Most ARE NOT Lossless! What's the best music streaming service?
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- čas přidán 14. 05. 2024
- There's a LOT of options for steaming music. MANY claim to have lossless options, BUT that may not be reaching your ears! Which streaming service is best for avoiding these problems?
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00:00 - Intro
00:48 - Library size
01:41 - UX
03:59 - Recommendation algorithm
05:15 - Sound quality
09:51 - Conclusion - Zábava
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/48PxwspDvrE/mqdefault.jpg)
I like the little “Lossless” symbol in apple music. It’s a nice placebo that makes me feel like I’m not missing any information even though I know for a fact that I couldn’t tell the difference between an ALAC and an AAC file if I gun were pointed to my head.
Well, it is lossless technically. It's a matter of personal listening philosophy.
Lossless Is not really a placebo. It has a purpose but you won't be able to hear a difference with aac files from apple
but you can if you compare to the low quality encoded songs Spotify does... Spotify should have at least upgraded to opus...
information can perhaps in this case be a tricky word because now there are albums with spatial sound Even on Apple Music. and Dolby Atmos. But if you don't have it then you can say that you are losing some type of information or experience
But in recording studios today, it is well recorded with 24 bit or more and for the most part they use a higher sampling frequency than 44.1kHz And it has probably been like that for at least 20 years I guess. Then there are no cheap things, they use a recording studio. I wouldn't be surprised if the speakers in a recording studio cost at least $1500 and we're talking small speakers. And the AD converter is probably not cheap either
As an album listener, Qobuz is really great. The true lossless and things like album info, articles, curated playlists on topics really make it stand out to me. It certainly isn't for the person who likes to put on a station though that's for sure. Luckily they are adding new tracks daily, and after switching from Amazon HD, I am certainly not looking back.
Not to mention that the higher tier gives nice discounts for when I would like to buy an album.
@@alexcalibur96 You do not need to subscribe to QOBUS to buy an album from QOBUZ
@@alexcalibur96 Yeah! That is really nice!
Big disadvantage though is they won’t offer service world wide.
Cool video.
Considering CZcams Music is included with a CZcams Premium subscription I always wonder why many CZcams creators, whom most likely have said subscription, ignore it when talking about music streaming services, like it or not.
ikr, I've always felt like using CZcams music more than any other service. By the same price as any other music service you get way more benefits and the yt music algorithm is godlike
Well, the quality is bad, it's streaming bandwidth is very small
I had a Spotify subscription before but after some months I get back with YT Music because the price is more affordable cause I watch a lot of CZcams.
I agree that it is worth the price. Especially if you watch CZcams a lot. The premium subscription is fantastic. I’m also a student so I have a huge discount. But as far as quality goes, I always return to Apple Music.
cuz its incredibly irrelevant, i dont think ive ever met more than 10 ppl in my entire life that use yt music wtf
Qobuz is the best way to find new music for me as I can filter out entire genres and they never try to force me to listen to pop or hip-hop.
Damn. Not even 90's hip-hop? That's cold.
Spotify has the best playlist, radio, and music recommendations system by a wide margin IMHO. Those keep me coming back to Spotify again and again. Apple Music would be second BUT they don't list songs you liked for some absolutely bizarre reason.
You could do a smart playlist on Apple Music desktop app which is what I do but only will show songs added to library. Although I rather adds song to library anyway old having from iPod days
Same for me.
being using apple music and it is really bizarre in many ways..
You have to go songs part to find them
@@jivanshc6279 Only if you have the song already added to your library
this is the best most detailed review i’ve came across, thank you so much!
Thank you for this. I've been looking for this all over.
What I like about YTM is you can get live versions of songs.
you can also listen to video mixes of songs created by DJs that could be over an hour long or more. I love this.
As an electronic fan, DJ Mixes being treated as first-class citizens has led me to using Apple Music. It feels surreal that having a DJ set with proper IDs on a streaming service other than CZcams and Apple Music is not a thing
On another note, the short essays on albums and the "Essential Albums" feature have contributed to refining my taste and appreciation for all kinds of music.
Agreed. The video doesn’t mention it but AM has great editorial content - album and artist descriptions, interviews, many different types of playlists…I just wish the “browse” section was a little better organised.
Bit of a revelation really isn’t it!
Bro listen to ACTUAL music that’s just sound wtf
@@Scaar420 saying this is so incredibly ignorant many edm/electronic artist but their heart until their songs and if u actually would be open minded u can actually feel the emotion without being told. u prolly only listen to rap 🤦🏻♂️
thissssss. my rl grimes ID holyyyy
Great video with EXCELLENT information (that isn't easy to find in one place). Thank you!
A first class no nonsense practical guide that helps make sense of the minefield that is Streaming. It can be a real head scratcher for those starting out and not particularly tech savvy. It's very easy to make a lot of expensive mistakes! Thanks for the info.
Great overview! From my experience, Qobuz offers the best sound quality overall and the largest catalog of classical music, if that's your preferred category. But I had to cut down on subscriptions, so I am currently only using Tidal and Deezer (on Android devices). Between those two, Tidal offers slightly better sound, best user interface, and excellent playlists. Deezer also has a few features I love, such as a choice of radio stations (french radios "Fip" and "Station Simone" are wonderful), a built-in equalizer, and "adapt sound" settings to compensate personal hearing deficiencies.
