In case you missed it, there is an audio quality section in Spotify's Settings menu, and the default is "automatic", which might not be the highest. I'm not sure but I think the "very high" setting is 320kbps ogg, which I've never heard of anyone being able to discriminate from lossless in a blind test. Also, Spotify is coming out with lossless later this year.

(not affiliated with spotify and not very pleased with the service in general myself, just saying.)

I have it set to "Very High" and have their normalisation turned off. I can provide samples demonstrating distortion and break-up; the waveforms even look completely different visually. It's even audible over non-audiophile headphones. On my HD800S it's unlistenable. I have no idea what they are doing to the sound, but I have found many recordings that sound awful on both Android and Windows.

That sounds more like error on the label's/uploader's behalf? Most often that should be the same across platforms, including lossless. I've heard cd skips, vinyl crackle and tape warble on spotify so I know what you mean.

Then I'd think it's the "audio watermarking" some companies insist on using. Because for some rights holders, you're paying for their product but f-you nonetheless.

Edit: watermarking not fingerprinting

Fingerprinting or watermarking?

Might be related:

https://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-watermar...

Would you be able to share specific passages? The neighbour commenter mentioned fingerprinting, it might be that or bad master.

Sure, one example is the first minute opening of Osmo Vanska's Mahler 5. The big crescendo between 40-45 seconds sounds particularly bad, lots of break-up and distortion. Sounds fantastic on the CD.

Links:

https://open.spotify.com/track/2in7T2TWPkJW6Z6Ih9P4Ew?si=7e6...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTcl20dgHSM

Sounds identical (and very noisy) on Spotify and Youtube on my very crappy laptop speakers. I don't own the CD.

This reply might be interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26354999

This https://open.spotify.com/album/1V5q6IEheMUjOTYJar4f54 ? It sounds fine to me but the exact copy I get might well be different to you if we are in different regions.

The Spotify version sounds identical to the tidal "hifi" version (to me). I'm actually pretty curious now what this amazing CD version sounds like!

I'm currently on a Tidal free trial but I won't be moving from Spotify when it's up. I personally can't tell the difference. Maybe I'm half deaf but ignorence is bliss.

I've uploaded a small example, a small clip taken from the CD followed by the same clip captured from Spotify: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F3NvOpqcMfvNSmyyvbgfUlV6XMO...

Cool, thanks! I had a go at a comparison. This is Spotify ("Very high" and volume normalization disabled), then Tidal ("HiFi") and then yours (CD then Spotify). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Stns23J5aRoj9EeZBVKrX35Cxfh...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rAITjrK39fiJYOT53ghq9DbC-e4...

If it's helpful for you, the code 'LIDLMUSIC' gives a free 6-month Tidal trial. It might be UK specific I have no idea.

Very strange, I can confirm that your Spotify sample does sound much better than my one. Mine sounds identical on Windows and Android though, two very different platforms, so it may indeed be a UK problem. Thank you very much for the code.

That's not high quality: Give me lossless, 24bit master or GTFO! ;-)

while it doesn't help today, they are in fact looking to do that by Q3, from everything i've seen. I'm holding on to Spotify for now for ease of use, but I too want something better. I didn't like tidal when I used it years ago, though i'm sure they've changed quite a bit.

Spotify is pretty much bottom of the barrel if you're a music album fan, I think.

I find it's only good at playing random songs on giant playlists, or playing the radio. Managing a library of albums is a huge pain and I still don't understand how it's supposed to work.

Then there is the problem of questionable digital masters. There's 0 transparency into the mastering process and what Spotify uses. As you've observed, some things just sound really awful on Spotify.

If you really want the best, I suggest Roon + Tidal subscription for playback. Then use Qobuz/Bandcamp/etc. to purchase lossless FLACs to import into Roon, or rip CDs yourself. This will give you the best quality, and you can be certain the source quality is good. You can use Tidal lossless for streaming things you don't buy (but the selection is much more limited). The Roon UX is way, way better than Spotify for managing a large collection of albums.

Audirvana is another app which competes with Roon. Audirvana is a one-time fee of $100, versus Roon's subscription model (or, I think, ~$800 lifetime subscription, which is pretty up there).

I think the big thing both Roon and Audirvana achieve sub-optimally is just overall application performance and user experience. They do have a ton of features which help in managing massive audio libraries, far better than Spotify or Tidal alone. But, Roon legitimately feels like a browser app they threw in an iframe and nativefied. Audirvana is better IMO, but isn't as good as Roon at auto-discovering album artwork and metadata-ifying the connections between your local songs for hyperlinking and discovery.

