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Spotify Testing New Lossless Audio Quality Subscription Tier
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If you'd spend just 10 seconds on Wikipedia you'd read "For example, an image may have areas of color that do not change over several pixels; instead of coding "red pixel, red pixel, ..." the data may be encoded as "279 red pixels". This is a basic example of run-length encoding; there are many schemes to reduce file size by eliminating redundancy."
Lossless compression is lossless.
Not marketing. Some people still listen to music at home via nice amplifiers or high end receivers coupled with top notch speakers -- not $100 budget jobbers. I'm no audiophile but I can tell the difference between **** and Shinola.
I still rip CDs to ALAC for my home system because lossy audio sounds hollow on even medium sized quality home speakers. I use MP3 for my iPhone because like you say, you won't know the difference on tiny portable speakers or earbuds. It would be a waste of storage.
So a lossless streaming service is not marketing, it's just pointed to a specific market, maybe one that doesn't serve you. That does't mean it doesn't serve anyone. I don't buy baby food. Is baby food just slick marketing to vulnerable parents? No.
Now the $20 price tag doesn't move me. I buy about a dozen albums a year so it doesn't make economic sense to me. $10 I'd think about it if it included offline listening too. The big problem is that my running app only supports the Apple music player. I think that is an iOS requirement, not the choice of the app developer.
I think here are 2 types of compression intermixed. There is data compression on one hand, and dynamics compression (loudness wars) on the other. We should aim to seperate those two carefully.
No matter what they say, one thing I still feel confused is:
Why high quality music has higher price? If those codecs are just provided for free, where could they justify the higher price?
Why high quality music has higher price? If those codecs are just provided for free, where could they justify the higher price?
For the same reason that Netflix 1080p cost 9,99$, and 4K cost 11,99$. Higher quality comes at a higher price. At least that how the entertainment industry think.
So, it´s not Spotify who decides this, it´s music labels, which owns 20% of the company.
So, it´s not Spotify who decides this, it´s music labels, which owns 20% of the company.
Maybe the storage requirements, server busy times downloading, and most likely royalties to music producers. A few thoughts.
I'm probably a dinosaur in that I still like using star ratings and smart playlist and for those reason unless Spotify introduces those features I'm sticking with Apple music. Not sure my ears could even tell much of difference with lossless plus the data and space it requires is very inconvenient.
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Exactly. I think if you are playing good mastered music on high-end speakers with a good amplifier I'm sure you can hear a difference. But therefore you need to optimize all the components (speakers, amp, speaker cables and so on).
But if you play bad mastered music like the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Californication" http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/83434 (way too loud and terrible mastered) the same music won't sound better as high resolution audio like FLAC.
In my opinion for average users 320kbps MP3 or 256kbps AAC is good enough. I know it is a extreme example that will barely ever happened but why should I pay ten bucks more a month for a slightly better quality if I play it via bluetooth on 50-100$ active speakers?
Just my thoughts.
Where did you get the idea than Vorbis was worse than MP3? It has been better since day one. MP3 has had improvements in quality, but Ogg Vorbis has always been better sounding at the same bitrate than MP3.
While "better sounding" is a subjective measure, I most definitively agree that Ogg Vorbis sounds better than MP3, especially at bit rates below 128 kbps.
Yes, definitely. Last time I checked (it's been a while, though) I could easily, 100% of the time, pick the 128kbps mp3 vs the 128kbps ogg vorbis. I don't remember where my threshold was, and for many years all of my music is, whenever possible, ALAC encoded. Now Opus is my favorite for lossy encoded audio, although the support for that format is very limited yet (and I don't expect it to be supported by Apple anywhere anytime soon).
I don't buy music on the iTunes store precisely because of that: they don't offer lossless. You could argue that the perception between the 256kbps they sell and lossless would be lost for almost anybody, and I agree, but by principle if I am to buy a record, I want it lossless. The moment they offer lossless there I would be very very happy (As there are lots of music that is not available easily to be bought like that)
I have found that lots of third party vendors are now offering lossless encoded files, so I have bought whenever possible from them. Even if it's somewhat more expensive.
Irrespective of what has been said here: I started my iTunes collection in high school when the first iPod came out. I always knew that when I ripped my CDs to iTunes they were less than CD quality (uncompressed wasn't the point back then, especially on a 5 GB iPod). I still had the CD to put on in a computer or portable CD player when I wanted to really feel the music. I bought a few things on iTunes, but I always knew that if I'm going to buy something I should just get the CD and then I could always compress it to whatever flavor was popular.
Tidal has been a game changer, and I have subscribed to their "hi-fi" service every month for a couple years now, since I first discovered it. It would definitely be worth looking at Spotify again if they cater to this market of (I hate the label audiophile) people that appreciate CD-quality sound.
Tidal has been a game changer, and I have subscribed to their "hi-fi" service every month for a couple years now, since I first discovered it. It would definitely be worth looking at Spotify again if they cater to this market of (I hate the label audiophile) people that appreciate CD-quality sound.
I doubt I will ever seriously use streaming for audio since I really prefer to own physical copies that I can then rip into AIFF or Apple Lossless (and that's how most of my music is now). But it's nice to know that some streaming services are open to the idea of lossless audio. It's the audio quality mainly that puts me off of streaming services and iTunes downloads. Video quality keeps increasing so let's have audio quality increase too
While i care about audio quality, i am not gonna sacrifice my bandwidth for it.. if it takes me over limit.. I'm not on a mobile plan, and will not move onto one in favor of listening with better quality.. instead i will listen on a fixed connection if i have the bandwidth.
I care about better audio, but i care more about how much i pay for it.
I care about better audio, but i care more about how much i pay for it.
Someone on the internet said: everything over the internet should be free.
It is not right but in here, I wish those labels could not double or even triple the price of Hi-Fi contents just because quality is better. Just my wish, which I know they won't like to lower their prices anyway.
If you had spent another 10 seconds you would realise that compression can mean Compression regarding dynamic range nothing to do with file Size. If you wish to make a point be polite or you just make yourself look a fool.
Lossless compression is lossless.[/QUOTE]
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Add me as another dinosaur as I also prefer star rating and smart playlist.
I doubt I will ever seriously use streaming for audio since I really prefer to own physical copies that I can then rip into AIFF or Apple Lossless (and that's how most of my music is now). But it's nice to know that some streaming services are open to the idea of lossless audio. It's the audio quality mainly that puts me off of streaming services and iTunes downloads. Video quality keeps increasing so let's have audio quality increase too
You know that it isn't an either / or choice, right? I use streaming services to try new material, or listen to things occasionally that don't warrant a purchase. I still buy things that I want to keep.
And not just for sound quality - streaming services may be down, or slow internet, etc. - so it's always worth having some things available for such circumstances.
For me, the problem is of an entirely different nature: I'd use streaming services if only they offered music I like listening to. I am not a fan of the vast majority of the music that's been sold on iTunes and streamed via Apple Music, for example, as I prefer video game tracks.
I believe he's talking about dynamic range compression, not data compression.
If Spotify is just "Lossless CD Quality audio" (44.1 kHz / 16 bit), then they are still behind Tidal. Tidal's HIFI is CD Quality, but their MQA Masters can go to 96 kHz / 24 bit. Limited selection for now, and most of the ones I've found are 44.1 kHz/ 32 bit, but still better than a CD.