Engineers rank Music streaming services on a $30,000 Headphone System!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ค. 2023
- Headphone Engineers blindly and individually test and rank popular music streaming services on a $30,000 headphone system (Spotify, Apple Music, Qobuz, Tidal, and Amazon Music). In another video we offer suggestions how to maximize enjoyment of music streaming, • Get the MOST out of yo...
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Follow up video explaining these results th-cam.com/video/PWURg7FhAx8/w-d-xo.html
Don't cripple your sound quality with compressed Spotify...instead use a quality lossless source like Apple Music.
Just proves that different ears hear different things.
The guy in the red shirt needs an ear test ... like now 😂
What "guy in the RED shirt" ? Someone might need an "eye" test if you ask me.... 😛🤣🤣
U mean orange lol
@@BumpNrun69 Imagine making fun of someone for being colorblind
If you aren't comparing the same master version of the same track, then this comparison is useless.
Exactly. And they didn’t probably.
I was like wait, wheres the first song at? They should had compared 1/2/3 songs throughout all apps but I think Tidal still win in sound quality.
@@decaprio7421Tidal is MQA bs, try Qobuz pure FLAC goodness and you will never look back.
I'm not sure it would even be possible to ensure they were the same master version. In most cases artists upload one file that goes to all platforms, but as far as I know you can't tell from the streaming service with 100% certainty it's the same master (aside from any audible differences).
Also - there should be no comparison without level matching.
I see the testers fiddling with the volume wheel - they should not.
This seems mostly to be an advertisement for a particular headphone 😮
Qobuz is the best sounding to my ears. I've had memberships to all streaming services except Deezer. Amazon HD and Apple were both slightly below Qobuz to my ears.
Same for me... for my ears Qobuz sounds the best. I have had Spotify and Tidal earlier.
Yep I agree
which would you choose between amazon or apple
I agree
Agree. I've bounced between them all and every time I use Qobuz I think it sounds better.
I recently setup Tidal and am impressed so far.
Great video!
What I noticed is since apple doesn't have a setting where it only plays the highest bitrate and automatically drops down when the internet slows down, the sound quality can vary. When the tracks are downloaded though Apple music is great.
Tidal and even spotify can be set to stay at the highest bitrates so when the internet lags it would rather stop playing the music than go down to a lower bitrate. I really want spotify to get the lossless hifi tier though because of its cool remote control function combined with decent radio tracks selected based on the songs you play. Apple is also good with track and even similar artists but can have a little glitchy playback. Sometimes it repeats parts like a needle jumping on a turntable if the track is not downloaded.
I was using tidal to Spotify to utube music and now I'm happy with my apple music on my iem
Interesting comparisons! I've went from Tidal to Amazon Music, quite happy with my setup ATM.
not enough tracks on amazon though
The app is terrible, never keeps track of songs, search is not optimal and it crashes all the time
@@residentzero Deezer basically has the same issues. Jesus the app really is a dogshit.
@@carloslaraortiz8402 I moved to Qobuz, it's a bit better, not by much, but the sound quality is very noticeably better.
@@carloslaraortiz8402 I have Qobuz now and God!! I love the sound quality of all the services it's really the best, however the app isn't any better, they're all terrible except for, wait, ironically Spotify, which has the worst sound quality, only second to TH-cam, but it has a functional, outstanding app. A bit similar to what the now defunct Google Music used to be. I wish they all learned from each other and took their best to a more competitive market that's overdue now. Edited to add: maybe Apple Music? As I don't have the ecosystem I wouldn't know but from the little I've seen it looks pretty good as well.
With AB-1266 TC Phi - WooAudio WA33 Elite - Chord DAVE - Aurender N20, I find Tidal = Qobuz > Bugs Music > Spotify. I just briefly tried with my desk-fi set up: KEF LS50W2, Tidal > Qobuz > Apple > Spotify
I'd love to see an extended test that also features Deezer and Napster. Deezer ranks high in my book.
Yes indeed, crazy that Deezer not is included! 😮
Deezer ia very very good! I tried the others except Tidal and deezer continues to sounds great.