I chose Deezer as well.
It seems that they didn’t dedicate much time testing Deezer, that can sync between devices as well and has great playlists created by editors… And most of the sections he just skipped Deezer or didn’t mention much.
“ classical music” ROLF LOL KEK LEL. shame they don’t add more artists and genres that are actually entertaining unlike the brain numbingly boring genre of classical music.
I used to daily drive Deezer because of a discount with carrier that basically made it free. I felt like DMS never actually used Deezer, after watching your review. First Recommended songs, Deezer has feature called flow based on your library that plays very good songs that you might like, I discovered 100+ songs because of that feature Its amazing. Second I am now using Tidal and the Deezer library is much much bigger with a lot of underground bands that I cannot find on tidal. I would say that Deezer has more obscure music than Spotify(my GF has Spotify rarely some Brazilian songs are not found there). The only problem with Deezer are the bugs that happened quite a lot. Leaving your review about Deezer without mentioning Flow has lead me to believe you never actually used it.
And you did not mention the bugs that happens a lot using deezer on desktop. Just be honest you never even touched this streaming platform.
@@TT-iu1uq like?
I feel exactly the same, even his downplay of the user interface, I think deezer has a few quality of life advantages in usability over spotify. And yeah, his lack of mention of flow and the desktop app issues was a dead giveaway!
@@PocketDeliciousyeah, same. Mine was discord rich presence, yours?
Also Flow is really adjustable with the type of music you want. You can make it any mood
Grat vid! loved the detail, and that it wasnt negative to any of the services... they all have their strengths and weaknesses it just depends on what you as a user value more. Well done. Stay awesome.
For me Deezer (a European streaming service) is the best choice because I listen to music but also a lot of Audiobooks and Deezer hast the biggest library of Audiobooks (in German). And I really like the "Flow" algorithm that plays music you liked and stuff you might like with very accurate commendations. It needs a bit time to get on spot, but if you give it a bit of time, you never need to make playlists again cause you select your mood in the Flow and it just works.
I've been a Tidal user for a while, been quite happy with it, although I agree about the artists getting thrown into the same listing if their names happen to be the same, I've had issues with that occasionally myself, but mostly Tidal has been great..
I also listen to Lorn myself by the way, love the dark electro vibe, also Dead Fader and Forest Swords, I'd highly recommend if you like Lorn..
Lorn🔥🔥🔥 also give some more recs lol😂
And theres no way to report bad classifications I can see
I have the same issue of combined artist in Apple Music at time. The one that sticks out in my head is Caspian, a post-rock band I listen to. Apparently there is a rap artist with the same name, who comes up too often. It also screws up the algorithm at times.
Deezer is better than Apple Music Tidal and Spotify I love Sound quality on Deezer
From what I can tell, the issue comes down to artists not doing the work to seperate themselves from similar named artists. It's a weird thing however lol
Qobuz is my only choice here. The sound quality to me seems the purest. I also love that they are the only service that also offers purchasing individual songs and albums in a variety of formats, from CD quality to 192 KHz. And it should be noted that they already exist for quite a long time here in Europe, but are quite new in the US, so the limited library might be due to them not having secured all the streaming rights yet in the US. A few years ago at least the library here in Europe was way bigger than the one in the US: Finally, Qobuz is also great for Jazz and Classical music, and integrates perfectly with Roon.
@@Andersljungberg Agree. That is why I have ROON set up with my own library of about 60k songs, all ripped from CD or Vinyl in FLAC. I use Qobuz to discover new music, and because it integrates so well with ROON. From the ROON application I can just seamlessly search for an artist and will be presented both with my own rips and with the Qobuz content. And ROON has recently launched ARC, which allows me to listen to all my own music on the go. My setup is not a cheap solution, but for me it is worth it. I listen to music multiple hours per day on the go, using an Ibasso DX300 or my Ipjhone and several good IEMs (Legend Evo, Solaris, U12t and Dunu SA6)
Qobuz , for me, has been the best, in fidelity and consistency, only failing when my ISP fails, Amazon HD failed gapless playback on album sides (FZs' and Abbey Road side 2, for example), when I complained, they blamed my streamer. With Qobuz, you also get to explore what else is out there, in the music world.
Absolutely... and good point about Jazz and Classical music, there's no equal to Qobuz there. But to each their own, it's good to have choice since not everyone is about 'bit perfect' and HQ audio. And if you're only going to listen via Bluetooth, then Qobuz is overkill. I do feel though that if you're going to pay for a streaming service, then Spotify is actually a step back from traditional audio CD's... and I simply refuse to pay a dime for that.
I always preferred Tidal. For me the sound is warmer and Qobuz sounded like the treble has been ramped up. Plus a lot of Atmos on Tidal from Deutsche Gramophone. Sadly I dislike just about everything else with Tidal, Rap/Pop centric, failed Direct Artist Payout which is being scrapped along with plans for fan center royalties.
I didn't know you can buy individual tracks...i haven't seen that anywhere online. I've only purchased albums on Qobuz
This is great content. Very useful, detailed and insightful.
