Spotify Lossless for premium subscribers

Well this might make me switch back if its similar as finding gear that supports tidal connect is much harder than spotify connect, and spotify's family plan and kids accounts have much better parental control.

I'm ok paying a bit more for it if it comes to that.

I could start re-using my raspberry pi's with Volumio which supports both but charges 7.99 a month for Tidal, v Spotify Connect which is free.

Gonna let things settle for a bit and start keeping track of how many of my tracks are still above Spotifys max bitrate to see how much it might matter….

Not sure how much difference comes through my systems with the higher bitrates v lower.

Probably not much and will be curious how fast they get higher quality versions from the record companies that already have them in that format.

I’ve been using Spotify Premium for a while now, and the new lossless/high-res option is definitely a nice addition. It’s not quite Tidal Masters level yet, but the 24-bit FLAC streaming is noticeably cleaner than the old 320 kbps AAC.

Honestly, if you’re mainly listening on good headphones or a proper stereo setup, you can hear the difference. That said, Tidal still has the edge for true audiophiles, but Spotify’s convenience, playlists, and cross-device support make it a strong competitor.

I get 96kHz with Tidal. Don't know what that means but it sounds good.

You can't hear the difference between sample rates (lmao).

gudnoyez wrote: »

Not sure if everything in Spotifys Library will be Lossless, or just certain ones the article does not really get into much detail on that.

Yes, quite hard to tell by that article. Lacking a lot of details for sure.
I would imagine a price increase also.
Think I will stick with the normal "Premium" unless this new lossless is the same price. Doubtful.

skipshot12 wrote: »

^ Serious?

No.
Edit:
Here's a dumpster fire I started on the topic lol.
https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/199279/lets-talk-sample-rates#latest

jdjohn wrote: »

Listening tonight through my Innuous Zen III via Spotify connect of some obscure artists, I continue to be impressed. Every track is coming through at 24 bits, according to the indicators on my Benchmark DAC3.

Nice!
I've always preferred gear that showed more information on what's going on inside the "box".

So I just switched back from Tidal and a couple things just came up.

1. Chromecast Audio’s don’t support lossless
2. Volumio doesn’t have lossless and never will. Spotify has locked out any open source based software
3. Windows Audio drivers may be causing you to lose lossless bitrates (forget the link but someone dug deep into it)

This kinda drives me nuts. I was planning on using Volumio with a few pi’s I have lying around but this just rendered them useless.

I guess time to buy some additional WiiMs. Spotify…. Do better!

SO there is a lot to things to unpack with streaming music in general, bit rates sample rates etc.

Many years ago, I hung you with the engineer who created Pure Music( Channel D) software. This software also did Phono to digital and as much as everyone basically is against that, it actually worked very well.

Anyway, there is no rhyme or reason to the recording industry. The biggest issue is where the recording started. Depending on the that, this actually determines the quality of sound over what format it is in. So if a company takes a 16 bit 44.1 recording and releases it on the market as SACD 1 bit or FLAC 24/96 or 24/192, sonically all 3 are exactly the same. Unfortunately you don't get any more with the higher bit rates or sample rates because the recording started at 16 bit 44hz.

For us end users, it's extremely hard to know what you are actually getting. You would have to research each and every album you want to experience int he highest quality, which lets be honest this is what we want and expect. But what sucks about all of this is we don't always get it.

I had 3 versions of the same exact song 16/44 24/96 and 24/192. I sat for like an hour going back and forth between all 3 expecting some level of difference between the 3 and there was no difference at all. The reason was it was a 16/44.1 recording that was put into the 24/96 and 24/192 lets call it a container and the sound quality , level of detail and dynamic range was all exactly the same. Kinda pissed me off as I purchased these .Flac files and I didn't get my money's worth.

So now let's talk about streaming. I can just see the mess that this is. What again sucks about it is that a lot of this music is just 16 / 44.1 and then these companies are going to push it off as higher bit rates , SACD files all that kind of stuff depending on the service you use. Some lucky for us will be a big improvement is overall reproduction of the recording, this is where we all win. But when it's just up sampled, we get the same of the same.

Now lossless formats have got a lot better. When you campmare a lossless format song to a MP3 song at a lower than 320 rate, you actually can tell a difference as you are actually hearing the entire recording.

Since back in the day when SACD and DVD audio was released, I always wished all albums , all bands and all studios would release higher quality music reproduction. So many of these companies tailor thier recordings to head phones ear buds and less quality reproduction playback systems. I issue with this is as a musican myself, If I go through the process of writing a song, recording that song to a media , I want my music I worked so damn hard to create to be recreated exactly how I wrote it , not tailored to the poor quality of what most people use to consum media. I say let the recording be as of high quality as we can capture it and then whatever reproduction system someone uses to listen, that's the best that system can sound reproducing my work. Unfortunately this is not the case.

There are some artists who demand that thier stuff be recording and released in only the highest quality, I have a huge issue with is in the fact that I never want to be limited to what I want to listen to.

Have to disagree somewhat. A few studios have been caught selling up sampled material, but most record with at least 24bit master depth and 96kHz or 192kHz rate. Some may limit to 24/48kHz, but either way, they reduce the quality for CD release, but they can release a High Res version that keeps the master sample rate. If they work with a studio that does DSD masters, then they can release an SACD with almost the same quality (the SACD is limited to DSD64, whereas the master maybe in DSD512) and also release CD or digital high res with no loss.
Usually the people buying the high res releases are very critical and demand details on the recording/mastering process. It's not hard to take a digital music file and do a spectrum analysis to see if the music has been up-sampled from inferior sources.
For older analog masters, they can go back and digitally read/convert that to a high res 24/192 or DSD master. MoFi did get caught lying about their master conversion process and lost a lot of credibility for some.