Streaming services. Can you actually hear a difference? What do you listen for?

[Sonnie Parker]

We forgot to list Deezer and YouTube Music.

 

[Andrew Slater]

Spotify. Apple Music. TIDAL. Qobuz... XM. Here's a look at how they compare in terms of max streaming quality (as compiled by chatGPT):

• Qobuz: 24-bit/192kHz
• Tidal: 24-bit/192kHz
• Apple Music: 24-bit/192kHz
• Spotify: 320kbps (possibly 24/96; lossy)
• Pandora (Premium): 192kbps (no kHz; lossy)
• Pandora (Free): 64kbps (no kHz; lossy)
• SiriusXM: 128kbps (no kHz; lossy)
• Amazon Music Unlimited: Offers lossless High Definition (HD) and Ultra High Definition (Ultra HD) tracks:
  • HD: 16-bit audio with a minimum sample rate of 44.1 kHz and an average bitrate of 850 kbps
  • Ultra HD: 24-bit audio with sample rates ranging from 44.1 kHz up to 192 kHz and an average bitrate of 3730 kbps
  • Streaming quality: Automatically plays the highest quality available based on network conditions, device capability, and user settings
• Amazon Music Prime: Offers a 256Kbps bit rate
  • Spatial Audio: Available on Android, iOS, Fire Tablet, Fire TV, smart TVs, smart speakers, and home theater receivers
  • Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio: Available on some songs, and you can switch between Atmos/360 and stereo

We have Sirius XM for cars because my wife likes access to a few of the exclusive channels. But when it comes to sound, XM sounds compressed to me and I can hear it in the high frequencies. They have a rough egde, almost like a micro pixelation if we're thinking about visuals. For me, it's tough to listen to.

Pandora free is slightly better. I *think* I could pick it out of a blind listening session. But, for my ears, Spotify and beyond are pretty much impossible to tell apart. We have subscriptions to Spotify and Apple... with the Apple subscription soley for access to Atmos tracks.

In your experience, can you hear a difference? And, if you can... what are you listening for? Do you have a streaming service preference?

I can hear a difference in smoothness barley …

Apple being the best , a tie between tidal and Spotify and qboz

Tiny tiny response differences , tidal is good , but not worth 25$ mo

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I can hear a difference in smoothness barley …

Apple being the best , a tie between tidal and Spotify and qboz

Tiny tiny response differences , tidal is good , but not worth 25$ mo

Tidal reduced their subscription from $19.99 to $10.99 monhtly.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

We're a completely Apple household, and we pay for the biggest family bundle of Apple services - Music, TV, Fitness, Arcade, iCloud storage and more. I've never had any complaints about the sound quality of Apple Music, I've had subscriptions for Tidal and Amazon HD, but I've never been able to tell any difference in sound quality.

My only complaint about Apple Music is that it's not available natively on most streamers. The Eversolo devices have the ability to use the Apple Music app, and Sonos has an integration, but other than that it's Airplay only.

The best part about Apple Music is how great the recommendations are. I've found a ton of new music based on the recommendations.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

We're a completely Apple household, and we pay for the biggest family bundle of Apple services - Music, TV, Fitness, Arcade, iCloud storage and more. I've never had any complaints about the sound quality of Apple Music, I've had subscriptions for Tidal and Amazon HD, but I've never been able to tell any difference in sound quality.

My only complaint about Apple Music is that it's not available natively on most streamers. The Eversolo devices have the ability to use the Apple Music app, and Sonos has an integration, but other than that it's Airplay only.

The best part about Apple Music is how great the recommendations are. I've found a ton of new music based on the recommendations.

Same for me with Roon. It gives me new releases, six different daily mixes, and various playlists it has created based on my recent listening.

Then at the end of an album, it picks up Roon Radio and continues with the same genre I was listening to.

I have found a lot of new music as a result.

 

[Todd Anderson]

We forgot to list Deezer and YouTube Music.

