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.