a difference. If he was using higher end gear and playing local files with high quality recordings the difference would be night and day. Best example for why higher res audio matters is whenever I play a high res recording of a piano you can literally hear how the pianist is holding their hands whilst playing (e.g, you can hear their fingernails lightly tapping the piano keys sometimes and can hear them breathing along with the music)
Way Back when I began ripping my 1000+ CD collection my goal was for everything to fit on an 80GB iPod. So I tested various types of music at 128, 256 and 320 kbps.
To my ears 128 was unacceptable. 256 was pretty good and at 320 the quality was good enough. I still preferred listening to well engineered CDs on a quality player but I loved the convenience of the iPod when traveling.
I'm now 66 years old and my hearing isn't what it once was. . . (Thanks in large part to CSNY in Portland, Oregon circa 2005.) I did a hearing test some years back and a higher frequency that commonly goes away with age is long gone for me. Even so, I can still tell the difference when listening to a quality CD on my Ascend Sierra bamboo speakers (living room) and older Bose system with subwoofer (Mac).
I've been using Spotify since it became available in the States. Before that I listened to the dearly departed Mog streaming service which I judged to be the best option at the time. I've been into all kinds of music since I was a kid and I was a DJ on rock FM radio during and after college in 70s California. Streaming rocks for variety and convenience. (I do wish that artists were better compensated.) I'm going to demo the new Spotify service and see if the increase in price is worth it. My CD collection isn't going anywhere. . . LOL
To my ears 128 was unacceptable. 256 was pretty good and at 320 the quality was good enough. I still preferred listening to well engineered CDs on a quality player but I loved the convenience of the iPod when traveling.
I'm now 66 years old and my hearing isn't what it once was. . . (Thanks in large part to CSNY in Portland, Oregon circa 2005.) I did a hearing test some years back and a higher frequency that commonly goes away with age is long gone for me. Even so, I can still tell the difference when listening to a quality CD on my Ascend Sierra bamboo speakers (living room) and older Bose system with subwoofer (Mac).
I've been using Spotify since it became available in the States. Before that I listened to the dearly departed Mog streaming service which I judged to be the best option at the time. I've been into all kinds of music since I was a kid and I was a DJ on rock FM radio during and after college in 70s California. Streaming rocks for variety and convenience. (I do wish that artists were better compensated.) I'm going to demo the new Spotify service and see if the increase in price is worth it. My CD collection isn't going anywhere. . . LOL
Since Apples algorithms have not ever suggested something good for me I agree. I listen to one playlist they make - the New Music Daily and they cannot even regularly put that in front of me. I search for it every time.
And Goin' nowhere. 320 kbps is more than enough for 95 percent of 95% of the average listening situations. Can't see any way this moves past its current market share of those that consider themselves "audiophiles". This is honest talk from someone who has worked in front-line pro audio for 30 years.
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I'm all for higher quality files. I like FLAC when ripping old CDs.
But when streaming and sending over bluetooth, does it make a difference?
Anyone with audio proof and charts etc?
Notionally from listening to FLACs over BT, I think it does sound much better most times.
But depends upon device and with BT codecs used. LDAC sound better on Sony speakers.
Sometimes Apple devices (and others) sound awfully thin on same speakers.
But when streaming and sending over bluetooth, does it make a difference?
Anyone with audio proof and charts etc?
Notionally from listening to FLACs over BT, I think it does sound much better most times.
But depends upon device and with BT codecs used. LDAC sound better on Sony speakers.
Sometimes Apple devices (and others) sound awfully thin on same speakers.
Agreed. And one of the few scenarios in the Audiophile world that can be backed up objectively.
Most of what I listen to are rips of my own CD collection stored locally as WAV. Services such as Apple Music and Spotify are so far just for convenience. It's what you listen to on AirPods or HomePod where the difference can't be heard. Most consumer level DAC implementations barely can manage a 12 bit resolution over noise
If Spotify goes 16/44 I will probably drop Tidal.
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My listening on the music side, background to other activities. Rarely do I listen attentively to a song or album. What we currently have worked nicely. Not interested in any costs or data usage with the described feature. Good to have options, however.
anecdotal....
