Do certain music platforms sound worse than others or am I crazy?

[niofalpha]

I've been using Spotify for 8 years, and I've always said that the audio quality was worse than YouTube for certain songs. I mentioned this to a friend recently, and he agreed. 

 

I tested a 5 songs (not blind, listen to a song and tell if they thought there was a noticeable difference not being regulated to volume) between the same songs on different platforms. 

 

I thought Spotify sounded noticeably worse than Apple Music and YouTube for several songs, but one of them I think can be attributed to the Music Video version of the songs (Castle of Glass by Linkin Park) having a different hook. I tested using my headphones (Sennheiser HD 598) and my AirPod Pros and thought the trend was similar, but for different songs.

 

I googled it and everything said I was wrong, that Spotify should be atleast better than YouTube. I'm curious if anyone has any similar experiences or thoughts on this.

[Mihle]

I am not sure about YouTube Music spesifically, but Spotify high quality (premium, have to change a setting) is higher bitrate than YouTube videos, and do sound better than YouTube Videos to me.

 

I can't comment on Apple Music.

[Skiiwee29]

I've personally noticed and others have as well around here that Amazon Music has the best. 

[Mark Kaine]

if there only was a way to check the bitrates... oh wait there is ! but i honestly cant be bothered,  i don't even use spotify (like ever)

 

And also i think "while clearly formulated" your question is too broad... this will vary (due to many things, bitrate,  settings... eq, etc...)

 

But if spotify sounds worse than yt, then oh, boy,  yt is already one of the worst I've ever heard quality wise - although as per above, it depends on the specific upload obviously,  but generally lowest bitrates (under 100), terrible bass "boost" and distorted highs seems to be the norm.

 

 

[LIGISTX]

22 minutes ago, niofalpha said:

I've been using Spotify for 8 years, and I've always said that the audio quality was worse than YouTube for certain songs. I mentioned this to a friend recently, and he agreed. 

 

I tested a 5 songs (not blind, listen to a song and tell if they thought there was a noticeable difference not being regulated to volume) between the same songs on different platforms. 

 

I thought Spotify sounded noticeably worse than Apple Music and YouTube for several songs, but one of them I think can be attributed to the Music Video version of the songs (Castle of Glass by Linkin Park) having a different hook. I tested using my headphones (Sennheiser HD 598) and my AirPod Pros and thought the trend was similar, but for different songs.

 

I googled it and everything said I was wrong, that Spotify should be atleast better than YouTube. I'm curious if anyone has any similar experiences or thoughts on this.

If you want good quality, just get amazon music HD. I don't use it often.... most of the time I will just let spotify stream my music, but when I am sitting at my PC (like right now) listening to my very nice headphone setup, it just doesn't make sense to have nice headphones, amp and dac and not use the highest quality music you can get...

 

Nothin like good old 24 bit FLAC.

 

[Takumidesh]

13 minutes ago, Mihle said:

I am not sure about YouTube Music spesifically, but Spotify high quality (premium, have to change a setting) is higher bitrate than YouTube videos, and do sound better than YouTube Videos to me.

 

I can't comment on Apple Music.

yt music uses the opus codec which is very very good. it may be a lower bitrate than spotify, but the quality is very high.

 

Opus pretty much outperforms every streaming / compression oriented codec outright.

 

http://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm

[DrMacintosh]

The Apple Music library is like 100% lossless.

 

The most compressed audio option is Apples 256kps. This used to be the standard when purchasing music from iTunes. Lossless starts (and is the only one usable by Mobile apple devices without external equipment) is 24Bit/48 KHz. The Hi-Res Lossless option goes up to 192 KHz but you need an external DAC/AMP. There might be a MacBook Pro now that can play the highest end option out of the box.

 

In this regard, Apple Music offers the best sounding tracks out of all streaming music services except Tidal. Apple Music also has a bigger library than Amazon Music or Spotify.

 

Oh and Apple Music has Dolby Atmos/Spatial audio which is a pretty big win imo. Not all tracks sound better in Atmos, but a lot do.

[Mihle]

5 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

yt music uses the opus codec which is very very good. it may be a lower bitrate than spotify, but the quality is very high.

