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I've always been able to tell when something on Spotify I've heard before is lower quality now. I can instinctively tell in my car when that's the case. It's mo

by 0xCMP 9y ago

I've always been able to tell when something on Spotify I've heard before is lower quality now. I can instinctively tell in my car when that's the case. It's mostly due to how loud certain parts of the song are or how it sounds at higher volumes. I guess, given what he says, that wouldn't be the case if made sure they were the same dB.

anyfoo 9y ago
It is well known that music media for "popular" consumption are often intentionally mastered with much less dynamic. This is called "compression", but has, on the surface, nothing to do with compression of bits* . It's the dynamic that's compressed, making quieter and louder sounds be closer together. For markets with people that are more likely to care about sound quality, though, a much larger dynamic range is preserved. This is why the same album often sounds better on vinyl than on digital media[1]. It has nothing to do with the media, it's the superior mastering that was consciously chosen. The Wikipedia article on the Loudness War[2] offers a good explanation. * Well, technically, music with compressed dynamic has less entropy, so can be encoded at a lower bitrate without loss. [1] See this database for example: http://dr.loudness-war.info http://dr.loudness-war.info [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
- baddox 9y ago
  It's true that much popular music is heavily compressed, but you normally wouldn't encounter two differently-compressed masters of the same song. Two exceptions would be radio (some stations used to apply their own compression, and perhaps they still do) and some high-quality releases aimed at audiophiles that are produced from a less-compressed master. I wouldn't think that streaming services like Spotify would re-compress songs.
  - anyfoo 9y ago
    I was a bit imprecise, but the "high-quality releases aimed at audiophiles" is essentially what I was referring to. The record stores are full of remastered vinyl editions.
- 0xCMP 9y ago
  So how about for Spotify? It's all digital media, but I pay more to be able to have the highest quality version streamed/pre-downloaded for songs and I can pretty much tell the difference. I've had anecdotal experiences were I noticed a distinct difference and checked to find out somehow my settings were changed. Is it that Spotify changes the dynamic for lower and high quality encodings of the songs?
  - anyfoo 9y ago
    I don't know what Spotify does. It's possible that they use compression on the "non high quality" media, it's also possible that you are hearing other differences that are the result of different encoding parameters.
ubercow13 9y ago
You could be hearing that Spotify applies dynamic compression if you have the 'set the same volume level for all songs' setting enabled (it's on my default).

by 0xCMP 9y ago

anyfoo 9y ago

It is well known that music media for "popular" consumption are often intentionally mastered with much less dynamic. This is called "compression", but has, on the surface, nothing to do with compression of bits* . It's the dynamic that's compressed, making quieter and louder sounds be closer together. For markets with people that are more likely to care about sound quality, though, a much larger dynamic range is preserved. This is why the same album often sounds better on vinyl than on digital media[1]. It has nothing to do with the media, it's the superior mastering that was consciously chosen. The Wikipedia article on the Loudness War[2] offers a good explanation. * Well, technically, music with compressed dynamic has less entropy, so can be encoded at a lower bitrate without loss. [1] See this database for example: http://dr.loudness-war.info http://dr.loudness-war.info [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

baddox 9y ago
It's true that much popular music is heavily compressed, but you normally wouldn't encounter two differently-compressed masters of the same song. Two exceptions would be radio (some stations used to apply their own compression, and perhaps they still do) and some high-quality releases aimed at audiophiles that are produced from a less-compressed master. I wouldn't think that streaming services like Spotify would re-compress songs.
- anyfoo 9y ago
  I was a bit imprecise, but the "high-quality releases aimed at audiophiles" is essentially what I was referring to. The record stores are full of remastered vinyl editions.
0xCMP 9y ago
So how about for Spotify? It's all digital media, but I pay more to be able to have the highest quality version streamed/pre-downloaded for songs and I can pretty much tell the difference. I've had anecdotal experiences were I noticed a distinct difference and checked to find out somehow my settings were changed. Is it that Spotify changes the dynamic for lower and high quality encodings of the songs?
- anyfoo 9y ago
  I don't know what Spotify does. It's possible that they use compression on the "non high quality" media, it's also possible that you are hearing other differences that are the result of different encoding parameters.

ubercow13 9y ago

You could be hearing that Spotify applies dynamic compression if you have the 'set the same volume level for all songs' setting enabled (it's on my default).