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Spotify announces HiFi, a lossless streaming tier coming later this year
- Bluestein 6y agoGreat. 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.-
- azinman2 6y agoIt’s still nothing compared to any video. They’re already paying for bandwidth… what exactly is your gripe?
- sharklazer 6y agoI would guess this guy is still on a 1200 baud modem.
- Bluestein 6y agoNo way! I am happy to have upgraded to 14000 ... about a month ago :)
- karmasimida 6y agoWasted? Defining meaningful then. Majority of the bandwidth is spent on entertainment I would assume.
- Bluestein 6y agoWasted: The extra bandwith above and beyond what psychoacoustically would sound near perfect anyway, with much less bandwith used ... (No sane person would object to anything on the basis of it being entertainment ...)
- upbeat_general 6y agoI can’t tell if this is a joke or not
- Jonnax 6y agoI 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.
- Bluestein 6y agoHad not thought of it that way. I am just overly concerned about internet congestion ... ... but, as somebody upthread rightly points out, it's all video anyway. (Porn, I posit ...)
- gruez 6y agoAFAIK 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?
- izacus 6y agoUsually it's not just the bitrate, but also the compression in mastering process that's different (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression for context). The "HiFi" versions are less compressed and on my highend audio system the difference between Tidal HiFi masters and Spotify is pretty stark and obviously noticable. (The difference obviously has nothing to do with compression format.) I hope Spotify will match the quality because Spotify Connect is way more reliable than the Cast broken mess.
- nr2x 6y agoExactly, it's literally a different sound file - not just format/delivery/etc.
- CarelessExpert 6y agoWhere is the evidence that Tidal is actually using masters that exclude DRC for their HiFi mixes? I can't find anything that suggests this is actually true. The only thing I can find indicates that their HiFi versions are based on MQA-supplied 24-bit masters, but that doesn't tell you whether or not DRC was applied to the source mix that MQA used. And given that an uncompressed mix would require remastering by the artist/studio (DRC is not just a byproduct of conversion to a 16-bit format), you'll forgive me if I'm incredibly skeptical of this claim.
- nr2x 6y agoOn AirPods, no. With audio set ups that cost few grand, yes.
- websites2323 6y agoThe difference will not be audible to most people because of the equipment and environment. Besides, audio has been mastered for 128kbps MP3, which most people prefer. So unless they are going to change the mastering, this is double worthless. But I’m not in the habit of telling people how to spend their money. If they enjoy the music more because they paid more for it, no objections here. I’ve got plenty of wasteful hobbies myself.
- random5634 6y agoDoes 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 / twitch streaming are still very small - 4K video streaming just crushed bandwidth, I'd love to know the youtube / netflix / prime video / twitch bandwidth loads, they have to be insane.
- CharlesW 6y ago> 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).
- nr2x 6y agoIf you truly care about audio quality you can't go wrong with Qobuz, tons of 24bit material: https://www.qobuz.com/ https://www.qobuz.com/
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jmann99999 6y agoI’m not a Spotify user, but I have upgraded to the HD Music option on Amazon. Amazon provides music at SD (320KB), HD (850KB) and Ultra HD (up to 3700KB) — when available. I’m not an audiophile but it sounds amazing on my AirPods and great on my Echos and in the car. My wife even said she doesn’t want to go back. If Spotify provides bitrates near that, you will want it.
- teilo 6y agoYour Airpods are recompressing everything to 256kbps AAC to transmit over bluetooth. So once again, psychoacoustic bias.
- nominated1 6y agoPurely 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec_listening_test
- eggsby 6y agoThere 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_sampling_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...
- gltchkrft 6y agoYes, 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.
- lolpython 6y agoSure, 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 :)
- akmarinov 6y agoLet’s see if Apple stumbles through last in this field at all.
- MrBuddyCasino 6y agoWhat would be nice is if they supported high-quality music videos along with the audio. A cap on monthly minutes would be ok. Most tracks are available on Youtube anyway.
- fotta 6y agoPardon 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.
- ryankrage77 6y agoMy guess would be that compressing lossless audio will sound better than compressing already-compressed audio.
- fulafel 6y agoThere's a large placebo component in hifi for many people so you might well (but reading this comment may lessen your experience).
- lighttower 6y agoIs there a website that implements ABX test and blinds you to what it's playing? Then unblinding at the end?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dnhz 6y agohttp://abx.digitalfeed.net http://abx.digitalfeed.net
- andrewmackrodt 6y agoAs 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.
- jlelse 6y agoI 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.
- jareklupinski 6y agoswitched to deezer too since spotify would not play through my DAC, their hifi tier is sweet, but deezer doesn't seem to have the more niche soundcloud stuff that spotify seems to have ripped early on
- karmakaze 6y agoI wonder if they'll initially synthesize the HiFi data from their current sources. e.g. generate 24/32-bit 96kHz predithered data from 16-bit 44.1kHz. [Sorry if the post covers this, I didn't read it because it wanted too many domains whitelisted for js.]
- teilo 6y agoAll I care about is an option for lossless. If by "HiFi" they mean 96K/24-bit (or more), then that's just snake oil. Don't even get me started on Tidal's MQA nonsense. For most material I cannot tell the difference between lossless and AAC/Vorbis. But I can tell the difference on some metal tracks. Not all. Just some.
- lowbloodsugar 6y agoAll this talk about how compression is just as good as lossless appears to be based on the idea that "we know how the brain perceives sound, so we can remove the bits you can't perceive". And yet when I google "do all humans perceive sound the same way" the overwhelming response is that, no, humans do not perceive sound the same way. So how can compression work equally well for everyone? As an audiophile, why risk it? For myself, I've got Meridian processor and speakers and I can for sure tell the difference. Can I tell the difference when it's playing on a bluetooth speaker? Not so much. Does it make a difference for AirPods. On the one hand, the AirPods will recompress to AAC, so you get compressed audio anyway. But if the source material is compressed in some other format, then it will have lost information, while recompressing it for AAC will lose different information. So if you have AirPods then you really want lossless to start with: that way you'll only have the AAC losses.