Apple came to Windows 11 with it's native Apple Music app (so far in a beta version) that has lossless playback. It's weird that you didn't mention that in this relatively fresh video.
I was waiting for this for so long! Thanks for the info man!
does it have wasapi? I don't have windows insider
it does play lossless files, but they sound "dirty". they should add exclusive mode to get rid of that "dirt"
@@Ammarx1 hmmmmmm. Try washing them
@@Haydos lmao wash what? playing lossless files locally is fine
I think that pointing out the limitations of the systems one is going to play music on is one of the most important things this video does.
Why is CZcams Music virtually ignored? Are people still salty about the conversion from Google Play Music and losing the ability to create curated libraries from uploaded and purchased music? For streaming the user interface is excellent and since it draws from the entire Google ecosystem, searches and CZcams views included, the suggestions are on point and include what I may be interested in listening to regardless of genre. Additionally, the automatic downloads of my likes and personal and suggested playlists to my mobile devices are very appreciated and useful.
You decide for yourself.
youtube.com/@davidfromamerica1871
To me, it’s understandable that they didn’t include it due to the topic of the video, related to high quality music.
Mainly because of sound quality, that is very inconsistent. You can have a lossless track followed by a very lossy one… and you can’t chose to only play high quality music.
I'm over it lol once i got my playlists set up, it's been excellent. CZcams premium n music combo is worth every penny imo.
@@ChadH2023 I completely agree with you. Ad-free viewing/listening and the ability to download content to my Android and Apple devices is worth the cost.
Hands down best service & best interface, I've tried them all
On 2/8/2023 Tidal launch the HiRes FLAC audio quality.
The Apple Music recommendation system is pretty good, not sure what was happening when you were using it. I looked up Hendrix right now and the “you might also like” row was cream, the doors, Pink Floyd… all classic rock, no pop. Their “radio mode” got a lot better recently as well.
I used Spotify and Apple Music together for some months now on my iPhone 13 Pro Max with the Airpods Pro 2. I have to say that Spotify has the advantage in the UI/UX, Apple Music has the advantage in audio quality. I've had both services on the HipHop preset because I like my metal music a bit more punchy. On Apple Music it really hugged my ears and didn't feel "shy" like Spotify does. While on Apple Music the Mix already reached his supersayajin form, Spotify's mix is still developing. I chose Spotify for the easier use and friends integration, making it so absurdly easy to create playlists for myself and other people.
im pretty sure apple music works better cuz its made to work better with apple's device?? (airpods pro 2)
i just adjust the eq on spotify. then my metal sounds like i want it
Stop talking about wireless headphones and hi-res audio: in this life, you CANNOT mix both things (you’ll get either one or the other, not both at the same time)
Qobuz has the best editorial service. It's like a music magazine. Regarding sound quality, Qobuz does have more high-res titles (above CD quality) than the rest, but what is more important is, that they have simply the best masters.Their standard CD-quality titles in general just sound better.
Love the magazine and articles too.
Thank you for such a great video
Qobuz is absolutely perfect for classical and jazz music, I use it since years ago and the sound is amazing (Golden Sound confirmed, it's the only one really providing lossless music to all platforms), the interface is decent and I never had issues honestly, I don't use the radio function because I know what I want to listen to :)
I think outside of the US unfortunately the choices are very limited. Here in Australia if you want to find the songs of local acts outside of the big names, Spotify and Apple, are the only options where you know they will have pretty much everything. I love different things about Deezer, Qobuz and Tidal but am constantly disappointed with Aussie music choices. I’m sure the same thing applies to many other smaller countries.
A very niche feature is the ability to upload your own library "to the cloud" and have acces to it anywhere. Apple Music, CZcams Music and Deezer can do it, though will compress the file, no lossless in the cloud with these services.
If you download your Apple Music Library onto another media player make sure you are doing that while you are “Online” to get the additional meta data that comes along with the download, like album covers etc etc.
If you have older Apple Music you bought before Apple changed over to Apple Music from iTunes. You have to do the following. Yes I know Apple doesn’t make it easy.😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀
You have select “each” song with a right click or left on the mouse. That opens a window to show you to download the file in 44.1 16 bit CD format.
You have to do this with each song individually. You will now have two copies, the original and the new 44.1 with each song. If you have a very large music library you will be 😂 from the pain in the ass mental breakdown. We suggest you wear a football helmet banging your head against the wall. 😅
I used GPM and YTM for years for this feature but just changed to Qobuz for much better sound quality as you say the cloud is compressed.
Lossless vs Lossy compression is different from sample rate conversion/mixing. There was some case to be made for exclusive mode on the desktop 20 years ago but Windows/Macos mixer has been transparent for many years now. Music goes through all kinds of digital mixing/sample rate conversion during production. It doesn't degrade the sound quality at all.
Thanks for the link for the Lossless Autoswitcher. It works flawlessly for the Mac!
a little surprised pricing was never talked about. I use tidal because it offers 50% off for students and 40% off for first responders. very competitive pricing all around, but this is the best i've seen it for what you're getting
You're right, pricing should've been mentioned, as they are talking on UI and recommendation Systems as well.
