Please take 5-10 minutes before (potentially) wasting your money on lossless music

[Stahlmann]

Audiophiles often claim that lossless music services like Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music, and Apple Music, or FLAC-encoded CDs sound much better than compressed music streaming services such as YouTube Music or Spotify. I have been in the same situation before, swearing that I could hear a significant difference when first trying out Tidal. After discovering this, I showed it to a friend who was also impressed by the improvement.

 

However, it turns out that most, if not all, of the perceived improvement was actually just a placebo effect in my case.

 

To find out if you and your audio equipment can hear the difference between lossy and lossless compression formats, you can use the ABX test method. The test takes 5-10 minutes for a quick result or up to 30 minutes for a more definitive answer. During the test, you switch between three synced audio tracks and identify which of the two (A or B) is the same as the reference track X. The reference track may be either lossy or lossless. The purpose of the test is not to determine which one sounds better. The purpose of the test is to determine if you can reliably distinguish between the tracks.

 

ABX High Fidelity Test à la Tidal (digitalfeed.net)

 

In my case, I only got 40% of them correct. Even within this 40%, they were mostly just wild guesses. If there was a difference, it was so small that I couldn't tell even after multiple playbacks. In general, I cannot distinguish between 320 kbps AAC and lossless FLAC audio, even when listening to it very analytically. So, especially when casually enjoying music, there is no way I would ever be able to tell the difference.

 

After taking this test, I can no longer tell the difference between lossless audio from Tidal and lossy audio from YouTube Music as I could before. The test has completely taken away the placebo effect. Also, my friend had the same experience after taking this ABX test. Since then, we both switched to cheaper or better providers without regretting it.

 

Yes, I'm aware that the test results can vary a lot between different people because of hearing loss (or lack there of), audio setup or musical training, etc. But I urge you to keep an open mind and recommend that both audiophiles and casual listeners do one of these tests before deciding how much to spend on music streaming or FLAC-encoded CDs. You might be surprised with the results.

 

For additional context:

For this test I used Beyerdynamic Amiron Home headphones connected to a FiiO K5 Pro AMP/DAC combo. My hearing stops between 16 and 17 kHz, which is normal for my age (mid-twenties). I haven't done this exact test with my other audio equipment, such as my Samsung HW-Q80R soundbar or my AKG N400 TWS IEMs, but when I switched between Tidal and YouTube Music I didn't notice any significant difference other than the overall volume levels.

[Zando_]

I have some audiophile friends, from various things they've said when discussing music/audio gear, I believe a large part of it is sitting down and learning to tell the differences. Sort of like how, when I was learning piano as a kid, the teacher had me sit down with a set of headphones and listen to various songs, learning to pick out specific instruments from them in order to hear what they were doing. For a lot of folks it likely is placebo still, but if you want to justify it with a reason other than "I like it", you can learn to. 

 

I buy CDs and rip them to FLAC so I can put the files on my iPod, I haven't put the time in to listening so closely to music that I can tell the differences between a FLAC or MP3. 

[Stahlmann]

4 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

Sort of like how, when I was learning piano as a kid, the teacher had me sit down with a set of headphones and listen to various songs, learning to pick out specific instruments from them in order to hear what they were doing. For a lot of folks it likely is placebo still, but if you want to justify it with a reason other than "I like it", you can learn to. 

I also like listening to "busy" songs by picking out individual instruments and analyzing them more closely. My point being, i can do it pretty reliably with compressed audio and it doesn't really get noticeably easier on high quality audio.

[Psittac]

Well, I know for a fact that going the other direction from Tidal down to a standard YouTube video unequivocally makes a difference. While I was testing the same pair of headphones on different dacs and amps all nuance was lost and the YouTube video (not YouTube music) was the same on a $40 solution as a $1000 one.

[Levent]

Shit test. Barely any difference between sound clips.

 

Let me tell you, difference between this and 320kbps is night and day.

[Stahlmann]

10 minutes ago, Levent said:

Shit test. Barely any difference between sound clips.

All these screenshots show is that most if not all of the compression is the top frequency range, which shows us why people with normal hearing probably can't hear the difference. Isn't that really a shit test if that's just how compression works? Doesn't that kind of prove my point?

 

If not, can you point be towards a test that is better at pointing out the differences?

