As an outbound fan, I admit, I was thrilled that my streaming service of choice – Spotify – has announced that they are releasing a new service series for lossless audio streaming. Yeah Al that sounds pretty crap to me, Looks like BT aint for me either. My future road trips were just ten times better.
Maybe.
Here’s the thing. I wouldn’t pay an extra dime for “enhanced audio” on any streaming service just because the opportunity exists. Anyway, not without seeing if I could tell the difference between the high – quality offerings of the streaming service and the loss – free offerings. I’m going to argue that most people might not be able to tell the difference in most cases – and I’m not the only one saying this.
Like Napier Lopes the next web writing:
“Spotify Premium (the $ 9.99 ad-free series) is already streaming at 320 kbps (256 kbps on the web) if you’re on let this in the app settings. Although at low levels, the differences between audio without loss can be quite obvious, I am willing to bet that most files without loss cannot be recorded from a 256 kbps MP3 – not to mention a file that is compressed with the newer Ogg codec. used by Spotify.
Our hearing is subject to a lot of placebo. Believing that a particular upgrade or a specific key specification for speakers or headphones will sound better is more likely to cause ‘improvement’ than any real change. However, many hearing listeners swear that they will hear difference without evidence. ”
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With Spotify’s “HiFi” service not coming out later this year, you can’t test the stream without losing it directly. However, it’s pretty easy to see if you can tell the difference between audio files of different bitrates and compressions right now. Ropes compliment the ABX Digital Feed Test, which gives you two audio files – sample “A” and “B” – as well as a target sample. Your job is to say whether A or B matches the target, and you can choose between a faster “can I tell you without losing” a five-track test, a ten-way test, or a mega-20 test -slighe.
In other words, the test examines whether you can tell a difference between a lossless version and a loss of a song. And if you think it ‘s easy, well … here’ s what the test will look like when you use it:
You click A, X, or B to start playing a track, and you can switch between the different versions by clicking A, X, or B all you want. Even then, I found it very difficult to tell the difference between the files in most cases. Either my audio is sucking, or it ‘s just really hard to separate Spotify’ s 320Kbps streaming – the highest quality – from a lossless file.
I don’t even show my results, because I was honest just in charge most of the time. It’s plausible that my home audio setting – basically, a pair of $ 150 headphones plugged directly onto my desktop computer – is just not good enough to let me distinguish between a high-quality file and without hearing loss. But even on a more relaxed basis, it is a difficult test, as one Reddit user describing:
I performed this test with an LS50W in a treated room. I got about 65-70% correct. The thing is that I really need to focus hard, listening critically in a completely inorganic way. And I still got a high percentage wrong at that. The difference was so great that I moved to Spotify from Tidal after doing that test. I haven’t looked back since.
If you want a leaner bones questionnaire, NPR also published a similar study back in 2015 that you can use to test your ears. On this one, I did a good job building the 320Kbps file. But the file without loss? Not so much.
And if you happen to have a missing and missing file of the same song, you can try this old-school trick to compare the differences between the two:
However, I wouldn’t bother with a more expensive “hifi” audio service unless you can tell the difference between that and “normal” streaming service offers on anything you have at home – your headphones, speakers or your ears. You spend money on “benefits” that you will never understand, which is silly.