I did a comparison starting with high-res, high sample rate tracks that I had purchased from HD Tracks played from an Aurender music server via USB to a Benchmark DAC3, Benchmark HPA4 amp, and Audeze LCD-5. I compared that sound to the same tracks played on Tidal, and Qobuz, and Apple Lossless, all via USB as well. For Apple Music I had to use an iPad Pro as a source, as the desktop Apple OS does not allow a direct connect to the USB DAC, instead everything going through Apple's awful sample rate converter. The other two services are available on the iPad Pro where I could switch between all three streaming services, but I also listened to them on a desktop M1 Mac. Qobuz sounds hands-down identical to the purchased, uncompressed files from HD tracks. Tidal sounds like a shit-ton of dither has been added to everything, it's like playing an analog tape recording of the originally digital tracks (so I can see how some people might like that effect). Apple Lossless has less clarity, detail and definition. It sounds like Apple can't resist doing some kind of processing in their app, even if you turn off every option that they allow you to in Preferences. Qobuz is the best if you want to hear the track exactly as it was released by the label.
Hi there. So are you saying the Ipad pro doesn't do the sample rate conversion that Apple OS on desktops does? Im aware of the SRC that my apple desktop does but I also assumed that the SRC would take place on other apple products such as the ipad or iphone. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
@@SoCalxSurfs Original comment is a bit confusing; iOS devices automatically switch the output sample and bit rate acording to the song being played, while OSX devices output the sample and bit rate settings via the Audio Midi Setup app and this needs to be altered manually according to the song you're playing,
I don't hear any improvement in SQ from Qobuz to Apple Music and AM beats Qobuz hands down on UX so I use that.
@@sonnyvarioni1654 Thanks for the reply. But I am aware of what you stated. What @bobsykes was saying is that apples OS does an (extra) sample rate conversion regardless if the sample rate of the music matches up with the output sample rate set in the Audio Midi setup. This is actually a very new discovery among a few consumers (mostly audio engineers) because they have noticed sound degradation when outputting audio from apple computers compared to Windows based. And with the use of music apps like Audirvana and its exclusive feature (bypassing the extra SRC) you can clearly hear an improvement in sound quality.
@@SoCalxSurfs That's interesting; my DAC displays the bit and sample rate it's being fed and this has always matched the Audio Midi setting for me . . .
DCS DAC/ Streamer ..a phenomenal unit 😉…but why are they so different ??
Amazon music on my Sennheiser HD599's sounds fantastic to my ears. To each their own.
I’m curious as why there are differences between them, especially the lossless options. Shouldn’t they theoretically all be the same unless the streaming client is applying some kind of in-house eq?
the problem is tidal and others have a lot of "fake" lossless. Like they get the normal cd release mp3 version and then convert it into lossless. The result is technically lossless but lossless of an already cut down version. They have to acquire a proper, lossless mixed release which they often can't for older music and music where the studios do not much care about lossless releases.
So my guess is that while they advertise it as lossless the majority of the tracks are not lossless and thus there are differences when they have certain music as lossless but other platforms don't.
Some of them have different masters but as you saw it was mostly placebo.
@@nekomancer350 lmao "it sounds different from my cd" literally it can't..
@@giulianogenovese1258 lol I forgot about this video. reading through comments again is funny in how delusional many self-proclaimed audiophiles are.
Only if it was mastered quite differently you could hear a difference. Qobuz has a lot of different masters compared to what's available on other streaming platforms.
Music is like food. Some like blunt food like monks, spicy, chinese. Some like Bass, mid and highs. But i love a good stereo sound. I build custom amplifiers for my customers, they all have different tastes.
One thing I've learned after years of chasing guitar related gear and guitars is that this stuff is subjective, what sounds great to you may not sound so good to the next person, maybe even more so when you're dealing with music.
IMO: due to the MQA focus, I will never use Tidal and Qobuz is for me by far the best streaming service.
Tidal has FLAC now.
Guys basically we cannot hear differences.
Just enjoy your music
Yeah.. It's more about the features you want and ease of use really.
Where is Deezer at? XD lol but still picked a good amount of services idk which one I want to try out.
Qobuz not available in my country😭
I use Apple Music. It sounds great! Also offers Dolby Atmos, which I love.
So basically professional sound engineers couldn't tell one service from another and noticed huge quality variations from song to song within the same service. Imma just continue YT music
The source material is certainly a variable even within the same service. Album dependent, Atmos, MQA, etc.
Qobuz Apple Music Amazon hd then title for me here.
Warwick, acoustics, Aperio, Shangri-La, senior, AB 1260 6TC, SUS, camerton valkayria
I find tidal, feels digitally touched up, there is a sense of uncanny valley in the dynamic range region is very odd
And talking of AB1266TC, thanks for the review unit boys legends
😆😎🐅❤ ️🐅
Irrelevant test really, I currently have spotify and one of my favourite tracks has pretty apparent quality problems and then another song comes through nicely. There are too many source differences so you would have to listen to a lot of tracks and perhaps check sources and compression trickery. I'd be interested to know if spotify does alright on the music I listen to as opposed to the others streaming services.
