{"id":3273,"date":"2021-02-24T05:29:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T05:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1340253"},"modified":"2021-02-24T05:29:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T05:29:28","slug":"before-you-pay-for-spotify-hifi-try-to-pass-this-lossless-audio-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=3273","title":{"rendered":"Before you pay for Spotify HiFi, try to pass this lossless audio test"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Spotify yesterday announced<\/a> a \u2018HiFi\u2019 upgrade tier for its streaming service that provides lossless audio, promising music free of compression artefacts. Although it won\u2019t be available until later this year, Spotify HiFi promises \u201cCD-quality\u201d audio and aims to steer audiophiles away from other lossless streaming competition like Tidal and Deezer.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even if you consider yourself an audiophile, you probably don\u2019t need to pay extra for lossless music.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that most music streaming services compress audio in one way or another in order to minimize data usage, almost always leading to some lost information. There are<\/em> ways of compressing music losslessly, but they generally can\u2019t reduce file size as much as a decent lossy compression.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unsurpriging, then, that most services turn to lossy compression. After all, the vast majority of listeners do not have the hearing ability to tell the difference between lossless audio and music that is compressed at a high enough quality.<\/p>\n

Spotify Premium (the existing, $9.99 ad-free tier) already streams at a maximum of 320 kbps (256 kbps on the web) if you\u2019ve enabled this in the app\u2019s settings<\/a>. Although at low bitrates the differences between lossy and lossless audio can be quite obvious, I\u2019m willing to bet most people can\u2019t tell apart a lossless file from a 256 kbps MP3 one \u2014 let alone a file compressed with the more modern Ogg codec that Spotify uses.<\/p>\n

Our hearing is subject to a whole lot of placebo. Simply believing that a certain upgrade or key specification will make your speakers or headphones sound better is often more likely to cause to an \u2018improvement\u2019 than any actual change. Still, many golden-eared audiophiles will swear they can hear a difference without evidence.<\/p>\n

So before you get your wallet out for the promise of higher quality audio, why don\u2019t you actually put your hearing to the test?<\/p>\n

Test your hearing<\/h3>\n

There are plenty of blind tests out there to help you compare lossless audio with \u2018lossy\u2019 audio formats, but I like the Digital Feed ABX test<\/a>, initially created to test whether listeners could tell the difference between Tidal\u2019s lossless audio and lossy compressed music.<\/p>\n

The link above compares Spotify\u2019s 320 kbps streaming against a lossless file, so it should be equivalent to comparing Spotify\u2019s Premium and HiFi tiers. <\/span>In this test, the goal is to match one of two clips (A or B) to a reference clip (X). They\u2019re randomized, and you don\u2019t know which clips are lossless or not; you just have to pick whether A or B is identical to X.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There are five tracks, for each of which you\u2019ll have to complete 5, 10, or 20 trials, depending on how much time you have to kill. The more trials you do, the more statistically significant your results are. I\u2019d recommend starting with 5 repetitions, as the test can get quite time consuming as you switch between tracks obsessing over tiny differences.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are like most audio enthusiasts \u2014 let alone most regular people \u2014 you probably won\u2019t be able to hear the difference. I just took the test with some $400 headphones and failed.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve also passed the test before. Problem is, doing so involves a kind of extreme scrutiny that virtually never applies to normal listening or even \u201ccritical\u201d listening.<\/p>\n

In my case, passing this comparison means making my home as quiet as possible, using the best gear I have, and repeating a two or three-second portion over and over again in hopes of hearing the tiniest bit of extra detail or a subtle change at a specific moment. Moreover, I\u2019ve done this type in multiple iterations hundreds of times and know<\/em> what to look for.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Perhaps even more importantly, being able to identify which tracks match doesn\u2019t mean you can tell which track was more realistic <\/em>\u2014 i.e., which track was actually the lossless one. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of a survey performed by audio blogger Archimago<\/a> several years ago, in which 151 participants were asked choose between two sets of samples \u2014 one lossy set, and one lossless. 30% thought the lossless tracks sounded better. 18% said there was no audible difference. A whopping 52% actually preferred the lossy track<\/em> over the lossless one (there are a few possible explanations for this beyond the scope of the article).<\/span><\/p>\n

Mind you, it\u2019s fair to assume these participants were mostly audio enthusiasnts too; 60% of them reported using audio systems costing $1,000 or more. And this is just one of numerous<\/a> examples<\/a> around the web.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the point of lossless?<\/h3>\n

The fact most people can\u2019t tell the difference between lossless and high-bitrate lossy audio doesn\u2019t mean lossless streaming is completely pointless. Some reasons you might want to try it include:<\/p>\n