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But some how they are number one. Just goes to show you what people really care about. I myself prefer AppleMusic and had both Tidal and Qobuz. Music selection on average was better on AppleMusic, but the other two at the time offered Hi-Res audio. Even went out to get a DAC to play MQA steams, and the Hi-Res audio from Qobuz.

Can you tell the difference between them? If you know what you're listening for, you certainly can. Also, it makes a difference too when you turn it up or even when listening a low volumes. And of course, what type of music you listen to. It's not going to make a world of difference if you listen to rap/hip-hop/techno/club/house/trance. As long as it's not too low quality that is. But, if you're listening to acoustic or jazz, classical, 60/70 and some 80's pop/rock. You certainly can hear it and more importantly feel it differently than in low quality. Not necessarily just in the bass "feel" but, the whole song can feel different. And it's not always good either. Some music was rather poorly recorded, and you may not like it in Hi-Res. It can be "too" revealing.
 
Do people actually use Dolby Atmos? Wow
Like all audio, how something is mixed and mastered and how good was the source material.

Modern recordings that have been created with Atmos in mind stand the best chance of sounding good on quality sound systems. And faked 3.1 "Atmos" isnt Atmos. It's audio trickery at best. Some ears like it. Some dont.

Older material can sound amazing too if remastered with intent.

Anything else that is faked can sound better or worse.

My Samsung Q990B can fake surround on inputs.
Sometimes it does a really good job separating non vocal parts to the rear speakers.

Often the character of your speakers plays a bigger part in how you experience sound.
Or the room/car you listening to it in.

Newer audio tools that create STEMs can allow audio engineers to remix older material for more spacious stereo or surround mixes when original tracks arent available.

Almost everything is audio tricked out these days: it wasnt that long ago (late 90s) that CDs of 50s and 60s material contained a lot of hiss and crackles. It's hard not to find a cleaned up track from that era now...
 
LOL

Far too late Spotify. I moved to Apple Music and trust me I have had so many issues with AM over the years. At times I’ve went back to Spotify but now for me AM finally works perfectly so I’m sticking with it. No chance I’m going back to Spotify. I actually just deleted my Spotify account permanently on Monday.

Spotify here is now £12/month. This new tier is only gonna be more expensive. Spotify used to have gift cards on Amazon which gave you 12 months for £99 but it seems they have stopped that so you are forced to pay the £12/month which works out £45 more a year. Apple Music is £11/month or £9.08/month (if paid annually) and of course there are no tiers. You get everything for that price.

I know I’m on an Apple forum and praising Apple Music but again I’ve had lots of issues with it. It’s so funny that Spotify have took so long that Apple managed to improve and fix AM.

Well done Spotify! You lost a customer of 14 years.
 
Do people actually use Dolby Atmos? Wow
Yeah me.

It was bad at first but seems to have improved a lot recently. Some songs would sound weird with “artifacts” or glitches. I turned it back on recently and never bothered to turn it off.

It can be hit or miss. Some songs sound much better with it and some don’t make any difference. I don’t think any sound bad with it on like they used to.
 
Yeah me.

It was bad at first but seems to have improved a lot recently. Some songs would sound weird with “artifacts” or glitches. I turned it back on recently and never bothered to turn it off.

It can be hit or miss. Some songs sound much better with it and some don’t make any difference. I don’t think any sound bad with it on like they used to.

I assume it works best on headphones? I do 90% of my music listening in my car, or on big floor speakers at home.

When I did try it on my AirPods, it was just...weird, and borderline creepy.
 
Never got it with Spotify. Wasn't the first, wasn't the best. Does brilliantly on the promotion front I suppose.
They were the first streaming service I can recall outside of internet radio services. My first payment to them was in January 2009.

I've switched between various services through the years, but these days I have access to both Apple Music (launched mid-2015) and Spotify:

The Spotify app is massively superior both on my mobile devices and the desktop, to the point that our I probably use it 80% of the time. Apple Music is superior when the music has good Dolby Atmos support, and on the Apple watch when used alone, e.g.on runs.

The difference in sound quality between the highest Spotify encoding and lossless is impossible to hear, even on good gear - like my Sennheiser HD800s and my B&W CM9 setup - even if you know what to listen for. It's been years since that could reliably be found in blind tests, when audio levels are matched and normalization is off. Matching audio levels is critical, since louder otherwise sounds better.
 
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So no hi-res bitrates at all? I don’t understand why they’re having so much trouble competing with other similar services here.
Probably 99% of people can’t tell the difference between whatever Spotify’s current maximum bit rate and CD-quality lossless. I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone can tell the difference between CD-quality and higher than CD quality (only considering stereo audio)
 
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If Spotify increase lossy pricing because of lossless, I’d rather it stay lossy thanks. Don’t bother with the fake surround stuff like Dolby Atoms as well. It sounds awful and it’s lossy, at least on Apple Music. Spotify just works on everything and anything. Apart from the UI, it should be an Apple service. AM is way more unstable, doesn’t have an app on many of my devices, never works when traveling and you rely on Spotify Connect (maybe a Europe thing), not to mention that Apple lack the podcast app on multiple platforms.
 
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It’s a pretty niche feature and I suspect a lot of people can barely tell the difference.

Especially when so much music is consumed on the street, metro, car and walking.

But sure it’s great it’s arriving.
 
They're also going to charge more for it, while Apple and Amazon include it for free. But that's why Spotify is eventually going to fail. Apple and Amazon have other product lines, allowing their music services to be less profitable. Spotify on the other hand only has music. They give artists less than half what Apple does and they're still not profitable.
So is Apple Music profitable?
 
if they bring back integration with dj apps, then i'm in. the interface is way better and more responsive than apple music. can also use devices as a remote for spotify, AM still for some reason doesn't want to integrate this.

kudos to apple for providing hi res lossless at no additional charge though
 


Spotify appears to be gearing up to launch its long-awaited lossless music tier.

General-Spotify-Feature.jpg

Chris Messina (via TechCrunch) and Spicetify (via The Verge) spotted new lossless references within the code for Spotify's desktop app and web player.

With assistance from Aaron Perris, MacRumors has confirmed that the latest beta of the Spotify app for the iPhone also contains new lossless-related code.

Lossless songs retain all of the audio data from the original recording.

One line of code says Spotify's lossless audio will be 24-bit at 44.1 kHz.

"Introducing the best sound quality on Spotify: for music in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz."

Lossless audio will be available to stream or download in the Spotify app on the iPhone, reads another line of code for the beta app.

In February, Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw reported that Spotify was planning to launch a Music Pro subscription tier that offers higher-quality audio, remixing tools, and access to concert tickets. The report said Spotify was considering charging as much as $5.99 per month for this perk, on top of the standard price of Spotify Premium.

It is unclear when Spotify will finally roll out lossless audio, but the report said that it aimed to make Music Pro available later this year.

Spotify first announced plans for a "Hi-Fi" tier with lossless audio in 2021.

2021 is the same year that most songs in the Apple Music catalog became available in lossless audio, at up to 24-bit/192 kHz. This perk is offered to Apple Music subscribers at no additional cost, so Spotify's offering is both late and will seemingly cost extra.

Article Link: Spotify Preparing to Launch Long-Awaited Lossless Audio Tier on iPhone
Imagine using Spotify in 2025 🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀💔
 
I read “on iPhone” so in which way could I benefit from that?
Honest question… iPhones don’t have 3.5mm jacks anymore… and I don’t think there’s really a lossless codec for bluetooth?
 
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