In essence use what you want because it's really not as big of a difference as you want to believe, especially when you're not listening on the financial equivalent of down-payment for a house. It would be nice is Spotify finally released higher bitrate like they said they were going to several years ago though.
The only reason why i use youtube music is for mixtapes or any songs that didnt come to tidal or spotify. If it wasnt for that reason i wouldve used tidal
If professional headphone engineers listening on a $30,000 headphone system struggle to pick Spotify apart from Apple Music or Qobuz, very few regular people probably can. Lossless audio seems silly in a world where the vast majority listen to music using AirPods and other bluetooth headphones. Great for those with super hearing but a feature that most probably never notice.
You are not supposed to bother with hi fi unless you have already invested thousands of dollars in equipment in the first place.
@@KrypteiaXithousands? 😂😂 I have wired high end headphones, and the difference is massive.
The hearing thing is often overlooked. Some people just have bad hearing. Weakest link in the signal chain.
Don't cripple your sound quality with compressed Spotify...instead use a quality lossless source like Apple Music.
Were you using the highest quality setting on each service?
yes
The guy in the orange t-shirt kinda looks like Bernd Leno (Fulham goalkeeper)
But why *do* they sound different? Qobuz, and Apple Music both have hires and lossless so what’s affecting the sound?
Qobuz has some different masters
Tidal uses FLAC and that has issues
@@michaelrovner4165 What issues? FLAC can be re-converted to WAV with a bit-perfect match to the original WAV.
I guess the differences lie in the apps/software. Can these apps use WASAPI, ASIO or other 1:1 bit perfect methods of playback to the DAC?
Quite surprised at your picks. There all good but Qobuz blows Tidal away on my music system. I have compared Tidal and Qobuz side by side. Tidal MQA is muddy/distorted and compressed sounding especially at higher volumes. I don’t think Apple, Spotify or Amazon are in the same league as Qobuz and Tidal. I’m very glad that Qobuz arrived in Canada. Cheers
Recently Tidal has been phasing out MQA and phasing in FLAC, per their CEO on social.
@@ABYSSHeadphonesi mean, that was about time. Them taking part in this scam made me immediately jump ship.
i use spotify, none of the streaming services has its massive library of content
I have Tidal and nothing is muddy/distorted or compressed. I don't know what settings you use but you use it wrong.
@@MasterofPlay7quantity in Spotify is larger but the quality is questionable for a big company like Spotify, they could just add option for loseless audio and they actually would have increase in their sales.
Also hi res audio is more noticeable once you used high tier audio set up
It's important to have a collection of your own test tracks. They don't have to be anything special, just something you like and are very familiar with, and then keep them with you at all times, on your phone, a USB, a CD, tape cassette even. Then consider those songs your team, or your tools. Don't look up a list of audiophile songs, because they might make a system sound too good.
You also want to hear how well a good system can 'fix' a song. In the old days, producers often put their mix onto a tape and went outside to the car to hear how it sounded through their car system. Then they'd go back inside and keep working on it. It sounds counterproductive but the real world can do things to audio, both good and bad.
You also want to hear how well a system synergises (if that's the word) with your ears and brain. Every second, our senses take in gigabytes of information and has to filter out 99% of it, so everyone really is different with sound. That's why we keep listening to music we like. It's almost like hearing a different song each time.
Some test tracks I use are Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire because I like to hear how the song balances the left and right channels. I like the backing vocalist on the left and how the right balances her out. You don't really notice that on a 'narrow' hi-fi. I also like how vintage it feels. Another one is Donna Summer's I Feel Love as I like to hear how immersive it can feel with both the left and right channels bouncing around me. It makes me feel high. Another one is Off To The Races by Lana Del Rey. It can sound really layered, intense, vintage, and almost psychotic with how the vocal tracks almost compete with each other sometimes and then converge again to the main vocal. You can also hear people shouting in the background, like it's recorded during a riot or something. Panic Room by Au/Ra and CamelPhat I like to listen to. It's very atmospheric, perilous, spacious, and I like the bass. Another song I like for its bass is #SELFIE by Chainsmokers, which is sort of a novelty song but I'm really familiar with it now. I can't really put into words what I hear in my test tracks, but I know when I hear them how they've sounded in the past in different systems and what to listen for.