Didn't know about that offer btw, thx for informing me
@@Armbrust210 np, it's the number one barrier when it comes to this stuff, imo anyway
Hard to talk about that, because some platforms are just running sales all the time, & their strategies might change anytime. & that's the most easy searching information anyway
in pricing case apple is crazy cheap, students get 5.99 per month and individual plan is 10.99, if you can find someone to divide the cost, it is 15.99 for 5 accounts
good to know! seems like with a dollar more you basically get Dolby Atmos. not really my thing, but still a pretty great deal for students. do you know the minimum units to qualify for student?
Good job! Very comprehensive, you guys covered a ton. I went a little further myself back when Apple first released Apple Lossless and did a listening test, comparing Apple’s lossless to TIDAL top-tier and to Qobuz, with high-res files purchased from HD Tracks as the control. I used an iPad Pro to run all three apps, with an Audio Quest USB-C to USB-B cable to connect to three different DACs. I used the HD-800S, LCD-X 2021 and LCD-5, driven by a Phonitor-X and GSX-Mini, DACs were the Benchmark HGC-II and internal Phonitor-X DAC. (I also listened through B&W 802 speakers, but the headphones were quicker to review subtitles). Normalization and any other optional processing was turned off in the players. Short story, Qobuz clobbered Apple Lossless and TIDAL was a distant third place. Qobuz was the only player where the HD Tracks purchased lossless files were indistinguishable from the streamed file, which of course is the only way things should be.
Very easy to understand. Very informative.
Golden Sounds walk through of the quality - brilliant stuff. Amazing how I've read many descriptions and no on, none, has made such nice straightforward coverage. Brilliant was also the test publishing of MQA. Love it, and it makes skip Tidal. Your UX walkthrough would be better with illustrations - showing the interfaces and giving examples. Else it assumes the user enters and uses the interface which sort of defeats the purpose of the review. UX also varies depending on platform, so there's a lot to cover. Library is more than size, genre, which was left out. Certain genres put different requirements on UX, too. Regardless, nice video, I learned something new.
I mostly stream classical, and for that purpose Qobuz is best in terms of track labeling and selection. I also found Tidal sometimes had sub-par sound quality on some classical albums (meaning the non-MQA albums; I heard distortion that wasn't present in the same tracks on other services).
Hadn't noticed distortion during my Tidal free trial. Could you list a few examples? I listen to Qubuz via Audirvana.
@@natevirtual I don't have a Tidal subscription anymore, so I can't test this one, but one I remember was "Handel: The Organ Concertos - Simon Preston, The English Concert, Trevor Pinnock" (blue album with three feathers on the cover) - Track 7. When the high-pitched organ solo notes play, I hear the kind of crackling distortion you hear on a highly-compressed free tier. (I just played this track with Qobuz and I can confirm there's no distortion). But for some reason, the distortion was present on Tidal Hifi.
@@ninja_boy thanks for that. I'll check it out and report back!
Idagio is my best classical streaming service. Qobuz is second. Tidal's search will not show a whole discography in my experience. Spotify is OK for casual listening.
I had Tidal for two years, but a lot of music were converted to MQA, and I did not like the sound of that, so I switched to Qubuz, which works beautifully with my system. I also have Spotify for the big library and great recommendations.
You must use hi-res DAC (digital analog converter) to be able to enjoy MQA format. So the setup : smartphone -> DAC -> earphone
@@watchHalaziabyAteezis still worse than FLAC
"Very informative" is an understatement for this video. Kudos to you both.
Clearly we need a way to kill the mixer/resample "man in the middle" and get our digital audio straight to the DAC. The next big thing will be whatever virtual-audio-out-bridge-patch software achieves this ... I'd buy it right now! Does it exist?
BTW, I love your desktop lamp, where did you get it?
The Lossless Switcher for Apple Music on the Mac is great! Thanks a lot for the tip. My experience in concern of recommendations on Apple Music is totally different. I have a wide range of musical taste and I think they are really good.
I think majority of people who consume music do so though their mobile devices. And perhaps what most people don't know is that if you play it via bluetooth, via any of these services from say an Iphone, you'll get it in AAC, which is 264kbs, similar to Spotifys quality. You'd need a wired headphone to be able to make use of those bitrates. And even if you did use a wire, you still get capped at a certain level due to the dongle from apple. So you'd need an additional external dac in order to get that lossless format.
Thank you so much for this comment. I did a 30 day trial of Tidal (whatever the higher priced $20 monthly plan is called) and for the life of me I couldn't tell the difference in sound quality playing the same track back and forth. I'm listening on some Audio-Technica Bluetooth headphones through my Android phone. I guess that's why. I don't really have the setup to make Tidal make sense then. I wanted to see what higher quality sounded like. Back to Spotify.
I’m a big fan of Qobuz. Simple interface which focuses purely on quality music (no videos!). Sound quality is wonderful imo.
Thank you for the recommendation of Apple Music lossless switcher.👍
Tidal has underseen some pretty mayor updates in the last month, specially regarding MQA. Compelling enough to revisit a video like this in the future
Update: TIDAL gets a green check for everything now.
I feel like you guys missed the biggest Qobuz advantage which is the up to 60% discount for their store with the highest tier plan. So you can listen to streaming and still choose to permanently own music in whatever format/quality you want.