 

Opus pretty much outperforms every streaming / compression oriented codec outright.

 

http://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm

As I said I did not compare to YouTube Music, I compared to YouTube Videos, I know they are different, but YouTube Videos Def sound way worse than Spotify to me (If Spotify high quality).

 

EDIT: I have not read that closely that link, but it seems to test around 105 kbps, it's not representative to the bitrates of what Spotify high quality, or Apple music is. (Spotify highest quality is 320 AAC I think?)

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Mihle said:

I know they are different, but YouTube Videos Def sound way worse than Spotify to me

YouTube audio is effectively a heavily compressed MP3.

[Takumidesh]

4 minutes ago, Mihle said:

As I said I did not compare to YouTube Music, I compared to YouTube Videos, I know they are different, but YouTube Videos Def sound way worse than Spotify to me (If Spotify high quality).

I guess I just don't really consider youtube to be a music streaming platform so I assumed when people said youtube it was implied to be yt music.

[BobVonBob]

For 99.9% of the human race there is no audible difference between 320 kbps MP3, 256 kbps AAC (Apple Music non-lossless, Spotify web), 320 kbps Vorbis (Spotify apps), 256 kbps Opus (YouTube Music), and lossless audio (Tidal/Deezer/Apple Music lossless/Amazon Music/etc.).

 

What you might be hearing are different masterings of the recording, although it's pretty uncommon for tracks to be mastered differently between services.

 

At the end of the day, listen to what you like best. There's no tangible difference, but if you prefer it then who cares?

[spartaman64]

if you are talking about regular youtube then it should be worse but youtube music should be around on par with spotify. and ofc as others said theres lossless music streaming services which offer the theoretical best quality. theres also other things like different masters so maybe the youtube version of the song has a master that you like better than the one on spotify

[creesch]

19 hours ago, niofalpha said:

I've been using Spotify for 8 years, and I've always said that the audio quality was worse than YouTube for certain songs. I mentioned this to a friend recently, and he agreed. 

 

I tested a 5 songs (not blind, listen to a song and tell if they thought there was a noticeable difference not being regulated to volume) between the same songs on different platforms. 

 

I thought Spotify sounded noticeably worse than Apple Music and YouTube for several songs, but one of them I think can be attributed to the Music Video version of the songs (Castle of Glass by Linkin Park) having a different hook. I tested using my headphones (Sennheiser HD 598) and my AirPod Pros and thought the trend was similar, but for different songs.

 

I googled it and everything said I was wrong, that Spotify should be atleast better than YouTube. I'm curious if anyone has any similar experiences or thoughts on this.

 

 

Everyone is responding with suggestions for other services, but I am wondering where and how you tested this?  

 

For example if you tested it on a phone with spotify was this on or off wifi? Spotify by default will lower the quality when not on wifi for example. If you want higher quality you'd need to go into the settings and set it as a preference. On the desktop there is also an option I believe to set the standard audio quality.  

 

I am also curious how you quantify "better", what sort of differences are you hearing basically. 

 

[rice guru]

19 hours ago, niofalpha said:

I've been using Spotify for 8 years, and I've always said that the audio quality was worse than YouTube for certain songs. I mentioned this to a friend recently, and he agreed. 

 

I tested a 5 songs (not blind, listen to a song and tell if they thought there was a noticeable difference not being regulated to volume) between the same songs on different platforms. 

 

I thought Spotify sounded noticeably worse than Apple Music and YouTube for several songs, but one of them I think can be attributed to the Music Video version of the songs (Castle of Glass by Linkin Park) having a different hook. I tested using my headphones (Sennheiser HD 598) and my AirPod Pros and thought the trend was similar, but for different songs.

 

I googled it and everything said I was wrong, that Spotify should be atleast better than YouTube. I'm curious if anyone has any similar experiences or thoughts on this.

The big problem with comparing services is what master does each service deliver many songs have different masters per streaming service. Also YouTube compression when processed can alter audio to potentially make music sound "better". While it's just technically different but most likely not "better'. But I'd it's YouTube music your comparing with it should be about the same in regards to quality but again different masters can result in different quality.