Thread: Is Spotify now rivaling Quobuz and Tidal in sound quality?

Just curious.

Not from what I hear comparing Spotify 320kbps with Apple Lossless on tracks I've queued in the past.

With the right hardware Spotify 320 kbps can sound sensational.

Last release I read Spotify has given up on lossless audio and concentrating more on podcasts.

Originally Posted by brodricj

With the right hardware Spotify 320 kbps can sound sensational.

I use a Mutec to reclock the signal before it goes into my DAC and I have to agree that Spotify sounds really good. Spotify sounds more balanced across the frequency spectrum. Qobuz on the other hand sounds more dense favoring the lower mids part of the spectrum. It's just a different flavor in a way. Where Spotify really excels is with it's interface and algorithm. Just runs circles around Qobuz and Tidal (from what I remember). I have ended up using Spotify a lot more than I do Qobuz.


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Originally Posted by Mr Peabody

Last release I read Spotify has given up on lossless audio and concentrating more on podcasts.

A article this Feb 2023, pretty much notes a few what ifs on why Spotify hasn't brought out their HiFi tier after announcing 2 years ago it was.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/22/2...wo-years-later

Originally Posted by Nikhil

I use a Mutec to reclock the signal before it goes into my DAC and I have to agree that Spotify sounds really good. Spotify sounds more balanced across the frequency spectrum. Qobuz on the other hand sounds more dense favoring the lower mids part of the spectrum. It's just a different flavor in a way. Where Spotify really excels is with it's interface and algorithm. Just runs circles around Qobuz and Tidal (from what I remember). I have ended up using Spotify a lot more than I do Qobuz.


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What do you mean when you say Spotify sounds more balanced across the frequency spectrum?

Originally Posted by mep

What do you mean when you say Spotify sounds more balanced across the frequency spectrum?

Like I said, Qobuz seems to emphasize the lower mids in comparison making it sound a bit more "thicker" or dense.
To someone who prefers the Qobuz sound signature, I guess Spotify would come off as sounding thinner.




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Originally Posted by Nikhil

Like I said, Qobuz seems to emphasize the lower mids in comparison making it sound a bit more "thicker" or dense.
To someone who prefers the Qobuz sound signature, I guess Spotify would come off as sounding thinner.




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Thanks for your clarification. Since I never listen to Spotify because it's a lossy MP3 format, I can't compare how the lower mids are emphasized by Quobuz in comparison to Spotify as you claim. I never thought of the lower mids being thick or dense sounding unless that sound was part of the actual recording vice being a coloration pinned to every album played through Quobuz. I find Quobuz to sound very different from album to album and even among the different versions of the same album (16/44.1, 24/96, 24/192) that are available on Quobuz. Different masterings of the same recording can sound wildly different on Quobuz. With Spotify, I assume you are stuck with a single variable for each album which would make it hard to compare to Quobuz where the bit depth and sampling rate start at 16/44.1.

Originally Posted by bluegrassphile

Just curious.

I'm trying to figure out what you think changed with Spotify to ask the question "Is Spotify now rivaling Quobuz and Tidal in sound quality?"

Originally Posted by mep

Thanks for your clarification. Since I never listen to Spotify because it's a lossy MP3 format, I can't compare how the lower mids are emphasized by Quobuz in comparison to Spotify as you claim. I never thought of the lower mids being thick or dense sounding unless that sound was part of the actual recording vice being a coloration pinned to every album played through Quobuz. I find Quobuz to sound very different from album to album and even among the different versions of the same album (16/44.1, 24/96, 24/192) that are available on Quobuz. Different masterings of the same recording can sound wildly different on Quobuz. With Spotify, I assume you are stuck with a single variable for each album which would make it hard to compare to Quobuz where the bit depth and sampling rate start at 16/44.1.