Added

 

[Todd Anderson]

YouTube Music has 100 million songs... but this isn't a service you often hear mentioned in the same breath as the big boys. I wonder why? Especially with the popularity of YouTube and YouTube TV... and the YouTube Premium bundle that delivers ad free YouTube and YouTube Music.

 

[-Jim-]

I have tried SIrius / XM radio numerous times and frankly it's just painful for me to listen to it. So it's not even commissioned in the last couple of cars we bought new. I have a Buddy who thinks it's great, so each to their own.

Spotify is the preferred platform here because we have a Family plan, which I was invited to be a part of, and somehow I was lucky enough not to pay for it.

The rest of the Family is more than happy enough with it for music, but I'm a bit of a nut and would prefer lossless FLAC tunes - as I can tell the difference. I typically only use it for Sports Podcasts these days and listen on Bluetooth Headphones while working around the house. Sometimes I do play tunes that way, but for serious listening, it's not played on one of my HT systems except as a novelty. I've been waiting for Spotify to go Lossless (which I've already committed to pay the extra) but they've dragged their feet for what seems like years.

I'd assume any of the Lossless streams would be better sound, but I can't move the family plan to one of them.

 

[Michael Boeker]

. . . It’s stayed because all of us have built up playlists and favorites.

You can use various methods to convert playlists to other streaming services. I transferred all my Amazon Music playlists to Apple Music with no issues.

We use Apple Music for several reasons:

• We have the family plan and 6 people can share the account, but each can have their own playlists
• When you have an Apple TV 4K in the system, anyone can use their iPhone/iPad to playback from the Apple TV 4K instead of casting with their device. This makes it super easy for anyone in the family to play music on the main system. The iPhone or iPad becomes the interactive remote.
• You can use SharePlay and let guests control the music or the kids can all listen to the same thing in their iPads - lots of uses for SharePlay
• Apple Music Sing lets you adjust the level of the vocals and shows live lyrics for singing along
• Apple Music Classical works better for classical music when searching for composer, instrument, and periods
• Apple Music Replay puts your most listened to songs into a playlist by year
• You can use music tracks for Alarms/Alerts on Apple devices
• Apple Music also shows when there is a Music Video available for a song and you can play the video if desired
• You can set a playback range for songs for a demo playlist

 

[teyhyrh4r]

Then i tried Tidal while subscribed to Spotify, i was amazed at the massive difference

I'm not saying that it is totally impossible to hear a difference between 320kbps aac and lossless, but if you hear a massive difference, it is most probably due to a loudness difference.

 

[VJM]

I agree about XM radio over the air but through the internet is much better, as for the rest they are all pretty good and I really don't notice a difference.

 

[VJM]

Think you can tell the difference, try this test out and see what you get

Is your audio system really ready for lossless?

Do an ABX test in your browser, and see if you can tell the difference between lossless and Spotify-compression quality audio

abx.digitalfeed.net

 

[FSAF]

That heavily depends on the music, performance, and recording practices. "Wall of Sound" was invented to mask the distortions of the music even on the budget acoustic of the 1970s. Such music is playable on low bit rates well. Go to jazz piano trios, Coltrane/Hartman, best classical / chamber / barocco / etc recordings and practically everyone distinguishes CD and SACD with ease (in top-notch headphones:-).

 

[Robert Zohn]

Love this very informative and important thread! Love all of the posts too!

I do not use all of the streaming services being discussed but I do love Spotify for the best audio quality.

Tidal is my 2nd choice for audio quality and overall performance and now Tidal is very good with the new reduced cost of $10.99 per month plus sales tax makes it one of the top price/performance leaders.

This is just my opinions and sorry I have not played much with all of the music streaming services being discussed.

 

[AustinJerry]

What tools or software is there that will allow you to analyze a streaming audio signal and reveal its bit depth and resolution? IOW, if a service says it is delivering lossless FLAC, how can it be verified?

 

[Sal1950]

What tools or software is there that will allow you to analyze a streaming audio signal and reveal its bit depth and resolution? IOW, if a service says it is delivering lossless FLAC, how can it be verified?

Play the file in the free software Audacity?

