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Tidal, lossless Spotify competitor launches

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N

Necromanti

Member
Thought I'd take the test for fun, and at times, I heard a subtle but discernible difference. It was mostly hard to characterize in meaningful way, though, besides having a bit more "depth" and clarity, but nothing that really leaped out at me.

WkFt86D.png
Click to expand...

It's not something I would pay that much more for, though. And this is coming from someone who has been formally tested as having a high "musical intelligence" (merely meaning that I can differentiate between say, a violin and a viola, or subtly different rhythms, textures, etc. with a better acuity than average).
 
A

Alienous

Member
3/5, and I messed up on the first 2 when I was actually trying.

"Sit back, relax, concentrate, turn the volume up and try again."

Lol, I don't want to listen to music like I'm about to sit an exam.
 
G

GeordieMark

Member
I had a listen, but I'm not paying twice as much for a relatively small and only-noticeable-under-certain-conditions boost in quality.

I also hate everything about how this was marketed. I got the impression I am supposed to feel sorry for the likes of Madonna, Jay-Z and Deadmau5 because they aren't getting a 'fair' deal. Of all the billions of people worldwide who aren't getting a 'fair' deal for their work, those clowns are the last people that deserve sympathy. You can't go tweeting pictures of your McLaren P1 and collection of Ferrari's then turn around and tell me you don't think you are paid enough.

Even if I could tell the difference, I'd be very reluctant to pay for this.
 
K

KHarvey16

Member
Not to be overly cynical, but I'm not sure how heavily anyone should rely on such a small sample sized test created by the company trying to sell you the service. There's a good AB plugin for foobar that uses more samples and logs the results. It also properly volume matches the samples which is critical. When comparing lossless and 320kbps nearly everyone is 50/50 regardless of equipment.
 
C

CrossTrigger

Member
You cannot stream true lossless files. It contradicts itself.... it surely will be better quality but at the end of the day people are over compressing the hell out of the music anyways so who cares.... lol
 
C

CrossTrigger

Member
KHarvey16 said:
Uh, lossless doesn't mean uncompressed. Calling it lossless implies compression otherwise the distinction is meaningless.
Click to expand...

My Bad, I misread. I saw they were only streaming at 320KBPS.... that was a comparison to other streamers. They are actually saying they will stream at 1411kbps....hold on to your Data though lol
 
S

sir_kevith

Member
Yesterday I got 3/5 right and then today I just got 1/5 right. I just tested my hearing and don't think I could hear very well in the very high frequencies. I stop hearing shit around 16khz and I'm sure 320kbps MP3 retains everything there. I don't think I can hear any real difference between them.

I'm not sure why you'd want to stream uncompressed files. I think the people interested in lossless are more concerned about the files that they outright purchase.
 
M

mnannola

Member
I think it is interesting how many audiophiles are out there, yet how few of them want to sign up for this service. It seems made for people that want the best streaming sound they can get. Is $10 a month extra really too much when people spend hundreds or thousands a year on audio equipment?
 
M

Mr.Pig

Member
Couldn't tell the difference and I have big speakers.
The Killers is some compressed shit though, how can anyone tell with music like that?
 
N

Nokterian

Member
Wait this is 20 dollars? What? And all those artists are just hanging on board for the sake of it? Sorry but no i do not support this the slightest i prefer Bandcamp i can listen and give money directly to the artist who makes music what i like and get unlimited streaming also i can get cool stuff from there like LP's or even a cd with a code to get MP3/FLAC and more.

Those video's are so much cringe dear lord...there desperate.

rezuth said:
lWrJtFY.png


Dat original
Click to expand...

giphy.gif
 
Ghost_Messiah

Ghost_Messiah

Member
Spotify fan over here so this service interests me. Just took the test and got 3/5 correct. To be perfectly honest though I couldn't for the life of me tell any audible difference between the files. And I have some pretty damn good headphones. Sorry but if there isn't a tangible, discernible and perceptible jump in quality then to me this is just pointless. Compare this for example to video. Between DVD quality and HD there is a massive, colossal jump in quality whereby you enjoy the increased fidelity much more if you go HD. That to me is worth it. This however is not.

Also want to echo people's comments about the shadowy motive and marketing behind this. Strikes me as capitalism taken in to overdrive and driven by greed.

Sticking with Spotify for now. If this somehow takes off and becomes substantially superior in terms of its library then maybe I'll take a look again.
 
T

TarpitCarnivore

Member
subrock said:
Are they actively trying to not sell the service with that test page? I'm listening on Sennheiser HD25-1 ii's and I could not tell the difference on a single track.
Click to expand...

