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ultra_prescriptivist t1_j9uvn14 wrote

Reply to comment by Expensive_Yam_1742 in Having a hard time differentiating between Spotify and tidal hi-fi by Not-Icarus

>If you have to listen back and forth many times to hear a difference, the difference isn’t worth it. It should be obvious.

Totally agree with this.

However, there are a few things I'd like to address elsewhere in your comment.

>For one, tidal isn’t even lossless, so it has its own “color”.

While MQA technically isn't lossless, that doesn't mean that people can easily tell between Tidal and any other streaming service. In fact, all evidence points to the fact that MQA sounds the same as standard FLAC in blind listening tests.

> On high quality recordings, the differences are very obvious.

This is actually something of a myth - lossy audio codecs do not adversely affect dynamic range, nor do they affect "high quality" genres more than others. In fact, at low bitrates, imperfections may be more audible in genres that are more sensitive to time domain artifacts (such as electronic music) than with, say, classical music.

>At some point with the right gear and the right recordings, it will be extremely obvious.

Again, this is a common misconception that isn't actually true. Blind tests have shown that owning expensive gear doesn't really make much of a difference when it comes to discerning higher bitrate msuic from lower bitrate. Here's a CD vs Hi-Res study, and here's a more informal but still well conducted test for CD vs MP3.

The reason being that lossy audio codecs base their algorithms on psychoacoustic models of human hearing to determine what audio data human ears can and can't hear. So while you may be able to drop $20K on audio equipment, you still have to live with the same old ears you had before!

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Expensive_Yam_1742 t1_j9vae5m wrote

No interest in the blind AB testing. That’s not how we listen to music. And I’m gonna be honest, it’s blatantly obvious on some tracks. There’s no myth to what I and many other people hear just because the science hasn’t been able to pinpoint what’s going on. I don’t actually care why. What I do know is that one sounds much fuller and less compressed than the other. Also, as a matter of principle, I think when you have high performance gear it’s worth having the best quality source. You wouldn’t put street tires on a Ferrari even if they would probably work OK.

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ultra_prescriptivist t1_j9vz78y wrote

>No interest in the blind AB testing. That’s not how we listen to music.

That's not really relevant if the goal is to confirm whether or not we can spot a difference between two sources, though.

>And I’m gonna be honest, it’s blatantly obvious on some tracks.

If that's the case, blind testing it would be a breeze, no?

>There’s no myth to what I and many other people hear just because the science hasn’t been able to pinpoint what’s going on.

The science is actually pretty clear - if you think the difference is "blatantly obvious" but you still can't pass a simple listening test, then it's the placebo effect.

>What I do know is that one sounds much fuller and less compressed than the other.

That's the placebo effect.

>Also, as a matter of principle, I think when you have high performance gear it’s worth having the best quality source.

That's perfectly reasonable. You don't have to invent all the other stuff just to rationalize this, though.

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solid12345 t1_j9wxiz5 wrote

Some of these people crack me up. Even if we pretend there is a difference, you’ll get so lost in the music after a few minutes you won’t even end up noticing the very minute details. I tried Tidal, noticed no differences to my ears on my HEKse and Utopia and kept Spotify. I’m not going to throw out years of playlists and a better GUI just to hear a hi-hat at a slightly different pitch. There is more to a service than bitrate.

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