[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!

[Audioplayer]

If you want the best sound quality you go with Qobuz. If you need more features than Qobuz currently offers along with sound quality then you go with Deezer, Apple Music or Amazon Music. If you don’t care about sound quality you stay with Spotify or go to Pandora or YouTube Music. I can’t recommend Tidal until they get rid of their stupid MQA as it is a degraded file no matter how you use it. Tidal’s non MQA files are ok except that some of Tidal’s files are only available in MQA so that lessens one’s choice of quality files to listen to. Qobuz is working on a connect feature like Spotify but it won’t be available for a long time as they have just recently started work on it but at least they are working on it.

Apple Music depending on how you use it has this problem:  Part 1:  https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/apple-musics-lossless-and-hi-res-mess-r1022/

Apple Music Part 2:  https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/apple-music-lossless-mess-part-2-airplay-r1026/

Amazon Music has this problem: Part 1:  https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/amazon-music-hd-is-still-lossy-r953/

Amazon Music Part 2:  https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/bits-and-bytes/update-amazon-music-hd-is-still-lossy-r961/

Deezer is limited to CD quality resolution of 44.1/16 at best which is ok but realize that some newer releases are available in 44.1/24 or higher as the gear musicians use in the studio have that capability nowadays and some of them use it to make their recordings with. Why dumb it down so to speak for the consumer.  No longer any need for mp3’s either. Deezer could be a great service if it would remove it’s limits for favorites/likes, the limit to the number of individual songs within a playlist, limit to the the number of playlists you can have, fix it’s lack of bit perfect output for playback and lack of exclusive mode for an external Dac with automatic sample rate switching, upgrade the ability of uploading your own files to their servers from just mp3 quality to CD and higher resolution up to 192/24. Deezer could easily give Apple Music a run for it’s money and best Spotify if it would just fix these issues. There are only about 10 countries in the whole world that Deezer isn’t available in. Yet they only have about 600 employees. They really could be doing so much better if they worked a little harder or hired more people to help. Qobuz only has about 100 employees and they are doing some things better than Deezer. Never mind the vastly larger employee counts of all the other services. No one service is the best sadly but if users would keep contacting customer service of these services and vote in their forums then maybe these services would improve their feature sets and library sizes that are lacking vs the competition.

Apple Music Feedback:  https://www.apple.com/feedback/apple-music.html

Amazon Music Feedback:  https://music.amazon.com/help/contact

Deezer idea/suggestion Forum:  https://en.deezercommunity.com/features-feedback-44/got-an-idea-request-a-feature-63634

Deezer Main Forum:  https://en.deezercommunity.com/

Pandora Feature Request Forum:  https://community.pandora.com/t5/Feature-Requests/idb-p/Backstage

Pandora Main Forum:  https://community.pandora.com/

Qobuz Music Library Request: https://airtable.com/shrWFlthbAGjTSuJu

Qobuz Feedback:  https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/help/contact/

Spotify Music Library Request:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScMGwTBnCz8nOPkM5g9IwwbpKolEWOXkhpAUSl8JjlkKcBGKw/viewform

You all are aware of how else to contact Spotify.

Tidal Music Library Request: https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/201937771-Request-new-music-on-TIDAL

Tidal Feedback: https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

YouTube Music Forum:  https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/threads?hl=en&thread_filter=(category:ideas_feedback)

YouTube Music Feedback:  https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/threads?hl=en&thread_filter=(category:ideas_feedback)

[gihayes]

Thank you for that!!

You've said it all and provided great info!

[Audioplayer]

Also Spotify connect vs Apple Airplay. (Spotify connect is better).

Part 1:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pqpNwUgmxco

Part 2:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cavOhIie348

[BertH1]

https://www.whathifi.com/news/neil-young-says-spotify-sounds-shitty-pushes-fans-to-amazon-music-free...

[LawLee]

@Audioplayer

Great post! Thanks for your research. I am currently using Qobuz I agree that it's sound quality is without par. I do like the Deezer interface very much, especially the way it links into Musiccast. For me it's a two way race. The first of these companies that develop a DNLA or Spotify type connector will get my permanent business.

Like you Tidal is ruined by MQA for me. I hope they shed themselves of this boat anchor so that they can be taken seriously.

[LawLee]

Graham Nash and India Arie join Neil Young's Spotify boycott over 'problematic' Rogan (msn.com)

One news reporter take is that Spotify is a podcast company. Then boy did their investment in Joe Rogan pay dividends. By the time this is over they may have nothing but podcasts... 😏

Since they're not interested in high quality music or musicians, I wonder how long before there's a mass exodus, not just of musicians, but of music customers...

[dpzepp]

Just to let you folks know I went from any time to free. Because of their dishonesty to us and the lossless cause.

[Nir888]

It's time to leave. Spotify CEO does not know when the quality will improve. I will consider becoming your customer again as soon as the situation changes.

[LawLee]

Spotify Removes 70 Episodes of ‘Joe Rogan Experience’; Podcast Host Apologizes for Using N-Word (yah...

"An independent research poll conducted this week found that 19% of Spotify users claimed they had canceled their accounts or were planning to do so because of Rogan’s podcast, but analysts believe the effect of a boycott movement will ultimately be minimal."

Do you get the idea that many Spotify customers don't give a darn about podcasts?

That's on top of those who are leaving for audio quality reasons. Spotify's got some real problems

[DenoBeno]

Frankly, I am not even convinced that "HIFI" version will sound better, but ignoring this is giving other platforms ammunition to claim they are better than Spotify. You really need to do something about this.

Why I'm not convinced? I have relatively good ears and relatively good equipment. I tried this test and failed to identify which is which: http://abx.digitalfeed.net/spotify-hq.html

For some songs, I had slightly better results than for other, but generally speaking it's very very difficult to differentiate. And it's probably completely impossible to differentiate when listening on a phone, even with excellent Bluetooth over the ear headphones. 

Which means that one pays for more data being transferred without actually gaining anything. And even on unlimited data contracts, this is not environmentally friendly as more data transferred means more energy being used. Again, without actually gaining anything in terms of a sound quality.