[Stahlmann]

7 minutes ago, Psittac said:

Well, I know for a fact that going the other direction from Tidal down to a standard YouTube video unequivocally makes a difference. While I was testing the same pair of headphones on different dacs and amps all nuance was lost and the YouTube video (not YouTube music) was the same on a $40 solution as a $1000 one.

Are you sure that you didn't just pay less attention to the music because there was also a video playing at the same time? I can never concentrate on the actual music when watching a video.

 

Just going back and forth between 2 audio apps isn't a very effective way of testing. Slight differences in volume can already make the difference between "losing nuance" and keeping it. Because of this reason i specifically talked about a test where you can switch between these synced samples.

[Psittac]

28 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

I have some audiophile friends, from various things they've said when discussing music/audio gear, I believe a large part of it is sitting down and learning to tell the differences. Sort of like how, when I was learning piano as a kid, the teacher had me sit down with a set of headphones and listen to various songs, learning to pick out specific instruments from them in order to hear what they were doing. For a lot of folks it likely is placebo still, but if you want to justify it with a reason other than "I like it", you can learn to. 

 

I buy CDs and rip them to FLAC so I can put the files on my iPod, I haven't put the time in to listening so closely to music that I can tell the differences between a FLAC or MP3. 

This is exactly what I wanted to say just didn't know how to say it. If I take the time to examine the differences in less impactful components I can figure it out through rigorous attention and methods but if I'm just casual listening I can't tell. My general theory is that if I can tell the difference while paying attention then it is always there for casual consumption even if it really makes no real impact on the experience overall. Then you have to consider that your brain kind of equalizes every thing out and gets used to it negating most of the impact.

 

Personally I have fun doing all of this and can afford a streaming service, even though I don't use the highest version of tidal. I figure why not put my best foot forward even with all things considered 

[Levent]

4 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

All these screenshots show is that most if not all of the compression is the top frequency range, which shows us why people with normal hearing probably can't hear the difference. Isn't that really a shit test if that's just how compression works?

Yeah sure, if your idea of high quality is just 500kbps then yeah it’s hard to notice the difference. As I said, if I use my own media difference is night and day.

[Stahlmann]

5 minutes ago, Levent said:

Yeah sure, if your idea of high quality is just 500kbps then yeah it’s hard to notice the difference. As I said, if I use my own media difference is night and day.

Give me some better examples then. Even if that means sending me the audio files to try it out myself. Sure, you can probably point out the difference on a spectro, I never claimed they're the same in a technical way. But does that really matter if we can't hear it?

[Stahlmann]

8 minutes ago, Psittac said:

Personally I have fun doing all of this and can afford a streaming service, even though I don't use the highest version of tidal. I figure why not put my best foot forward even with all things considered 

Even if you can afford stuff, you can still save some money where it makes sense. Saving $10-$20 a month might not sound like much but over 2-3 years that's basically a mid-range GPU upgrade for example.

[Psittac]

23 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Are you sure that you didn't just pay less attention to the music because there was also a video playing at the same time? I can never concentrate on the actual music when watching a video.

 

Just going back and forth between 2 audio apps isn't a very effective way of testing. Slight differences in volume can already make the difference between "losing nuance" and keeping it. Because of this reason i specifically talked about a test where you can switch between these synced samples.

Yes that's why I said "for a fact" and used the qualifier "unequivocally".  I was AB testing different dac's and amp's, had all of them hooked up at the same time and was compensating for differences in volume.  Using 4 different ways of powering a headphone and 3 different headphones isn't just a difference in app volume. *Also I wasn't watching the video's (and let me clarify my original statement, I wasn't claiming that say Tidal is better than Pandora, I was saying that going the other direction IE: down in quality from the standard IS detrimental.  Potentially the same thing as cables, they can't improve over standard but they can hurt it) *Aaand YouTube Music is not the same as YouTube, The latter puts audio second to video and while I haven't used YouTube Music, I'd imagine these deficiencies are gone.

 

How can you say your test isn't biased?

 

This is all theory crafting, I have personal experience with my best efforts to remove any placebo.  My potential placebo effect is about equal to your test's potential validity, no one truly knows the answer to either.