Some other songs are:
9 to 5 - Dolly Parton
Butterfly - Kinobe
Lovely Head - Goldfrapp
Journey To The Sorcerer - Eagles
Gangster's Paradise - Coolio
Ain't No Sunshine - Jackson 5
Convoy - CW McCall
Gin and Juice - Snoop Dogg
Until The End - Sub Focus
Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals album
Clean Bandit - New Eyes album
Alabama 3 (A3) - Exile on Coldharbour Lane album
Anne Marie - Speak Your Mind album
That's all I can remember for now. What songs do you guys use?
When it comes to the sound quality Qobuz will always be the best. Just pure lossless FLAC.
I also found Apple Music lossless to sound best. I made the comparison when Apple turned ON lossless.
Are all tracks the same master?
What I learn from this video is to trust your ear. Music engineers are ranking Qobuz the least... Are we supposed to trust them? Just my thought of this whole audiophile Rabbit whole...
I've recently did the comparition between applemusic loseless hi res vs deezer and while it is true the difference is practically unnoticeable imo Deezer flac is just better than apple music alac, slightly but still better.
So they’re all good, and bad, and wide, and narrow, and detailed, and lacking detail, and it’s all track dependant.
Or to put it in a single word, They are all subjective.
Right, yet we have our preferences.
This doesn’t demonstrate that. To call them preferences, your subjective impressions would have to be consistent across multiple blind listening sessions. I’m not saying that they won’t be; I’m just saying that there isn’t enough here to support the claim you’re making.
@@merrafieldjp We each mentioned what service we use (and pay for) daily. How about you, ever try this?
@@ABYSSHeadphones maybe it could be done again with the exact same song for everyone. The point was obviously to use music you know well for each person, but it might be more interesting to use just 1 or 2 tracks that are the same for everyone. I think you guys should investigate this further because it seems like there’s something here to investigate. As you pointed out, why are they all so different? Also was the transmission all the same because after watching this I had a mess around with Spotify and apple, (the two services I have access to) and they did sound different but then it turned out apple was automatically air playing it from my phone rather than direct from the MacBook like Spotify was, so all things that beg investigating.
If you redo this test in the future include Deezer and TH-cam Music. Plus have them pick two songs different styles/genres than have them listen to the same tracks.
I just left Spotify for tidal
These guys couldn't agree on the colour of the sky lol
Joe has my picks.
Tryed most and Qobuz was the best though has recently become buggy.
The two young guys have lead ears.
Tried Qobuz and tidal. Stuck with Amazon for stereo, Apple Music and Spotify for discovery And social features.
the apple music play via Airplay or iPhone/ipad USB line in?
Hardwired USB out to an external DAC with display showing data rate.
@@ABYSSHeadphones Well I guess that answers the question about whether a high end streamer is better than using an iPad with a good DAC - emphatically no. Guess that disproves Paul from PS Audio and John Darko with their scare talk about USB jitter, too.
@@sonnyvarioni1654 We did a follow up video explaining these results th-cam.com/video/PWURg7FhAx8/w-d-xo.html
For "regular people" TH-cam music is amazing.
The cool thing about YTM is that you can listen to a mashup video, or an album someone added as a vid that can't be found anywhere else. Rock City Angels album Young Man's Blues for example.
What is the source streamer by the way? windows pc, mac, ipad? This matters as well
Current gen iPad hardwired USB to the DAC.
That is a ridiculous mismatch regarding the expensive DCS components. Do first if your homework before such comparisons and get a decent source.
@@goodsound4756 lol with a dCS DAC and clock it makes no difference whatsoever. If you think USB is a problem you've been psy-op'd; dCS wouldn't include it if it was.
Good video though, more like this, honest at least.
Can't wait to see when Spotify launches its new Supremium tier with Hi-Fi
They've talked about this for years without a release. We all know Tidal is the best and its Roon integration is fantastic.
Maybe our grandchildren will have it. If we're lucky
@@yashptel😂🤣😂🤣
They've talked about this for years. You know what they did develop? Some stupid car device. Screw Spotify.
This only illustrates the limitations of subjective comparison.
High quality cd transport should be the way to go ...
While I partially agree; it’s not the 90s anymore.
@@jpined14 I rip CDs to FLAC with Exact Audio Copy and then play them through JRiver Media Player (WASAPI output to DAC).
It's like the most perfect CD transport because not only does EAC do multiple read passes for every sector, it also compares the file hashes with 2 different data bases. If you're getting a 100% result on both, the bits were definitely copied 100% perfectly from CD.
