Which streaming service has best sound quality?

[Ridinhi 5,000+ posts]

Currently using Spotify. Can find just about any song I search for. But I feel the quality is not what I would like it to be. I honestly think that YouTube plays better quality as far as loudness. What are you guys using?

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[SlugButter]

I use Spotify and pandora. My daughter uses Apple Music and it seems better than Pandora or Spotify.

 

[Ridinhi 5,000+ posts]

I use Spotify and pandora. My daughter uses Apple Music and it seems better than Pandora or Spotify.

I may have to check into that. I read that Amazon music has nice hd quality.

 

[Popwarhomie 5,000+ posts]

Amazon HD. Lossless quality.

Apple music is supposedly getting a quality upgrade.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

What about youtube itself?

 

[Clifff150 10+ year member]

Apple says lossless quality will be available starting next month. Amazon HD dropped its price from $14.99 to $9.99 as well which matches Apple. I find it funny the new AirPods that can be wired don’t support lossless.

 

[Ridinhi 5,000+ posts]

What about youtube itself?

YouTube actually plays louder than Spotify on my phone. I’m did go an adjust setting in Spotify such as eq and quality. Haven’t played anything yet though

 

[Nerdy1980s]

I don't think spotify has HD audio, but Tidal and I think Amazon both has HD audio.

That being said, I usually download Spotify at High and not Very High. I'm sure on a high end system, you could tell the difference. But that's on a really good speakers only. But if your going in that direction for audio quality, you might as well just go with a streaming service that offers true HD audio, because you can actually tell the difference between MP3 and HD audio.

(I'm mostly talking about CD quality audio. It's a whole different ball game if your buying newer music that was recorded specifically for Blu-Ray Audio. (Forget off hand the exact name of that format.)

FYI: regular Blu-Rays and 4k movie discs both use Blu-ray audio. So if your getting, say, a Blu-ray of a classical concert (with video), your also getting Blu-Ray audio quality. Of course blu-ray/4k movies all have blu-ray audio quality.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

YouTube actually plays louder than Spotify on my phone. I’m did go an adjust setting in Spotify such as eq and quality. Haven’t played anything yet though

You can pay youtube to play in the background. I can't say certain things about what I do, but I know that youtube songs on their playlists are very high quality, if the uploader put them up in high quality. So you can pay youtube to be able to run in the background, so you can just play your own built playlists or others. There's another way to do that, @Ridinhi email me or text me bro and I'll show you something.

 

[metalheadjoe 10+ year member]

What about youtube itself?

Youtube music is terrible. I.

You can pay youtube to play in the background. I can't say certain things about what I do, but I know that youtube songs on their playlists are very high quality, if the uploader put them up in high quality. So you can pay youtube to be able to run in the background, so you can just play your own built playlists or others. There's another way to do that, @Ridinhi email me or text me bro and I'll show you something.

I can't speak to youtube sound quality, but youtube music is absolutely awful as an app. I use it because google play music defaulted to it. It's terribly organized. You can't even sort your songs alphabetically; they show up in the order you downloaded them, and you cannot change that.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Youtube music is terrible. I.
I can't speak to youtube sound quality, but youtube music is absolutely awful as an app. I use it because google play music defaulted to it. It's terribly organized. You can't even sort your songs alphabetically; they show up in the order you downloaded them, and you cannot change that.

They quality sounds good at home, at least. There's ways to do things. Idk, whatever works.

 

[Popwarhomie 5,000+ posts]

Youtube is 256kbps.
Lossless is 1411kbps.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

Youtube is 256kbps.
Lossless is 1411kbps.

It is, and it isn't at the same time.

256 isn't bad quality. 128 leaves more to be desired, but 256 is fairly good. I tend to store songs at 320. 256 was always pretty good overall, I demo'd on that bit rate with many songs, sounded well and performed well, but we weren't doing true SQ stuff. There's certain bit rate where your ears probably aren't going to hear it. Depends on the type of music, as well.

Dude, at some point the song file becomes huge over 256 or 320. I have some songs in the 1000+ bit rate area, and the files are so damn big, I'd rather have a 256/320.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

And bit rate doesn't mean crap if your audio engineer clipped TF outta everything. That's a problem I find in rap a lot. Electronic music always seems to have some of the cleanest music, as far as quality, clipping, stuff like that.

I do know a higher bit rate will make your system louder, to a degree. There is a difference between 128 bit rate and 256. I tested it, actually, with my 9887 and my 9.2x and my 9.1's, and my rainbow 6.5's. 256 was louder than 128, but between 256 and 320, there was not an audible difference I could hear. I can't imagine someone needing a higher bit rate than 320, in all reality, unless you're doing competition stuff or have autistic ears or something.

 

[Nerdy1980s]

I can't think of a worse music streaming service than Youtube. Yes, newer songs will play at a higher quality (bit rate) than older videos, but Youtube got in the game far too late. And compared to any true music streaming service like Spotify, Tidal, Rhapsody, Youtube ***** as an music streaming interface.

I"m not familiar with Amazon music streaming. Pandora is what it is. Pandora fills a niche in the music streaming service, and does it very well.