[Psittac]

14 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Even if you can afford stuff, you can still save some money where it makes sense. Saving $10-$20 a month might not sound like much but over 2-3 years that's basically a mid-range GPU upgrade for example.

Are you just looking to contradict everything that everyone say's different than you?

 

24 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Give me some better examples then. Even if that means sending me the audio files to try it out myself. Sure, you can probably point out the difference on a spectro, I never claimed they're the same in a technical way. But does that really matter if we can't hear it?

*Like he said, rip something from a CD as lossless then compress it and keep both files

[Tigerleon]

Just use Spotify

[Stahlmann]

1 hour ago, Psittac said:

Are you just looking to contradict everything that everyone say's different than you?

I'm discussing. Isn't that what a forum is for?

 

1 hour ago, Psittac said:

Yes that's why I said "for a fact" and used the qualifier "unequivocally".  I was AB testing different dac's and amp's, had all of them hooked up at the same time and was compensating for differences in volume.  Using 4 different ways of powering a headphone and 3 different headphones isn't just a difference in app volume. *Also I wasn't watching the video's (and let me clarify my original statement, I wasn't claiming that say Tidal is better than Pandora, I was saying that going the other direction IE: down in quality from the standard IS detrimental.  Potentially the same thing as cables, they can't improve over standard but they can hurt it) *Aaand YouTube Music is not the same as YouTube, The latter puts audio second to video and while I haven't used YouTube Music, I'd imagine these deficiencies are gone.

English isn't my first language. While I could have googled what "unequivocally" means (now I do) I obviously misunderstood your other post.

 

1 hour ago, Psittac said:

How can you say your test isn't biased?

I can't exclude bias because i'm also talking about a personal experience. To claim i'm not biased in this context would be straight up lying.

 

1 hour ago, Psittac said:

This is all theory crafting, I have personal experience with my best efforts to remove any placebo.  My potential placebo effect is about equal to your test's potential validity, no one truly knows the answer to either.

I agree. In the end this is a personal decision. I was asking to keep an open mind to potentially debunk placebo. If you can actually hear the difference and you are sure that it's not a placebo effect, don't let me tell you otherwise. I was just making my point clear that it doesn't hurt to try.

 

I'm not talking about you specifically, but many audiophiles are so high on copium that they even refuse to try anything that might convince them otherwise. And that's the main reason why i started the thread to begin with.

 

40 minutes ago, Tigerleon said:

Just use Spotify

Unironically, that's basically the TL;DR.

 

Audio is good enough and the whole software around it is simply the best in the industry, which is probably why it's also the most polular service.

 

As a close second my personal choice is YouTube Music, mostly because it's tightly integrated with regular YouTube and comes as an attractive bundle with YouTube Premium.

[Psittac]

7 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

I'm discussing. Isn't that what a forum is for?

 

English isn't my first language. While I could have googled what "unequivocally" means (now I do) I obviously misunderstood your other post.

 

I can't exclude bias because i'm also talking about a personal experience. To claim i'm not biased in this context would be straight up lying.

 

I agree. In the end this is a personal decision. I was asking to keep an open mind to potentially debunk placebo. If you can actually hear the difference and you are sure that it's not a placebo effect, don't let me tell you otherwise. I was just making my point clear that it doesn't hurt to try.

 

I'm not talking about you specifically, but many audiophiles are so high on copium that they even refuse to try anything that might convince them otherwise. And that's the main reason why i started the thread to begin with.

 

Unironically, that's basically the TL;DR.

 

Audio is good enough and the whole software around it is simply the best in the industry, which is probably why it's also the most polular service.

 

As a close second my personal choice is YouTube Music, mostly because it's tightly integrated with regular YouTube and comes as an attractive bundle with YouTube Premium.

It just appeared that you had an agenda in mind when all I did was say that I can hear a difference for sure when going down in quality.  Between my lack of clarification and the lack of a common language I got a little hostile, I apologize for that.

 

The bias I am claiming is the original test, I don't have faith in it being on the up and up.

 

I know that I heard a lack of difference when switching to youtube (not youtube music), all of the changes from one budget setup to another was nullified by reducing bitrate, that I can say for certain.  And I did try, with a lot of effort and time and equipment I tested this reduction in bitrate.