The critical thing that I love about that methodology of music playback is the "synthesis" they both do of Tidal and your local music. There is a ton of music out there that's inaccessible on (all!) streaming services, and every audiophile I know eventually starts amassing a collection of lossless files from Bandcamp/etc. Neither a streaming service nor your local library alone is ever the "complete" view into all the music you want to enjoy; you need both, synthesized into one integrated view. Google Play Music used to be a decent solution to this, not the greatest quality but it solved this problem well, but then Google nerfed it into the ground.

There's still a lot of work to be done in this domain. To be honest, my go-to for local music playback is the same app I've been using for a decade after the fall of Winamp; Foobar (Windows). Its simple, ridiculously performant, infinitely customizable, and works great.

> You can use Tidal lossless for streaming things.

I have a Focal Clear, Schiit Lyr 3, Schiit Bifrost 2 and I can not tell the difference between Tidal and Apple Music. There are tests online which people regularly post on Head-Fi and Reddit which also shows that almost all people can't distinguish lossless from high quality lossy encodes.

> or rip CDs yourself. This will give you the best quality

No it won't.

As Apple describes in their guide for Apple Music they have, "dynamic range that’s superior to red book CD audio" because they transcode from the high-bit masters.

https://www.apple.com/itunes/docs/apple-digital-masters.pdf

Master quality is king these days, when "transparent" compression codecs are used. However, there are still many people who believe they can hear/feel the difference. You will need a combination of a golden ear and extra good equipment, starting from about 1K and above for a headphone setup.

As much as dislike Spotify's UI, I listen to a mountain of fringe content that no other streaming service carries but Spotify has in spades, because all of the indies make sure to upload to Spotify.

I'm sorely tempted to build my own library/playlist management front-end on top of Spotify's API. They're the only streaming service I've found with an official streaming/remote control API, and with upcoming lossless support (albeit only CD-quality), their library with a tailor-made UI seems like the best trade-off I'm going to get in a music service.

Spotify doesn't "master", you upload an uncompressed version of the track, and they will encode to OGG with a target LUFS. Classical music isn't impacted by this; it's loud rock, pop and EDM with aggressive limiting where the volume gets turned down. When people complain about the sound quality, it's largely junk masters handed over to Spotify, not the encoding process. Granted, if you _really_ try to listen to artifacts, they are usually in transients.

Yeah I know how Spotify works. What I mean is the end user has no idea where the source comes from, how it was mastered or ripped, or what Spotify's criteria is for quality. It is opaque, and there have been examples of bad digital masters/rips used by Spotify. It seems all you can do is report bad tracks when you encounter them: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Social/Jitter-due-to-bad-CD.... The OP even gave examples of classical tracks which have audible problems.

None of this is an issue if you rip your own CDs or buy lossless from reputable sources in my experience. Spotify you're at the mercy of whatever crap Spotify has been given.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'm still very new to streaming and still buy CDs for most of my music. I am currently using UAPP on my phone and plug it straight into an RME ADI-2 DAC, the advantage being I don't have to fire up the PC. The disadvantage of course is storage on the phone.

Roon sounds like it would be great for you - but you'll have to spend some time and money on setting it up. I have all my music in lossless FLAC on a Synology NAS and run the Roon server on there. The Roon client should work on your phone and connect to your RME ADI-2 DAC as well (great DAC btw, I'd really like one myself). It handles lossless streaming, and ensuring the digital chain is optimized for quality all the way to your DAC. It can also apply arbitrary parametric EQ on the server side, in case you want to use some EQ profiles for your HD800s if you don't have the RME handy.

Spotify have announced a 'HiFi' service coming later this year.

https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-22/five-things-to-know-...

Tidal sound quality is unparalleled IMO.

I’ve got a good set of speakers, and coupled with Tidal’s Master[1] quality recordings, there’s just no way I can go back to something of lower sound fidelity.

[1] https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000397069-TID...

I am the opposite. On my Focal Clear there is no advantage for Tidal over Apple Music.

Would be curious to see if you can pass this test: http://abx.digitalfeed.net

Because what people fail to understand is that from source -> listener there are multiple points at which information is lost. People obsess over the file format but not over which DAC they use or whether Apple, Spotify, Tidal has better encoding capabilities.

There is some subjectivity to it, but yes, I agree from experience. Have both Apple Music, for the kids, and TIDAL for myself, BTW.

Can I ask what your system is, to feed the speakers?

Couldn't agree more :)

I moved to Tidal when Spotify decided to blow huge amounts of cash getting into the "exclusive podcast business" while still paying peanuts to most artists.

Tidal pays musicians something like 3x what spotify does. [0] This is probably still not enough, but at least it's the right direction.

The higher sound quality has just been a bonus.

[0] https://soundcharts.com/blog/music-streaming-rates-payouts

Did not know this, thanks for the info, makes me even happier with my TIDAL subscription!