I have qobuz and didn't even know this lol thanks
Exactly my thoughts, Qobuz Sublime + mainly for downloading or streaming with Roon
The biggest Advantage is that Q. is considerably cheaper than Tidal
I don't feel like I own music permanently unless I have a physical copy 😌
@@TheZodiacalJokerfair but with unencrypted downloads, you can burn a CD or blu ray or make a USB stick full of those downloads.
Yes! Loving the Qobuz love!
Fantastic advice about USB Audio Pro.
I love Tidal but it is still not available in Japan(?). Spotify consistently has any track no matter how obscure that I might be looking for but for some reason changed something where my Amazing Slowdowner music app no longer works with their library. Apple is ok but seems somewhat clunky and often turns up empty searches when I’m looking for a rare track.
Two key Apple features you don't mention - iTunes Match or whatever it's now called which basically uploads your whole music library to Apple servers and then makes it available to stream on all other devices. I love that feature. And the other one - spatial audio/Dolby Atmos. I know it's a mixed bag, but you don't seem to ever mention it in your show's reviews and I think when it works it really adds to the experience of the music.
Spatial Audio is amazing! IMO it’s the best sounding music out there, especially on headphones.
Spatial Audio is pretty wild. I have an Apple TV hooked up to a Yamaha RX-V581 and Dolby Atmos tracks are amazing. Lossless through the Apple TV into my receiver is also amazing. Everything is so crisp and clear.
Itunes match is the reason I can't quit apple music, I have tons of music that aren't on streaming services, also the recommendations are great for me I have found tons of new artists thanks to apple music.
@@SergioCorona960919 just use Plex. It’s way better than Apple, and it sync’s up with your local library and any subscription services (so mine has all my local music and tidal subscription combined, which I can listen to anywhere. Plus better sound quality than Apple by a long shot, and also has Atmos, 360 audio, 360 videos if all that’s your thing. And if you have a good DAC, their MQA is actually great. It’s actually the only thing that convinced me digital music was even worth getting into)
Also a huge thing for me on Apple Music on desktop is library management. Being able to change the tags of songs, rearrange columns in song view, and Smart Playlists just make managing a large library easier. Compare that to something like Spotify or Tidal where songs just get dumped into a big Liked songs playlist.
6:19 I use an RME HDSPe Aio sound card for my PC to listen to Apple Music lossless. (RME now makes the same soundcard for apple computers as well). I changed the bitrate in both Apple Music preferences and my HDSPe bitrate to 192hz. It sounds wonderful, better than the tv's "bitperfect" Apple play going into to my amp.
Qobuz is pretty darn good too. And the cool thing is you can change the bitrate in the middle of the track to actually hear the difference when you have a capable DAC.
I use AM and am very happy with it. Yeah, I need to play through an Apple device (using a iPod Touch 2021 and my iPhone 11) as my source, but it works for me. I even think they're recommendations algorithm is pretty good and getting better.
The lossless switcher on Apple Music has been a total godsend! Probably the first time I've TRULY heard lossless audio. I always thought if the device sample rate was higher, it automatically switches down to the source's sample rate. I've been enjoying my Clear MG Pro's with my ADI-2 DAC at 768 kHz, believing it was matching hi-res file sample rates on its own. I've experimented with hi-res files many times for years, switching between 44.1 and hi-res sample rates, never hearing much of a difference. I thought it was maybe time to give up on the idea of hi-res sounding better, keeping it on hi-res anyways just in case there was a difference on all sources possible. Now I realize the likely reason I didn't hear a difference in the past is probably because I never quite completed the chain to have actual hi-res music in my ears, since it actually is a very specific chain, on top of having less high-end gear in the past that would make differences less distinguishable. Once I downloaded this 3rd party program, it made all the difference! It's a night and day difference and really brings new life to my current setup! If you have a high-end chain with Apple Music on a Mac I highly recommend this!
What third party app did you use?
@the headphone show @goldensound Question for you, on mac can't you just set through the midi application your output to 24-32/192khz and not worry about the file type? I thought that oversampling was something considered to be advantageous, and, according to Archimago's blog on different players, Macs oversampling is actually quite competent and much better than windows or other players.
This was an excellent summary guys, although, I feel you missed the mention of Dolby Atmos/Audio, which is becoming quite prevalent in many music services, and I'm sure will be even more in the coming future, and you are after all a headphone channel (?). In my experience Amazon has tweaked the Atmos codec to suit better a full-size headphone listening experience whilst Apple's implementation seems to be focused on 5.1.4 systems (and above) at home and their AirPods (to an extent). Also, no mention about the display of Lyrics which is what made me stay on Apple Music. Great video still!
Big Qobuz fan here, really easy to use for making playlists and organizing the library.
I think it would have been worth the time to mention Roon. Personally, I believe Roon's metadata is incredible.
Lifetime Roon user, since a few months, and I agree. The main reason for me to stick with both Tidal and Qobuz.
I use Tidal and have had doubts about the user experience. That I might be missing out on something far better. This has reenforced that I'm fine with my choice.
