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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

#41

Post by CharlesW »

random5634 wrote: post #7

Does this support 5.1 tracks. While rare, that would be game changing for folks with hifi setups. Good news though. Losses saves you from conversion artifacts. Compression that's not further mangled sounds fine, but what's weird is if you run something with one crompression model through other compressors (ie, to get it onto a network then airplay then etc. ) The bitrates relative to the endless youtube / netflix / t…

> what's weird is if you run something with one crompression model through other compressors (ie, to get it onto a network then airplay then etc. )

Happily, AirPlay compression is lossless (assuming 24-bit or less and 48 kHz or less).

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

#42

Post by fulafel »

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.

There's a large placebo component in hifi for many people so you might well (but reading this comment may lessen your experience).

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

#43

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

bradstewart wrote: post #23
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?

Does it make a difference? It certainly sounds different (on my very midrange Audioengine speakers). I certainly can't consistently identify which one is lossless in a blind test, but there is an audible difference between the same song in Vorbis and FLAC. I don't know how useful this distinction is though.

http://abx.digitalfeed.net/

Do you really hear a difference? My setup is probably really bad and I probably really suck but even 96 bit lame was indistinguishable from lossless to me, except for one part in one song.

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

#44

Post by andrewmackrodt »

As someone who mainly consumes Spotify using Bluetooth headphones supporting AAC (and one pair LDAC) but none Vorbis, I may end up subscribing to this.

While it's arguable that there'll be no perceptible difference listening to 320kbps Vorbis versus "HiFi" on a dedicated device, I imagine there could be a difference when transcoding to AAC. Time will tell.

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

#45

Post by zihotki »

bradstewart wrote: post #23
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?

Does it make a difference? It certainly sounds different (on my very midrange Audioengine speakers). I certainly can't consistently identify which one is lossless in a blind test, but there is an audible difference between the same song in Vorbis and FLAC. I don't know how useful this distinction is though.

The differences are due to psychoacoustics -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics . Our perception changes depending on situation, time, you knowing what is played, etc. To say that you hear a difference you should succeed in a blinded test and without any delay between listening. And succeed not only once.

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

#46

Post by nr2x »

zihotki wrote: post #45
bradstewart wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it make a difference? It certainly sounds different (on my very midrange Audioengine speakers). I certainly can't consistently identify which one is lossless in a blind test, but there is an audible difference between the same song in Vorbis and FLAC. I don't know how useful this distinction is though.

The differences are due to psychoacoustics - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoacoustics . Our perception changes depending on situation, time, you knowing what is played, etc. To say that you hear a difference you should succeed in a blinded test and without any delay between listening. And succeed not only once.

Not every passage of every song will produce a meaningful difference. The areas where a 24bit vs. 16bit file differ most are in subtle dynamic changes. For example, there was a specific ~ 2-second transition in a recording of Steve Reich where I could definitely tell the difference between a 96k/24bit file and Apple Music.

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

#47

Post by ksec »

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

>Cunningham and McGregor [1]

>A total of 100 participants engaged with the listening test and were recruited from the Merchiston campus at Edinburgh Napier University. With respect to background, 28% were students at the University, whilst 33% were academic or faculty staff and 39% were administrative and support staff. Participants were not offered any form of remuneration or any other form of inducement for their involvement.

This [1] Was the only test that had included Uncompressed WAV or PCM as anchor. And it was tested with sort of randomly selected participants, and randomly selected sample sound track.

>Purely marketing for the “more is better” pseudo audiophile.

All the other test listed were done during what I called the Audio Codec era on HydrogenAudio. Where professional encoder developers and enthusiast ABX the hell out of psychoacoustics tuning. Along with problematic samples testing.

For 90%+ of general public, MP3 128kbps with a decent encoder ( LAME ) has been good enough for well over a decade. Suggesting better codec doesn't matter and is purely for pseudo audiophile completely neglect the work people have been tuning and making these audio codec better for the past ~20 years.

And yes, 10 years later Musepack v8 still beats AAC or Opus in High Bitrate.

[1] https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijdmb/2019/8265301/

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

#48

Post by 5tefan »

dawnerd wrote: post #40
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.

Yes. This is a major problem. Shit in shit out. I'd love to revist a lot of songs if someone would be able and willing to master them skillfully. Low dynamic range is the main culprit here.

Too low bite rate can show in some few cases. High hats seem to be difficult and some organ music, transients in general iirc. And you need good enough equipment (I don't mean expensive). This kind of analytical listening to detect small problems is exhausting. Relaxed listening does not need lossless codecs.

But mastering is the key. I would pay premium for good mastering instead of lossless.

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

#49

Post by kingosticks »

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

My only question was why did they wait so long? They could have rolled out 321kbps super-duper mode for $14.99 years ago. People would have paid for it.

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

#50

Post by jlelse »

I switched to Deezer. Deezer has an audiobooks app and it's Web UI is much nicer. Spotify also annoys in how they promote podcasts, I don't want to listen podcasts. Deezer shows podcasts (or shows as they call them) in a separate section in the app.
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