I recently upgraded my car head unit from a regular bluetooth unit to a wireless carplay unit.
both units are Pioneer.
wireless carplay, streaming spotify from the same phone, is louder, clearer, more expansive than the bluetooth connection. more dynamic range. more bass. louder volume, and clearer when up loud.
wireless carplay is doing ALAC/CD quality streaming.
the wireless carplay head unit switched to bluetooth on the same phone is just as crunchy sounding as it is on the old head unit.
so removing one 'layer' of re-encoding really brought to life the lossy audio on spotify, to the point that i just bought a raspberry pi with hifiberry DAC board to set up in my home as a hi-fi listening device for my FLACs/WAVs off bandcamp.
considering i was about to give tidal a free trial once my rPi setup arrives, this spotify news is actually really cool.
bluetooth audio still has its place to be sure and i will still use BT headphones when out and about but when I want to really sit down and immerse myself in a favorite record, its nice to know these lossless options are available.
at the end of the day its a balance of convenience and quality. you dont have to have it one way or the other 100% of the time, you can choose when and where you lean one way or the other.
I recently upgraded my car head unit from a regular bluetooth unit to a wireless carplay unit.
both units are Pioneer.
wireless carplay, streaming spotify from the same phone, is louder, clearer, more expansive than the bluetooth connection. more dynamic range. more bass. louder volume, and clearer when up loud.
wireless carplay is doing ALAC/CD quality streaming.
the wireless carplay head unit switched to bluetooth on the same phone is just as crunchy sounding as it is on the old head unit.
so removing one 'layer' of re-encoding really brought to life the lossy audio on spotify, to the point that i just bought a raspberry pi with hifiberry DAC board to set up in my home as a hi-fi listening device for my FLACs/WAVs off bandcamp.
considering i was about to give tidal a free trial once my rPi setup arrives, this spotify news is actually really cool.
bluetooth audio still has its place to be sure and i will still use BT headphones when out and about but when I want to really sit down and immerse myself in a favorite record, its nice to know these lossless options are available.
at the end of the day its a balance of convenience and quality. you dont have to have it one way or the other 100% of the time, you can choose when and where you lean one way or the other.
oh jeez..."Hi-Fi?" What relation does that even have to CD quality, let alone high quality sound. No matter how good you try and make stuff, you can't compete with uncompressed CD's..
It maybe lossless, but that stlll does not overcome the fcact at some stage bits are thrown out. It's still compressed.
It maybe lossless, but that stlll does not overcome the fcact at some stage bits are thrown out. It's still compressed.
Yep. Apple will follow soon after. They don't care about audio quality but will definitely care about losing subscribers to Spotify. It's about money after all. But we do get to benefit. I would kill for FLAC support on iTunes and FLAC syncing on iPhone. ALAC does not handle corruption as well as FLAC.
Lossless format has nothing to do with it. Most of 80s music was recorded on tape. That's why it sounds different from current music recorded on hard drive/SSDs. We would benefit from lossless music on iTunes Store/Apple Music. That's the ultimate format for consumers. You can convert to whatever you want without transcoding when you need and can keep an archive for long term. I've been using lossless rips from my CDs for 6 years now and I can definitely spot the difference when I play them on Spotify.
That's not how lossless works. If you take a 1411kbps WAV and convert to FLAC/ALAC whatever, the data will be compressed like a ZIP file. It will be smaller but when you play them, you will hear the same 1411kbps WAV. When you convert the file to AAC or MP3 the song will never be able to sound like the original 1411kbps because these codecs compress the songs by throwing away data it thinks we can't hear.
Airplay is lossless. Even Airplay 1.
A lossless source to lossy wireless headphones is better than lossy source to lossy wireless headphones.
Thanks for posting this, I've always been confused about the details of the Airplay 2 protocol. Still a bit confused after researching it. According to the Wirecutter, "With most speakers, AirPlay 2, like the original, uses your phone or tablet as the source, so if you turn your phone off or its battery dies, so does your music. The situation is different when you're playing from a HomePod, however, which streams Apple Music directly from the Internet—in that case your phone acts as a remote control, as with Chromecast. But the HomePod is the only device in the AirPlay 2 lineup that works this way."
Say I start playing a song from Apple Music directly on my iPhone and then Airplay it to an AirPlay 2 device. Will the Airplay 2 device then do all the streaming itself, or does it still rely on the iPhone since I didn't start the song from the HomePod? Based on the Wirecutter article, I would think it would rely on the iPhone.