The one with orange t shirt should instead work at McDonald's
For me apple and tidal are neck and neck but only when apple music is run through an iPad pro, for whatever reason windows does not properly display the details that are present with an iPad as the starting source. My equipment used is a Diana phi on a Xi audio broadway, benchmark hpa4, ifi pro ican and topping a90d as the amplifiers and for the dacs I tried they are the Ifi pro idsd signature, and topping d90se.
Well in Windows it is still the beta version so it is not the official one
1. They are listening to different masters.
2. When they pick their own songs, they bring the bias of how they are used to hear the song.
3. I know nothing of headphones, but in my stereo system, comparing Spotify to Tidal/Qobuz is like comparing std TV to 8K.
You must be deaf not to recognize huge differences: dynamics, soundstage size and depth, instrument separation, detail and nuances, musicality, etc.
Ok so, when using Bluetooth, the quality of the original source matters indeed. Higher resolution audio will sound better, regardless of whether Bluetooth can fully reproduce the entire frequency range or not. Similarly, back in the day when recording from a CD or vinyl to a cassette tape, the quality was “ok”. However, each time you copied from one cassette tape to another, the quality degraded further. Bottom line is, you’d want the source to be as pure as possible.
What they say when listening does not correspond to how they rate the services. All seem to describe Qobuz as clearly better than Apple music yet ranking Apple above Qobuz. This is just strange.
layoff this dude in orange t-shirt
he put qobuz on the last place, epic fail
It's a very bad test. They didn't really prove anything
I dont know man,,, i dont have $ 30,000 headphones !
My conclusion is that there is no objectively better service and the whole lossless thing is just silly. UX and content matter most.
So...these guys are hearing differences between lossless audio sources. It's like you would buy three copies of the same CD and then claiming they all sound different.
Tidal's MQA is the bestest most awesomeness.
What the hell does it matter? Just pick the one that is the most suitable for you and enjoy the music. I use Apple Music because I use their products and it's logical for me. If I used a different brand I might use something else. It's all subjective anyway.
Who ever picked Prime should retire as even on HD it is near the worst. You should be comparing them to playing the CD of the same material. I spend yesterday dumping Amazon Prime Music, listening to them all, then picked Tidal HD as the best doing the CD comparison test. Head phones have to be picked by complementing YOUR hearing loss, not just based on how much money you spent. Foolish test and no one needs a $30K headphone system to figure this out.
Good points. As for the $30K+ headphone system, it's what we do,
TH-cam is good enough for me. I tried tidal and it wasn't any better.
knew i can trust joe
Who else has a $30000 headphones?
And out of all of them , listening to the songs on TH-cam sounds better than all of them especially the music videos ! What’s really going on with the sound these days with the streaming services! Can’t even reference mix anymore ! Songs sound different on everything !
Update Qobuz sounds like the real mix ! Apple Music is sooo baaadddd compared to Qobuz .. dayummmmm Apple Music gtta do sumn or I’m leaving them
the man in red... has no idea at all, has everything wrong, calls himself an engineer.
There was a "man in red" ? 🤣🤣
If you're not using a nice set up...nice headphones with an amp, or a great sound system...save your money and stay with spotify or something vs tidal....dont go off this video .. skullcandy, air pods, blue tooth wont make a difference enough to justify it
Tidal wins hands down
I'm glad my ears suck otherwise I'd be broke by 30k headphones every year
Just because they’re engineers, it doesn’t make their hearing better than anyone else.
Well, we happen to design high-end headphones for a living:).
guys, sack your social media guy and bring Douglas back! this is such a potentially rich video but so lazily produced…
Douglas moved on to follow his own path.
@@ABYSSHeadphones understand that… but still the new guy is not up to it…
-Tidal>Qobuz>Apple
-Apple,Amazon>Qobuz,Tidal
-Tidal>Amazon>Apple
Tidal is on another league
Where was youtube music 😆
not lossless so they hate it
Such a waste of everyone’s time as it’s not really a good comparison with exactly same bit rates
why is apple music sounding better ?
Today is 1st june 2024
Those guys are completely clueless also not the same title comparison….. trash
Come on guys, this was the biggest waste of time comparison I’ve ever seen. You guys are supposed to be hardcore engineers and you publish this garbage. Embarrassing. Please try again to salvage your reputation 🙃
Lol
I’m curious as why there are differences between them, especially the lossless options. Shouldn’t they theoretically all be the same unless the streaming client is applying some kind of in-house eq?
Mmm indeed no it really depends on various factors. For instance deezer or others are flac which is better than alac from applemusic and other factors that might differentiate.