I’m trying Tidal now and it’s incredibly behind Spotify in this sense. Lots of bugs connecting to Bluetooth or Wi-Fi speakers too for some reason
@@bruno_mart only part I hate about Spotify is that it doesn’t support Lossless Audio. Best thing about Spotify for me at least is the music recommendations and music collection!
@@bruno_mart I’ve trialed apple, Spotify, tidal and A/Bed them constantly with high end HPs like the He1000 and Utopia, I honestly cannot tell the difference save maybe for some slight sub-bass on random songs here and there. I’ve spent years building Spotify playlists and the GUI is better to me so no reason to jump ship.
That logic makes no sense
@@bruno_mart I have tidal. The app freezes and crashes way too frequently.
Thank you so much for this!!! I was trying to decide between spotify or Amazon music. Sound quality vs algorithm. I'll lean towards algorithm
One of the best and "exact" comparisons of the big streaming services, well done by your buddy "Golden Sound".
Btw lossless or at least CD quality (mainly 16 bit / 44,1 kHz) is clearly audible on the first seconds if you use some good gear focussing on high quality audio reproduction ;-) Never want to hear less quality than CD. The real sweetspot of audio quality you, were can really hear the difference in sound quality.
Nice video, got Apple Music based on this. As a heads-up: there's a beta Windows app now that features a Lossless toggle. However, in my experience it sounds worse than Apple Music over Android or on my MacBook (both of which sound identical with my Focal Bathys), so something's not right with that Beta app.
That is why it is still in Beta.
It’s not finished being fully cooked yet..😀 That is the same with all Beta Software.
@@davidfromamerica1871 Ayup!
Id love to see an update on this with Spotify's abhorrent newest update that turns the experience into straight frustration. It is literally unusable and I'm watching this video to see what provider i should switch too.
i havent used it since the update....
I have Apple Music and Spotify (family plan so meh, might as well jump on) .. and god it's bad. I used to only use spotify in 2017 but in 2019 i made the switch and it's so so good
Tidal is your choice 😌 no weird things like Spotify.
Amazing video. Thanks
I swiched from Tidal to Qbuz purely because if MQA. I use Roon as the front end though, so UI not really worried. Still use Apples music too with the switch, wish they would get that dedicated mode sorted though on Mac OS
I really did like Qobuz (except you cannot search for playlists - is that still the case?) - but I "had" to return to Tidal because Qobuz was not woking for me on the go/in the car. Qobuz wanted to fix this issue but did not manage to do so.
I am a primarily a DAP listener but I subscribe to Spotify for convenience and their gamechanger recommendations. That said Qobuz offers a tremendous selection available for download, albums and singles, without having to be a subscriber. Based on the titles I have researched there is not that much hi rez out there.
Crazy, just picked up Qobuz last week. Was clearly more consistent but... It's not cheap
I use Deezer and have no issues with the sound quality. If anything, I guess this video proved to me that "lossless" and "bit perfect" doesn't really mean much of anything to me.
I just went on a CD buying splurge after ripping a couple of harder-to-find/not-on-streaming soundtracks. I thought "hey.. these sound different.. why?". So I bought a couple of my favorite albums on CD, ripped them using EAC, and decided to just give them a listen against the same records offered by both Qobuz and Amazon. To my surprise I greatly preferred the ripped CD. I didn't expect there to be any difference. What I am hearing is a "cleaner", fuller sound with more depth in the presentation of space with the CD rips. Things I thought were attributed to sample rates but now I'm wondering if it's a dynamic range thing. Even against 192/24 in Qobuz through Roon.. no contest, I prefer ripped CD files. I haven't found 1 example to the contrary. And I don't know if any of this is real or just a product of me knowing which is which and somehow having a bias (though streaming is a lot more convenient). I don't know if I could pick out which is which blind. However I also don't care at this point. I'm going to continue to collect my favorites on CD, cancel Qobuz, and likely keep Amazon music as a discovery tool for new music and artists. I do now believe that the sound quality of hi-res streaming is overstated. If I didn't carry Amazon I might just go with Spotify for convenience listening.
This scandal is so big that some are calling it StreamerGate. I am not sure who is to blame, as the "man in the middle" is Operating Systems' limitations (Android,Windows,MacOS,etc.) Often you are getting re-mixing AND re-sampling. So yeah, you get a copy of a copy of a lossless song. That's just like a scan of a scan of a scan of a paper document. Doesn't look as good! What I do know is people need to get their s**t together, it's 2023. Whoever can get us a bridge solution to effortlessly get REAL cd quality away from our filthy OS and into our DAC and headphone/speakers/IEMs is going to be a hero.
I can only imagine what a CD buying spree costs these days. Years ago there was a local chain music store that sold used discs as low as $5 US. The jewel case was not sealed and you could audition it as well. The store is long gone as well as any buying sprees for me.
@@tony9554 I would say the average cost of new, non-soundtrack CDs cost me about 7-8 dollars a CD. But much of what I bought was from the 90s. Used are as little as 3-4 dollars but again, it depends on what era and genre you're collecting. Rare stuff is still pricey.
Apple for me using my iPhone, the necessarily lightening to camera cable, an iFi Zen DAC v2 all into a Marantz 8006 analogue amp, MA Radius 90s each with a RELnT Zero sub bass. It’s astonishing on the full digital master quality.