My experience with Spotify is interesting. During the lockdown a singer/entertainer friend of mine began singing from his bedroom keeping us entertained right through. On a whim I decided to make playlists of the songs that he sang. I ended up compiling about 300 playlists with genres ranging from pop, rock & country western, jazz, swing, opera and broadway. Artists ranged from Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Queen, Hall & Oats, Pavarotti, Bocelli, Louis Armstrong etc and many more. Spotify was the only platform that was accessible to everyone (over 600 people all over the world). In fact Spotify was the only service on which many of the songs were available. Tidal and Qobuz were far more niche and pretty much broke whenever I tried transferring those playlists.

It's one thing to critically listen to an album via Qobuz or local files and another to share a collection of over 5,000 songs with an active community over social media (Facebook and Instagram mostly). The whole experience left me a little less religious about digital formats. While I can hear the difference, I found that using something like a Mutec to reclock the signal before the DAC, can produce a very enjoyable sound. A good Digital converter is able to capture and reconstruct great sound even from a 320K stream.



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Originally Posted by Nikhil

My experience with Spotify is interesting. During the lockdown a singer/entertainer friend of mine began singing from his bedroom keeping us entertained right through. On a whim I decided to make playlists of the songs that he sang. I ended up compiling about 300 playlists with genres ranging from pop, rock & country western, jazz, swing, opera and broadway. Artists ranged from Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Queen, Hall & Oats, Pavarotti, Bocelli, Louis Armstrong etc and many more. Spotify was the only platform that was accessible to everyone (over 600 people all over the world). In fact Spotify was the only service on which many of the songs were available. Tidal and Qobuz were far more niche and pretty much broke whenever I tried transferring those playlists.

It's one thing to critically listen to an album via Qobuz or local files and another to share a collection of over 5,000 songs with an active community over social media (Facebook and Instagram mostly). The whole experience left me a little less religious about digital formats. While I can hear the difference, I found that using something like a Mutec to reclock the signal before the DAC, can produce a very enjoyable sound. A good Digital converter is able to capture and reconstruct great sound even from a 320K stream.



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I understand your position better now. You were motivated to create 300 playlists from Spotify to share with 600 people all around the world who all had access to Spotify. The decision wasn't based on sound quality, but availability of music in genres on Spotify you couldn't find on Tidal or Quobuz and ease of creating playlists to share via Spotify.

Originally Posted by nicoff

I totally get it: It is about the music! It is not about a lossy or high def formats.

Yeah! Who needs high-end audio?

Originally Posted by nicoff

I totally get it: It is about the music! It is not about a lossy or high def formats.

Then why did you title this thread as you did?

As an aside, I would agree that well-done 320k MP3 is virtually indistinguishable from 16/44.1 PCM for most music in most situations, but that almost equivalence doesn't really apply at this forum., where exaggerating small differences in sound quality is almost a raison d'etre.

Originally Posted by rbbert

Then why did you title this thread as you did?

As an aside, I would agree that well-done 320k MP3 is virtually indistinguishable from 16/44.1 PCM for most music in most situations, but that almost equivalence doesn't really apply at this forum., where exaggerating small differences in sound quality is almost a raison d'etre.

Nicoff didn't title the thread.

Originally Posted by mep

I understand your position better now. You were motivated to create 300 playlists from Spotify to share with 600 people all around the world who all had access to Spotify. The decision wasn't based on sound quality, but availability of music in genres on Spotify you couldn't find on Tidal or Quobuz and ease of creating playlists to share via Spotify.

I should have added that the experience opened me up to listening to music via Spotify.
Over time I found myself using Spotify more often than I do Qobuz. And for a variety of reasons.
The Spotify algorithm regularly surprises me with gems that are based on my listening history.

Spotify Connect allows me to seamlessly listen over multiple devices - in my car and then later at work.

But all of this would not happen if the sound wasn't up to scratch.
For example I could not get past one song on Amazon Music.

Originally Posted by mep

Yeah! Who needs high-end audio?

Why does this have to matter? I still listen to music on Qobuz or my digital files via HQPlayer etc.
All I'm saying is that one should give Spotify a try. I was surprised at how good it was.



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Originally Posted by mep

Nicoff didn't title the thread.

Ooops!

Tidal has implemented some type of music list sharing now. I don't use the feature so can't say if it's as good as Spotify