I've heard this argument so many times - but personally I can trivially easily here the difference between Tidal / Apple Music and Spotify's 'high quality' setting - even on wireless headphones. Music on spotify sounds flat and drained. No idea if this has something to do with their compression technique, some kind of EQing, or a flaw in some other part of the pipeline, but I've blind tested it many times and its night and day.

Generally the problem with this type of argument is that the two sources are not volume-matched. Try out an ABX test here, of lossless vs various lossy codecs: https://abx.digitalfeed.net/

So that test doesn't mention how the FLAC was encoded back in 2014.

Because most of the benefits of Apple/Tidal lossless come from the fact they are encoding in 24-bit, 192 kHz direct from the original masters.

Which is effectively a remaster and so invalidates every single claim that detecting a difference is due to superior fidelity.

Not all of the library is encoded this way and you can still easily hear the difference.

Which still means it's a remaster/different mix.

I used to be like you many years ago, thinking that high samplerates and bit depth were essential and the ultimate way of getting the best possible sound quality, but in reality 44.1khz 16bit is plenty for humans. Get over it. Whoever mixed the 192khz version essentially remastered it and put a bit of a spice over it. You can easily prove it by producing a downmixed 44khz version (use a high quality resampler) from the 192khz version and trying to blind ABX both, I doubt you will be able to spot any difference, and if you do, congratulations your sound system has some weird intermodulation issue from the high frequencies present in the high sample rate version, that is causing a listenable sound to appear (which should not be there).

I think you're missing the wood for the trees here. It makes no functional difference to the listener whether the reason spotify sounds worse is their use of lower quality masters, or some aspect of their streaming or compression. In practice their library sounds significantly, measurably worse to many people. I've also blind tested this with friends when I signed up for Tidal, and most people I tested were able to clearly hear the difference.

I think it's fine to recommend Tidal on this basis. However, you should realize that what you're hearing has nothing to do with the compression.

This. No double-blind ABX test has ever been able to discern the difference between an above-CD quality file and its downsampled CD-quality equivalent, or even a 320 kbps MP3 encoding of it.

Most people are not listening closely, nearly meditating over music. If you average over most people, this is what you will find. Look at the "outliers" in those same studies.

> Get over it

It seems more like you need to get over it. I have never cared about bit rates etc. I just care about how it sounds and I know that lossless sounds significantly better to me and to many others.

The amount of gaslighting when it comes to audio is always bizarre to me.

Read my post again, I'm strictly talking about the audio format and not about the codec nor compression. I would expect anyone caring enough to compare CD quality 44khz and 192khz/24bits to be using lossless or uncompressed audio, otherwise what's the point? Pretty much all lossy codecs will put a low-pass filter and trow out any sound above 16khz~20khz anyway, and some will even resample to 48khz, no matter what lol.

I can't speak to Apple Music or Tidal, but I did a test between the Spotify and CD versions of Xtal from Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin and the difference would be clear to absolutely anyone - the Spotify version is very tinny.

People often trot out the "most people can't tell the difference" argument, but I wonder how many of those people have actually tried a variety of tests? My hunch is very few.

Are you sure you are not comparing a normal release to the remastered version? There are plenty of albums out there that have "improved" or remastered versions but are not labelled as such in the album title, and Selected Ambient Works 85-92 is one of those.

I love that we still use Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin like this.

I've done it myself when buying hifi equipment.

The reason it's funny is that it was "mastered" with a mid-80s domestic cassette deck.

As much as I love it it's probably not the best source material for a detailed test of sound quality.

Xtal is a gem. I just tested both and the Apple Music version had more oomph the first time I tested for a bit. Then I went back to the beginning a second time and they sounded the same. Whether or not it's true I don't think I can trust myself to be a good tester.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fwiw I believe Xtal was originally made from samples recorded on cassette, so there's definitely a ceiling on how dynamic it could sound.

You can't judge the quality of a digital audio file purely on its bit rate.

There are many things that (can) go into digital mastering and re-encoding that can make huge differences in actual audio quality of the final product, even with the same file format and bit rate.

I can easily hear the difference between Lossless and AAC on my two IEMs (Blessing 2 Dusk + IE600) as well as my open-back Focal Clear. And even with Bluetooth via AptX HD.

With the quality of audio improving so much in recent years I would take a guess that almost anyone can appreciate the significant difference in sound quality for < $50.

Same. There's a difference in texture, primarily in the trebles, but there's also a general muddiness and lack of separation. Everything feels like it's been smoothed over, but not in a good way, or too "crunchy". Transients don't have the right amount of bite and the stereo image doesn't feel as three-dimensional. It's harder to hear the "room". Currently using Sony IER-M9 with a Linum DualBax Zebra, which is a great cable, btw.

I feel like if I was playing Audiophile Bingo, I'd just have won.

I mean I can't claim complete 'ignorance', I have more audio toys than many (a "Schiit Stack" on my desk (DAC, mixer and amp) and a couple of "low end" headphones, Sennheiser and Hifiman planars), but by the time you are discussing cables... next thing it's whether wood volume knobs will eliminate unwanted resonances from your sound stage.

Favorite comment I heard on such things: Music lovers buy equipment to listen to their music. Audiophiles buy music to listen to their equipment.

I can too, but only because AAC has such an unnatural stereo presence that I can pick it out in a lineup of codecs with my eyes closed. If it was a direct comparison between downsampled FLAC/WAV then I'm not sure I could tell the difference.

Have you done any blind listening tests? I'm having a hard time believing this, though it depends on the bitrate of the AAC.

I do blind tests multiple times a day.

On cellular on my iPad/iPhone I stream at AAC and then high-res lossless on WiFi.

When the stream switches the improvement in clarity and sound stage is very apparent.

That's doesn't sound blind, if you don't have a very fancy setup that can switch to the lossless stream without any interruptions.

I simply have to press stop and start (which you can do many different ways) and the stream will switch.

Pretty fancy I know.

That's not blind.

I've made blind A/B tests between the Apple standard codec and Spotify Premium.

Not even talking lossless, as Spotify doesn't even offer a lossless option.

I don't want to be patronized on what I allegedly can / can not not hear by a "Premium" service I've been paying for for 10 years.

Spotify does some loudness normalization that you could disable in the settings. (Don't know anymore as don't use Spotify for years). Maybe worth checking.

But that's just an auto volume level, it doesn't actually change the sound balance or dynamics or anything like that. It just makes the average volume of the track closer to the average volume of other tracks.

I did this years ago, it helped somewhat, but Apple's standard codec is still way better (I blind-tested this).

Try listening to death metal, the difference is obvious.