As I confess, as someone who likes to get away with it, I was excited that my chosen streaming service – Spotify – announced the launch of a new level of service for lossless audio transmission. Sure, it will cost more than what I’m paying for now, but throwing the expected $ 20 a month to get perfect audio sounds pretty good, right? My future road trips have just been ten times better.
May be.
Here’s the thing. I wouldn’t pay a dime for “enhanced audio” on any streaming service simply because the opportunity exists. At the very least, without seeing if it could differentiate between existing, high-quality offers from the streaming service and its lossless offers. I’m going to argue that most people probably wouldn’t be able to differentiate most cases, and I’m not the only one who says that.
Like Napier Lopes from The Next Web he writes:
“Spotify Premium (the existing, ad-free $ 9.99 level) is already streaming at a maximum of 320 kbps (256 kbps on the web) if you’ve has enabled it in the application settings. While with a low bit rate, the differences between lossy audio and lossless audio can be pretty obvious, I’m willing to bet that most people can’t distinguish a lossless file from an MP3 256 kbps, let alone a compressed file with the most modern Ogg codec. which uses Spotify.
Our hearing is subject to a lot of placebo. Simply believing that a certain upgrade or key specification will make your speakers or headphones sound better is often more likely to cause an “improvement” than any actual change. However, many golden-eared audiophiles will swear they can feel a difference without evidence.
G / O Media may receive a commission
Because Spotify’s “HiFi” service won’t come out until later this year, you can’t test its lossless streaming directly. However, it is quite easy to see if at this point you can differentiate audio files of different bit rates and compressions. Lopes recommends the ABX digital test of digital power supply, which provides you with two audio files (an example “A” and “B”), as well as a destination example. Your job is to tell if A or B match the goal and you can choose from a faster “five-track test, a ten-track test, or a mega-20-track test.”
In other words, the test is checking to see if it can be known to difference between a lossless version and a lossy version of a song. And if you think it’s going to be easy, well … here’s what the test setup looks like when you use it:
Click A, X, or B to start playing a track, and you can switch between different versions by clicking A, X, or B as you like. Even then, I found it quite difficult to differentiate files in most situations. Either my hearing hurts, or it’s really hard to separate the 320 Kbps streaming from Spotify (its highest quality) from a lossless file.
I won’t even show my results, because honestly I was just guessing most of the time. It’s plausible that the home audio setup is basically a $ 150 headset plugged directly into my desktop PC’s motherboard, just not good enough to allow me to hear the difference between a high-quality file and a lossless file. But even in a more advanced setup, it’s a tough test, as a Reddit user describes:
I did this test with LS50W in a treated room. I have 65-70% correct. The thing is, I’ve really had to focus a lot, listening critically in a completely non-organic way. And I was still wrong on a high percentage. The difference was so insignificant that I switched to Tidal’s Spotify after doing this test. I haven’t looked back since.
If you want one more contest about bare bones, NPR also published a similar study in 2015 that you can use to test your ears. In this one, I did a great job selecting the 320 Kbps file. But the file without losses? Not so much.
And if you have a lossless file of the same song, you can try this old school trick to compare the differences between the two:
Regardless, I wouldn’t mind a more expensive “hifi” audio service if you can’t differentiate between this and the “normal” offerings of a streaming service on anything you have at home: headphones, speakers, or your own. ears. You’ll spend money on a “profit” you never appreciate, and that sounds silly.