[All Platforms][Music] HiFi Quality - Lossless Streaming 16bit 44.1khz

[timiambeing]

I've just started a trial of Qobuz - they offer the standard 320kbps as well as lossless FLAC streaming (and high res downloads if you purchase them) the sound quality is noticeably better and on classical it's just wonderful to get all that resolution through your hi-fi or headphones! The catalogue has a way to go to get to Spotify's level, but they are getting there. The iPad app isn't' too bad (the desktop app is in need of an upgrade but I hear they are putting all their efforts into mobile apps right now).

So - lossless streaming - if Qobuz can do it then so can Spotify, they must have the same source - and obviously if you are asking £20 a month then those record labels and distributors take enough notice to make the high res tracks available for streaming. What this all means is soon, very soon, we will get lossless streaming and closely followed by high res downloads - but if Spotify aren't careful it will be Apple who get there first with an audiophile premium offering, and when they do it will be a much harder market place to make money in!

** please don't lump this suggestion with the main one on lossless downloads, that's a different idea entirely guys!

[timiambeing]

I've just started a trial of Qobuz - they offer the standard 320kbps as well as lossless FLAC streaming (and high res downloads if you purchase them) the sound quality is noticeably better and on classical it's just wonderful to get all that resolution through your hi-fi or headphones! The catalogue has a way to go to get to Spotify's level, but they are getting there. The iPad app isn't' too bad (the desktop app is in need of an upgrade but I hear they are putting all their efforts into mobile apps right now).

[timiambeing]

So - lossless streaming - if Qobuz can do it then so can Spotify, they must have the same source - and obviously if you are asking £20 a month then those record labels and distributors take enough notice to make the high res tracks available for streaming. What this all means is soon, very soon, we will get lossless streaming and closely followed by high res downloads - but if Spotify aren't careful it will be Apple who get there first with an audiophile premium offering, and when they do it will be a much harder market place to make money in!

[tofalck]

@apecat

It took a lot of words, but your archived article is quiet possibly one of the best I've ever read.

Kudos to you for that... 

[user-removed]

I'll not hold my breath waiting Spotify deliver HiFi. They didn't even have a date.

7th birthday of this thread is coming soon, and I wouldn't doubt there can be one after it.

[rastaman2000]

16-bit vs. 24-bit quantization

REAL-WORLD MEASUREMENTS

Fig.5 Benchmark DAC3 HGC, spectrum with noise and spuriae of dithered 1kHz tone at –90dBFS with: 16-bit data (left channel cyan, right magenta), 24-bit data (left blue, right red) (20dB/vertical div.).

Fig.6 Benchmark DAC3 HGC, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at –90.31dBFS, 16-bit TosLink data (left channel blue, right red).

Fig.7 Benchmark DAC3 HGC, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at –90.31dBFS, 24-bit TosLink data (left channel blue, right red).

Fig.10 Benchmark DAC3 HGC, high-resolution jitter spectrum of analog output signal, 11.025kHz at –6dBFS, sampled at 44.1kHz with LSB toggled at 229Hz: 16-bit TosLink data (left channel blue, right red). Center frequency of trace, 11.025kHz; frequency range, ±3.5kHz.

Fig.11 Benchmark DAC3 HGC, high-resolution jitter spectrum of analog output signal, 11.025kHz at –6dBFS, sampled at 44.1kHz with LSB toggled at 229Hz: 24-bit TosLink data (left channel blue, right red). Center frequency of trace, 11.025kHz; frequency range, ±3.5kHz.

source: https://www.stereophile.com/content/benchmark-dac3-hgc-da-preamplifier-headphone-amplifier-measureme...

[cjmurphy111]

Fed up with waiting for this so have pulled the plug and moved to Qobuz. Very disappointed with Spotify's attitude, won't be back.

[ernurbilge]

• We did it ☺️

[apecat]

Considering the age of this thread, I suspect it's the recent competition from Amazon that finally did it

[apecat]

@tofalck

Yup, it's great writing by Chris Montgomery.

He's the creator of Vorbis (the great 00s era lossy audio codec Spotify uses for the most part).  He's also deeply involved with Opus, which is outstanding at low bitrates (used by Youtube as well as countless VoIP applications).

If you're interested in audio, try encoding your favorite music from FLAC to Opus at 128 kbps or use the ABX blind test generator in Foobar2000. Opus is insanely good and "pretty much transparent" at 128 kbps, and you don't have to work your way very far up for Opus to be truly difficult to blind test. Much like what Vorbis and good AAC encoders, like Apple's, achieve at ~256-320 kbps

https://www.opus-codec.org/comparison/ 

https://wiki.xiph.org/Opus_Recommended_Settings

https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

Speaking of blind testing, I'm pretty convinced people are going to enraged by Spotify Hi-Fi if Spotify doesn't add warning label that discourages disabling Normalization or turning it to the Quiet option. 

Spotify's default normalization is the main reason Spotify Premium sounds like mush on good equipment. Turning off normalization, or putting it to the Quiet option where it mainly lowers the gain of loud tracks (like Tidal does afaik) makes the ~320 kbps Vorbis streams sound very transparent, like they should. I highly doubt that the normalization is going to sound any better than the current mush on the Hi Fi subscription unless they implement it in some different way.

I also don't take audiophiles very seriously if they claim to want lossless audio without blind testing testing the -q 9 Vorbis preset used on Spotify Premium streams with an ABX utility like Foobar2000's.

[PSUHammer]

[wullon]

Not sure if it's related, but Spotify seems to be able to play local FLAC files now (and that's awesome):

link to the related idea

[Innocent_Excel]

It was perhaps 1 year ago or so..I added some alac-files from my computer and then they worked as local files played from Spotify, on both computer and cellphone apps. Im not sure that were the files native format and same as original but I suppose they were. I think I forgot about it as I had some problems adding the correct cover-art for each album, I tried some tips and hints mentioned here but still didn't manage to get them work correctly.