You can also do the singalong lyric thing…….including the new option of sending the singer into the background so we can all channel our Elvis or Taylor S😂
Do you guys think that there's any audible difference in listening to Spotify on max settings through SBC or LDAC? My bluetooth headphone has both codecs available, but i don't know if LDAC would actually show any difference in quality in Spotify being played on my phone..
I tried them all at least two times. They all sound great. Apple only plays lossless in Apple ecosystem (Apple also plays a few db louder to fake sound better). Amazon UI is a huge mess, and Qobuz is not far behind. Both are weak in library and new music compared to Apple and Tidal. Tidal has best UI by far. MQA devices are price matched very well with non-MQA devices now so that's a wash. For me, Tidal library is great, but they shine best for new music of all genres and their algorithm makes the best suggestions for my liking. For all my use cases (2.1 room, office, portable and auto) Tidal is the most seamless.
Note: lossless is not always best, and sometimes it is very poor sounding.
I do hate howTidal promotes MQA as being best of the best SQ and "how the artist intended it to sound".. That's just crap and a lie. The abbreviation itself is a lie. I don't mind promoting things and making it all look a little better than it actually is...that's pretty much the basis of advertisement. But this entire MQA thing really put me off, and it forces people to buy hardware that actually plays it properly. Nobody ever asked for MQA. Nobody needed it. There's absolutely no advantage in terms of SQ. So for me, it's a matter of principle, and the reason why I moved away from Tidal, and to Qobuz. "Lossless is not always best, and sometimes it is very poor sounding": it's not the lossless quality that makes it poor sounding. It's the recording quality.
@@christopher1800 Enjoy Qubuz. I thought it sounded great, but I thought the UI was jenky and the library and algorithms were spotty. Do you also not use Dolby because requires licensed equipment?
@@gdemirjian does anybody who values listening to 2 channel stereo use Dolby? MQA is lossy and essentially false advertising. If you like it cool but no need to get butthurt because it's been called out as misleading
@@oldaudionerd No arguing with regurgitation and nonsense replies. Have a good day, Mr. Troll.
@@gdemirjian sorry your feelings got hurt.
I will probably keep Spotify because of its Connect option, which allows to using its own app without gaps between songs. But i don't like a lot of Spotify's features anymore, such as its plugging of podcasts on its homescreen. I am not into podcasts at all, so that gets annoying quickly. YT music is really nice, the YT playlists are actually pretty nicely build up. A big bonus is that it includes a lot of user uploads, which are not officially published to streaming services. Such as a lot of house music from the 90s.
Thanks for the info. I've tried all of them at the same time and it's the same thoughts. Of course, Roon and UAPP makes a lot of difference, because of the quality, search motor improvement and discovery new music. It be interesting for a video. Also Audirvana, why not?
I love the relay in the Schiit Bifrost 2 that makes an audible click whenever it switches between sample rates. It's like an audio lie detector.
I actually moved from spotify to apple music, simply because iTunes can play local music natively and streaming is kind of a second feature to it
Spotify had "local music" that just took all the mp3s on my computer, couldn't be sorted into playlists, and was super buggy
Dunno if it's still like that
Nice! Good stuff on audio quality. I’m glad I’m with Apple Music on an apple device. I also have Spotify to find new music because Apple Music doesn’t have great discoverability tools.
Also it would have been cool to talk about some other points such as price, bonus features (lyrics/karaoke mode (i know this is on Apple Music), and shown the UI differences.
As someone who still listens to LPs and CDs through a nice system, I found this video unhelpful in learning about lossless streaming. I recently put a DAC in the system, but the info presented here just went over my head. I think I need to find an introduction to high quality music streaming video. (I've been a Spotify subscriber for a few years, but streaming to earbuds via Bluetooth doesn't really help in understanding how to get the best resolution through the two channel system)
Very helpful ❤️❤️❤️
Tip: on Qobuz, on an iPad, selecting the view to be track-specific AND turning the iPad to Portrait orientation gives a nearly full-size album art image. As a guy who once bought my “let’s take a chance” vinyl based solely on album art, this was a nice surprise to stumble upon. Happy listening folks!
Thank you! Its great just wish the resolutions of the album covers where a bit more higher.
I find Amazon HD music streaming markedly inferior sounding to my local flac files even with exclusive mode on. I think there is something we are missing here. Any idea why?
Support/guest/opening acts for your favorite artists at live concerts: The best kind of recommendation algorithm.
Well, that explains a lot. Qobuz is my streaming service of choice, as the others never sound that great on my system. Now I know why. Thank you for the video sir!
If YT Music were included, I would probably rank it quite up there for discoverability.
It has around a decade of my watch history to pull from.
I mainly use it to run my car stereo on the way to and from work, discovering music in the meantime.
This, I've discovered so many of my favourites with it, and more new music than in any other platforms
For $10 a month with my old CZcams red subscription, I miss Google play music. But it’s nice YT music is included for free with the CZcams premium sub, so I don’t need another music subscription
Once you’ve been with Apple Music for a while it starts getting pretty damn good at suggesting songs. Now I’ve got the iPhone 14 with 256gb storage, I can store a thousand odd songs easily in lossless or hi-res lossless. I use a ddhifi lightning to usb c to hook up to the dac, and am very impressed with the sound quality. Blows my $1000 plus Yamaha cd player out of the park.
