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Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

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Re: Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

#31

Post by gltchkrft »

Mindless2112 wrote: post #28
eggsby wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a cut and dry relationship between bitrate and audio fidelity. You simply cannot encode higher frequency audio in lower bitrate samples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...

Nyquist is about sample rate and frequency, not bitrate and frequency. Edit: Clearly there is generally a relationship between bitrate and quality, but for compressed audio it is far from "cut and dry".

Bitrate is just samplerate * bit depth. For 44100 and 32 bit float you have 1411200 bit per second.

Re: Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

#32

Post by lolpython »

gltchkrft wrote: post #26
eggsby wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a cut and dry relationship between bitrate and audio fidelity. You simply cannot encode higher frequency audio in lower bitrate samples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...

Yes, but for most codecs, bitrate is variable. For the parts where the higher frequencies are present the codec is free to bump up the bitrate and it can also scale it down for silent parts or parts with low frequencies only.

Sure, if it were encoded at a variable rate. But then it wouldn’t be 320kbps CBR. Normally when I see people refer to 320kbps audio they literally mean constant bitrate. If it’s variable then for LAME mp3 people would specify V0 or V2. At least that’s the taxonomy that I absorbed when I was active on what.cd

Edit: you have edited your comment to remove mention of 320kbps so my comment is now moot :)

Re: Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

#34

Post by ryankrage77 »

fotta wrote: post #24

Pardon my ignorance, if I'm using using AirPods which use 256kbps AAC, will I even notice a difference here? My guess is no but I'm not super codec savvy.

My guess would be that compressing lossless audio will sound better than compressing already-compressed audio.

Re: Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

#35

Post by [deleted] »

gltchkrft wrote: post #31
Mindless2112 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nyquist is about sample rate and frequency, not bitrate and frequency. Edit: Clearly there is generally a relationship between bitrate and quality, but for compressed audio it is far from "cut and dry".

Bitrate is just samplerate * bit depth. For 44100 and 32 bit float you have 1411200 bit per second.

[deleted]

Re: Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

#36

Post by Jonnax »

Bluestein wrote: post #2

Great. More internet bandwidth wasted, for their profit. They should be penalized, taxed, burdened, or forced to build "Netflix-like" own infrastructure ... ... in direct proportion to the delta in bandwidth between their "lossless" codec and state-of-the art compression with comparable sound quality.-

I haven't seen someone who advocates for anti net neutrality in such a seemingly genuine way.

Those poor ISPs having to upgrade their services to support their user's needs.

Re: Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

#37

Post by kitsunesoba »

gruez wrote: post #4

AFAIK spotify premium uses 320kb/s vorbis for audio compression. I understand why you'd want lossless for archival purposes, but does it make a difference for playback? ie. can you tell the difference between 320kb/s vorbis and lossless in a ABX test?

I used to keep a local library of FLAC/ALAC lossless but in recent years have switched over to 256kbps AAC Apple Music for the stuff they have.

My audio setup isn't the best in the world, just a JDS Labs Element II and Sennheiser HD6XX, but for the stuff I listen to I have a hard time distinguishing between lossless and 256k AAC. I've ABX tested various bitrates of MP3s and can pick those out, but AAC eliminates the telltale artifacts that MP3s bring.

Might help that Apple streams "mastered for iTunes" copies for a number of albums which mandates less compression prior to encoding but I think it mostly boils down to AAC being better suited for music than MP3.

Re: Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

#38

Post by Ericson2314 »

nominated1 wrote: post #14

Purely marketing for the “more is better” pseudo audiophile. ABX testing blew the “lossless sounds better” mantra out of the window nearly 2 decade ago [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec_listening_test

It is more interesting in that it shows that Spotify isn't worried about people ripping audio that is in theory more valuable for archival.

(I can't argue based on perceptual differences, but it just seems "wrong" to have the compressed version be the library master.)

Re: Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

#39

Post by gltchkrft »

lolpython wrote: post #32
gltchkrft wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but for most codecs, bitrate is variable. For the parts where the higher frequencies are present the codec is free to bump up the bitrate and it can also scale it down for silent parts or parts with low frequencies only.

Sure, if it were encoded at a variable rate. But then it wouldn’t be 320kbps CBR. Normally when I see people refer to 320kbps audio they literally mean constant bitrate. If it’s variable then for LAME mp3 people would specify V0 or V2. At least that’s the taxonomy that I absorbed when I was active on what.cd Edit: you have edited your comment to remove mention of 320kbps so my comment is now moot :)

Yes, but afaik Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis, which is inherently VBR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis

Re: Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

#40

Post by dawnerd »

nominated1 wrote: post #14

Purely marketing for the “more is better” pseudo audiophile. ABX testing blew the “lossless sounds better” mantra out of the window nearly 2 decade ago [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec_listening_test

Doesn't matter how high quality spotify is if new music is mastered so poorly.

Also doesn't matter for me since my car, a tech filled tesla, streams spotify at what sounds like the lowest possible bitrate.

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