 

[AustinJerry]

Play the file in the free software Audacity?

I’ll have to familiarize myself with Audacity. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[ddude003]

It would be difficult to level match each streaming platform to do a reasonable A/B comparison, in real time, since every streaming platform has a different requirement for mastering to their favorite LUFS... And we all know that louder is better... Right... LOL...

 

[Sal1950]

Love this very informative and important thread! Love all of the posts too!

I do not use all of the streaming services being discussed but I do love Spotify for the best audio quality.

Tidal is my 2nd choice for audio quality and overall performance and now Tidal is very good with the new reduced cost of $10.99 per month plus sales tax makes it one of the top price/performance leaders.

This is just my opinions and sorry I have not played much with all of the music streaming services being discussed.

Opinions are fine but the facts can be presented using measurement.
Spotify is one of the last music streamers still using a lossy compressed file system to save on required bandwidth (money) and with it is about the lowest sound quality available today. I don't know why you're finding them to have "the best audio quality" for you but,
This isn't opinion, but the facts of the streaming technology used.

 

[NBPK402]

Ah… we share the XM struggle!

I like the reasoning behind Qobuz. It makes sense to me. It seems that streaming service choice should take aim at convenience for the end user. If Roon is important, Qobuz it is.

In my house, Spotify is the preferred platform largely because my now grown daughters made and shared playlists with friends through middle/high school and college. It’s stayed because all of us have built up playlists and favorites.

One thing I think all streaming providers should have is the capability to easily import playlists into other streaming services, since sometimes the service drops certain albums .

 

[Todd Anderson]

It would be difficult to level match each streaming platform to do a reasonable A/B comparison, in real time, since every streaming platform has a different requirement for mastering to their favorite LUFS... And we all know that louder is better... Right... LOL...

I agree... way too difficult. The best way to compare is to listen to a very recognizable part of a song, rinse/repeat. But even then, our ability to remember detail in auditory information is poor.

I think the biggest distinguishing factors are easy to hear... the subtleties, not so much. Just my opinion, of course.

 

[Todd Anderson]

I have tried SIrius / XM radio numerous times and frankly it's just painful for me to listen to it. So it's not even commissioned in the last couple of cars we bought new. I have a Buddy who thinks it's great, so each to their own.

Spotify is the preferred platform here because we have a Family plan, which I was invited to be a part of, and somehow I was lucky enough not to pay for it.

The rest of the Family is more than happy enough with it for music, but I'm a bit of a nut and would prefer lossless FLAC tunes - as I can tell the difference. I typically only use it for Sports Podcasts these days and listen on Bluetooth Headphones while working around the house. Sometimes I do play tunes that way, but for serious listening, it's not played on one of my HT systems except as a novelty. I've been waiting for Spotify to go Lossless (which I've already committed to pay the extra) but they've dragged their feet for what seems like years.

I'd assume any of the Lossless streams would be better sound, but I can't move the family plan to one of them.

Spotify appears to be highly incentivised NOT to go lossless... they own the largest market share. I'm sure they probably look at it as "if it ain't broke, don't rush to fix it!"

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

Spotify appears to be highly incentivised NOT to go lossless... they own the largest market share. I'm sure they probably look at it as "if it ain't broke, don't rush to fix it!"

They also treat/pay artists worse than every other platform out there, which is why I avoid them.

 

[Geoff B]

I have done some comparisons between Tidal and Idagio, both nominally at CD quality. Tidal sounds slightly better to me, maybe because
it streams directly to my Yamaha receiver, while Idagio goes through my laptop and streams to the Yamaha receiver through Airplay. Perhaps there
are buffering issues with the multi-hop route.

 

[Sonnie Parker]

I have done some comparisons between Tidal and Idagio, both nominally at CD quality. Tidal sounds slightly better to me, maybe because
it streams directly to my Yamaha receiver, while Idagio goes through my laptop and streams to the Yamaha receiver through Airplay. Perhaps there
are buffering issues with the multi-hop route.

Idagio is another I've never heard of.