 

I agree that a ton of the audio hobby is fluff and fake news, but as I laid out in other posts, I don't mind paying a little bit more for tidal family plan hifi not master vs something like pandora or spotify.  The main reason I am willing to spend a little extra is because tidal gives a bigger payout to it's musicians than spotify, the added quality is second to this.  But then again, not once, did I claim to hear a difference when going up in bitrate.  Everything was just lost in communication.  If there is a minor improvement great, if it's a placebo.... I'm not doing it for the sound quality to begin with.  This is a very subjective and broad topic/hobby.

 

But you missed one thing through this entire post...... Get a lossless track that you know is high quality, and compress it to different levels yourself so that you know for certain what you started with and what you are ending with.  Then open it in a media player, press random and close your eyes.  Several copies of the same track at different levels, then open your eyes and see what bitrate it's at.  I might actually do this myself on my highest quality and or most revealing components to see if I can tell.

[Stahlmann]

1 hour ago, Psittac said:

But you missed one thing through this entire post...... Get a lossless track that you know is high quality, and compress it to different levels yourself so that you know for certain what you started with and what you are ending with.  Then open it in a media player, press random and close your eyes.  Several copies of the same track at different levels, then open your eyes and see what bitrate it's at.  I might actually do this myself on my highest quality and or most revealing components to see if I can tell.

I might try that but i don't have any known lossless music files on hand. Is there a place where i can get one for free to test it out? Or do i need to go out and buy a FLAC CD?

 

That won't really change anything for me though, since i exclusively use streaming to listen to music. And i already found out that i couldn't hear the difference between lossy comressed audio and the ones that claim to stream lossless 16 bit 44.1 kHz or higher bitrate content, which basically already is lossless CD-quality.

[saintlouisbagels]

5 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

I might try that but i don't have any known lossless music files on hand. Is there a place where i can get one for free to test it out? Or do i need to go out and buy a FLAC CD?

 

That won't really change anything for me though, since i exclusively use streaming to listen to music. And i already found out that i couldn't hear the difference between lossy comressed audio and the ones that claim to stream lossless 16 bit 44.1 kHz or higher bitrate content, which basically already is lossless CD-quality.

Bandcamp is my usual store for FLAC. Some artists are "name your price" such as this album by Pinegrove

https://pinegrove.bandcamp.com/album/skylight

"Rings" is the most popular track

[NinJake]

Fully agree. If you gain other features/tracks from "higher quality" streaming services you may find it worth it to still shell out more money towards those services. (Such as Tidal allows you to stream music directly into DJ software for mixing)  If I am purchasing music, I will obviously want the "higher quality" to own, but regarding streaming, I agree that for the average user (or even 99% of music stream listeners) that going with something like Spotify is much more cost effective.

[AndyluvzDub]

I'm very happy with Apple Music audio quality. I use AM on my Windows using Cider- Which has great and fun audio features like built-in audio compressor and more!

 

 

 

[AndyluvzDub]

On 1/8/2024 at 3:36 PM, Tigerleon said:

Just use Spotify

Spotify is terrible imo. Noticeable audio quality vs Apple Music, like I said imo

[Tigerleon]

On 1/9/2024 at 8:27 AM, Psittac said:

The main reason I am willing to spend a little extra is because tidal gives a bigger payout to it's musicians than spotify, the added quality is second to this.

Good reason. Your favorite musicians should always get paid.

[Tigerleon]

4 hours ago, AndyluvzDub said:

Spotify is terrible imo. Noticeable audio quality vs Apple Music, like I said imo

In what way? The audio quality isn't different we both know it's placebo when it comes to that because you have confirmation bias. I agree that Spotify isn't the best because of the payout to artists and musicians. But really? If it's that noticeable I'd really like to see measurements.

[Tigerleon]

4 hours ago, AndyluvzDub said:

Spotify is terrible imo. Noticeable audio quality vs Apple Music, like I said imo

imo btw

[Stahlmann]

On 1/9/2024 at 8:27 AM, Psittac said:

The main reason I am willing to spend a little extra is because tidal gives a bigger payout to it's musicians than spotify

Yes and no. Individually, it's true that your stream is worth more on Tidal.

 

But when you look at the whole platform, Spotify is still the most profitable for musicians because the user base and number of streams are much higher, which outweights the higher payout per stream.