After the end of google music, I switched to Tidal + Plex. It's great for library organization, custom dynamic playlists, and mixing personal files with streaming.

I have Plex lifetime sub and TIDAL sub, but never explored them in combination. Where would I start to learn more? Have you compared to Roon's or Audirvana's integration of TIDAL?

I haven't, but this thread got roon on my list to explore. I've used plex for movies for years, and google music's end got me looking for new things.

I have two music libraries: tidal and my own music (I'm using about 80% my own music). The music is well tagged already using picard, so I don't know how well that works out of the box. When I'm in the tidal library, I usually will mark an album/artist to be added to my normal music library and then it will start showing up there mixed in with my self hosted stuff.

The killer features (to me) are 1: playing by album instead of by track. I use the "random album" shuffle all the time and usually want to listen to an album all at once and 2: smart playlist builder which lets me make dynamic playlists around how many times I've played a thing, my personal rating, or when the last time I played it was.

https://imgur.com/a/7zchJC7

https://picard.musicbrainz.org/

If you're looking for classical music specifically, I would recommend a dedicated service. For instance, I use Idagio and I'm very happy with them (there are others of course).

The killer feature is curated metadata, dedicated to classical music: searching and browsing is infinitely superior. You can select a specific work and browse all its recordings. You can select a performer and view all their recordings. You can select a composer and filter their works by type, etc.

While I'm no audiophile, I switched to tidal recently for another music-loving reason - they pay a larger share to artists.

Qobuz should be best for Classical and Jazz ... I have Tidal on the droid and never had any glitches.

Thanks for the recommendation. I see that Qobuz also integrates with UAPP on Android (which gets around the 48Khz limit). Since I listen to mainly Jazz and Classical, it sounds like a good fit.

I would highly recommend Qobuz. Great company, ownership that cares about artists and music.

I can confirm Qobuz sounds great. I've signed up for a free trial. The integration with UAPP on Android works well and gets around the Android 48Khz limitation. Thanks for the recommendation.

My experience has been that TIDAL CD quality streams are of great quality, and some of the MQA ones are brilliant. Of course, a lot depends on the master quality, that seems to be the key these days as a lot of the sound compressionist's work has been automated by tools.

Amazon Music offers higher resolution music.

You left out 'repeatedly'. Ticks me off that there is no way to disable ads in the app.

Ads? Not sure what you're referencing here.

I pay for Amazon Music. On my (Android) phone, I get modal 'upgrade offers' on a regular basis. Ads.

If you pay for it what are you getting an ad for? If you pay for Prime, you are getting access to a limited catalog of music. Unlimited subscription offers a full catalog of music and no ads.

I pay for Amazon Music, like I said in my other comment. I'm not talking about Amazon Music Prime. The app literally has full screen ads to upgrade the service to HD and so on. They are occasional, but they are ads. There's no option in the settings to disable them.

why tidal is particular? as far as I can tell, amazon music HD is the same thing for substantially less money.

The marketing for this one hasn't reached me yet. Thanks for the recommendation.

EDIT: looks like Amazon HD might force re-sampling of 44.1KHz to 48KHz on Android, which is a shame if true.

unfortunately, I don't think any of the streaming services offer the same level of control and confidence as something like foobar2000 with a local library. when I was originally shopping for a streaming service, I found it very frustrating to figure out all the technical details. they don't make this information at all easy to find, and even if they do, it's hard to trust that something weird doesn't happen under the hood on some devices.

my main use case for streaming is android auto, so I lowered my criteria to "no lossy-lossy reencode for bluetooth and works well with google assistant". so yt music was basically the only option for me. I would have tried amazon HD, but apparently google has deliberately made it hard to use with assistant, which hamstrings it for music in the car.

Qobuz is amazing for classical.

Why do you need to pay for a streaming service for classical music? Isn't it all public domain by now?

The underlying music for a large fraction of classical music is public domain now (but not all...classical music never stopped being composed).

But copyright can also cover the performance itself, not just the underlying music. So even though Beethoven's 9th symphony has long been public domain, for example, the Telarc recording of it by Christoph von Dohnanyi and the Celeveland Orchestra & Chorus is not. If you want to do something with that specific recording, you need permission.

Also, a particular arrangement might be copyrighted. Consider Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition". That was composed as a piano piece in 1874, and long ago became public domain.

Since then, numerous other composers have arranged it for orchestra, with the most well known arrangement probably being Maurice Ravel's in 1922. There have been dozens of other orchestrations including several this century, and also numerous arrangements for other types of groups and combinations of instruments and solo instruments.

A given recording will only be public domain if the underlying work, the arrangement, and the performance are all public domain.

Performance aside, plenty of classical works aren't out of copyright. My favourite composer, Herbert Howells, died in 1983; his works won't be out of copyright until 2053.

Recordings are often recent.