I use Apple music on Android.
Hey! We need a new video about Tidal!Tidal has updated (august 2023) their different sound quality indicators. The highest one now says "Max", and then is new mumbo jumbo on the homepage! It seems they changed like every description, so this video is more or less obsolete regarding Tidal. I think.
Seems like the update for Apple Music on Windows allows lossless now. Any concerns on adjusting sample rating?
CZcams Music. Curious because I honestly don't know. Why was it left off this list? Is it just cause it doesn't support lossless? Or is there something more to the decision?
Would be great to also touch on how much musicians make from plays on each service.
Currently Deezer is the best at that. If they had a "connect" app like Tidal Connect, I might consider switching.
Too little in general. Best to buy on bandcamp on bandcamp fridays
@@Hirnlego999 that's the first Friday of the month, right?
I have not had recommendations issue you mention in Apple Music, I mostly listen to Rock across its sub genres and Have got great recommendations over the last decade I have been using.
Very Well Done, thank you
Just for some perspective, I'll point out that the air thru which sound is propagated, is not lossless. Your eardrums are not lossless. The mics that recorded your music are not lossless. Your speakers & headphones are not lossless. A lot of my favorite music was recorded in an era when analog electronics (including the tape decks and record pressing gear) were extremely variable. Music can suffer a _lot_ of 'loss', and still be perfectly enjoyable! This may explain why few musicians are particularly concerned with high end audio. (Even that famous audio critic Neil Young recently recorded to digital! - lossy by definition.)
I don’t have to ever change my sample rate on Amazon music HD for desktop? Once you set your preference to hd/ultra hd, it shows which sample rate my device is capable of and then the sample rate it’s playing at. Exclusive mode on, of course.
What is exclusive mode and how do you turn it on ? I don't see that as an option.
@@Kunu_ It would be the speaker icon where you adjust volume/source. You might have to enable it in the options iirc and it might be limited to certain devices, but both my headphone dac/amp and audio interface have no problem in exclusive mode.
@@ESPlover707 is it only on desktop?
Very honest reviews
I just like Deezer's Flow. Endless music and you can change your vibe as you need, thats pretty neat. Hopefully they fix the bit-perfect issue sometime soon
CZcams music has similar which is called radio you choose the artist and vibe ie chill, upbeat so on it better than flow on deezer
I very much appreciate the Qobuz weekly “New Releases”. I consistently want to try the majority of those, unlike Tidal’s.
Great info 👍 👌 👏
The only issue I have on my iphone and ipad is that while my dragonfly black changes lighting to Amber to indicate high res in Amazon HD, I am only seeing it light green (44.1) in Apple Music, although I have set quality to high-res lossless. I know that lossless does not mean 96khz but I tried to find songs in high-res and could not. Am I doing something wrong? I tried a couple of songs on both platforms and I can say the Amazon HD version does sound at least a bit better.
Apple Music suggests, eventually, based on what you listen to. It takes some time. Maybe months. Weeks for sure. Depending on how much you listen to and like and if your genre tastes are narrow (less options) or wide (any genre at all!) So, as it being pop centric, it probably is still learning. However, I find the marketing AI will always overpower our interests no matter the platform. Frustrating on all platforms that act this way. Making Deezer's simplicity appealing. (You made it sound bad but, if less is more and just want to search and play with lossless, it is a good pick, but costs more.) However, I'm an all Apple home so, AM works best and, with AM Classical and Atmos for my surround setup using an ATV4K, it is a no brainer.
You guys know how to make proper a/b tests, can't you do one of them and show how much audible difference there is between both lossless compared to other service's lossless and lossless compared to lossy services? Would've been excellent to have included in this video.
If you know what to listen out for, then it's easy to instantly tell the difference between lossy and lossless in the first few seconds of any song, and once you start hearing it you won't be able to stop hearing it.
It's more difficult to describe, but one thing to listen out for is the quality, depth and presence of lower frequency information. Lossy compression can really destroy this.
@@mhagain Oh yeah definitively, lossy compared to lossless can easily be heard. Spotify and YT are easy to pick out if you know what to listen for. It's the comparison between the "true" lossless options and Tidals lossless I'm talking about. Given the same source, volume matched, A/B, I can't notice a difference between them. There are audible differences between some (lossless) songs that I assume has to do with different sources supplied but that's not unique to any platform though. I should probably do another shot at this test with some new samples but I might just have to accept that my hearing's not good enough any longer. But, why does Tidal pass null-tests (against other lossless options) if the quality's so "obviously" bad? I don't get it lol.
Interesting video, and I agree with Golden's assessment of Qobuz. I think Qobuz has been helped a great deal by AUDIRVĀNA STUDIO. Their interface is great and the fact that I can access their software from a phone or table is wonderful. I'm running Studio on an older Win10 Pentium-based (fanless) laptop with 4GB of ram and it runs quite well. In the car, I'm fine with using the standard Qobuz app and don't care about the limitation imposed by Android on sampling. I also, have USB Audio Player Pro, which works fine if I want to drive the DAC with bit-perfect audio when I'm traveling.