They're comparing FLAC with 320kbps AAC so no, most people wont be able to tell the difference and if they are getting them right it's likely pure luck. The benefit of FLAC and other lossless formats is for archiving purposes. The human ear cannot discern the differences in the audio fidelity after a certain point.

For those who want a much better test try the Philips Golden Ear challenge: https://www.goldenears.philips.com/en/introduction.html
 
mckmas8808

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
TarpitCarnivore said:
They're comparing FLAC with 320kbps AAC so no, most people wont be able to tell the difference and if they are getting them right it's likely pure luck. The benefit of FLAC and other lossless formats is for archiving purposes. The human ear cannot discern the differences in the audio fidelity after a certain point.

For those who want a much better test try the Philips Golden Ear challenge: https://www.goldenears.philips.com/en/introduction.html
Click to expand...

Interesting.
 
M

M3d10n

Member
Everybody knows consumers will rush into higher fidelity alternatives in droves. Just look at the huge success of SA-CD, DVD-Audio and BD-Audio.
 
S

Servbot24

Banned
I'll keep buying CDs. Better quality, I can store them physically, I can store them digitally, no bandwidth usage, and in most cases I can put money directly into the artist's pocket.
 
H

hardcastlemccormick

Banned
At least they have a proper A/B test on their page so people can try the difference. That's pretty good. Without one, the selling point of the service is shady.

Most people don't know much about music compression so they might not be familiar with lossy transparency, which is the bit rate at which you can't tell a lossy codec from a lossless one. Spotify generally hits transparency.
 
The Main Event

The Main Event

Member
EtqAHAR.png


Quite surprised by the result to be honest, I think some songs were more obvious than others. Listened with a pair of KRK headphones plugged directly into my MacBook Pro.

I still buy CDs and rip them in AAC 320 kbps, but for some AAA bands and albums (i.e. Steven Wilson's latest), I'll rip them in lossless, even though I mostly listen to my albums on my iPhone in my car or I'll stream it via my Apple TV.

I'm actually a fan of Blu-ray Audios as I love to listen to albums in 5.1 DTS-HD MA, the surround mixing gives new life to some of my favorite albums.
 
P

paradise_circus

Member
KHarvey16 said:
I don't understand why you would want to stream lossless audio. The major benefit is having a compressed music library you don't have to transcode and ruin when producing copies. As far as audio quality goes controlled blind testing generally eliminates any perception differences between properly encoded 320kbps MP3 and lossless or source. I don't know if many can consistently tell the difference to any statistically valid level.
Click to expand...

spotify uses even the ogg vorbis codec which is with the aac codec the better solution than mp3.

windows user can make their own blind test with foobar2k and some additional component s like http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=16295

I did that test some years ago and what I found was that I can rather easily tell the difference between mp3@128kbit/s and lossless formats with a success rate of about 75%.
same results for mp3@128kbit/s and aac@270kbit/s.
 
K

KHarvey16

Member
paradise_circus said:
spotify uses even the ogg vorbis codec which is with the aac codec the better solution than mp3.

windows user can make their own blind test with foobar2k and some additional component s like http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=16295

I did that test some years ago and what I found was that I can rather easily tell the difference between mp3@128kbit/s and lossless formats with a success rate of about 75%.
same results for mp3@128kbit/s and aac@270kbit/s.
Click to expand...

Well of course MP3 at 128kbps is easier to pick out. At 320kbps almost no one can.
 
K

Korey

Member
Necromanti said:
Thought I'd take the test for fun, and at times, I heard a subtle but discernible difference. It was mostly hard to characterize in meaningful way, though, besides having a bit more "depth" and clarity, but nothing that really leaped out at me.

WkFt86D.png
Click to expand...

It's not something I would pay that much more for, though. And this is coming from someone who has been formally tested as having a high "musical intelligence" (merely meaning that I can differentiate between say, a violin and a viola, or subtly different rhythms, textures, etc. with a better acuity than average).
Click to expand...

The Main Event said:
EtqAHAR.png


Quite surprised by the result to be honest, I think some songs were more obvious than others. Listened with a pair of KRK headphones plugged directly into my MacBook Pro.

I still buy CDs and rip them in AAC 320 kbps, but for some AAA bands and albums (i.e. Steven Wilson's latest), I'll rip them in lossless, even though I mostly listen to my albums on my iPhone in my car or I'll stream it via my Apple TV.

I'm actually a fan of Blu-ray Audios as I love to listen to albums in 5.1 DTS-HD MA, the surround mixing gives new life to some of my favorite albums.
Click to expand...

You got lucky five times. You don't have super-human hearing.
 
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