Under controlled conditions, you can tell the difference. If you listen while taking a shower, then most likely you will not be able to tell the difference.
I hear it on a 800$ system: sony a-s301, q acoustics 3030 , polk subwoofer , and a fosi 70$ dac. I plug my computer in the dac via USB: spotify sounds good, but if i have the flac of that music on my HD. GOD the difference is so massive it CANNOT be MENTAL.
@@NoName-to5xlI agree. I recently downloaded flacs of all my songs I had on Spotify and I hear things now that I never heard before, almost sounds like a slight remix of the original song- but it's not. This is also with me just using a pair of HD 6XX plugged into my iPod.
Funny, with CD we had actually very good quality...but made step back in time because the memory on devices was lacking and very expensive. So compression became new standard and finally....we're getting back to FLAC, WAV, CD and masters
It's like people going from vinyl to cassette back in the 70s/80s. Ultimately most people dont care about or notice the difference in quality and the convenience and cost is so much better that cassettes became very dominant. Caring about sound quality will always be kinda niche, because it's just not that important to the vast majority of people.
Yeah, it's so sad that convenience wins most of the time. Good quality music (FLAC or WAV 1141 kbps or better) is such good therapy on a great system. You just need to allow some time to do it right!
@@pvanb291 I think it's about circumstance. Most people listen to music whilst doing something else be it a whilst commuting, doing work, exercise or partying etc. In all these circumstances practicality wins out. We (the audio community) listen to music in a different way, the music IS the focus and when it's the focus, quality wins out. Mainstream will always move towards ease of use and practicality over raw quality.
Spotify has the option to reproduce uncompressed audio (I believe it streams like a WAV of the original song) so it may be worth upgrading. But first you gotta ask yourself these questions: - Do I have good headphones/speakers? - Do I listen to Hi-Fi music? - Can I hear the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and an uncompressed source? - Do my ears really deserve the upgreade? Are they telling me "this experience is poor quality, I want more" or is it just you wanting to buy more gear? Everyone likes a new piece of gear, but it’s a disease. I have 10 guitars, trust me.
People really should just go out to a hi-fi or home cinema store and listen to different speakers, headphones and recievers in combinations. If they don't hear a difference they won't notice an upgrade. If they get tears in their eyes they do lol
@AJ I can confirm. Just did some A/B testing and while I have pretty good hearing, I really couldn't hear a difference. I don't have ultra-high-end gear, but my K712 Pros reveal enough to make a difference. I just stopped worrying about the 0.001% nuance that you might miss when listening to lossy files. I'd rather enjoy music than having to think about what I might not catch or trying to make out some imaginary differences when listening to hi-fi gear because "there must be a difference, the people on the forum said so!"
Thank you for being open and non judgemental like many audiophiles out there. Really helps me who is just starting out and only looking for a budget set up.
What really helped me : 1/ think about your speakers, 2/ then the amp for those speakers, 3/ then the dac, 4/ then your streaming service. thanks mate.
Seems common to bash Spotify music quality. Personally I find it surprisingly good and you have to listen very hard on high quality equipment to hear flaws.
I've been hearing bad mastering flaws or even bails in producing 6 years back with my Philips SP5300 100W RMS 2.1 Speakers without any DAC and just the internal soundcard of my Alienware M18x Laptop back then. It's just a matter of getting used to the equipment you're listening with and know it's limits. Then you'll know when it's the fault of your gear or the fault of producing bails or bad mastering.
Honestly Spotify isn't quite as bad as people make it out to be. 320kbs ogg vorbis is pretty solid. Solid enough that you'd probably only notice the difference between that and lossless with a decent DAC and a relatively good amp. Or at least the difference wouldn't be obvious. That said, I don't think that's an excuse for them still not offering any kind of lossless option. I wouldn't blame them for not going the full master quality route like Tidal, there are very few people who would benefit from that, but they *at least* need to have a CD quality option. If Apple Music is already doing it, Spotify needed to be doing it several years ago. Supposedly they're going to, but they'd pushed it back multiple times.
Honestly, I've been so fed up with Spotify that I just ended up with Apple Music. And I don't regret it a bit. The UI looks phenomenal on Android, they have lossless (5.99 for students, it's a MUST) and now have added the last feature I missed in iOS 16: sorting playlists. When Spotify screwed up their library and how it works, that's when I jumped ship. Not regretting it at all.
2:26 that is a bit misssleading the bitrate on lossless files does not work like lossy files, for example a 320 kb/s MP3 is clearly better sounding/higher quality than a 192 kb/s one, but with FLAC a 800 kb/s song doesnt sound worse than a 1000 kb/s one because bitrate in lossless codecs doesn't determine sound quality, it determines the complexity and average sound levels. A loud song has a higher bitrate than a quiet one.
Huge fan of your channel. With all the buzz on hi-res audio, it's great to hear an audiophile strip down the tech jargon for the man in the street. I've been an avid audiophile enthusiast for most of my life and we are living in exciting times with music being accessible anywhere, anytime and anyplace. There is an amalgamation of 2 domains, that being the internet and audio which was never heard of when I started buying serious audio tech and with mobile tech here to stay, it can only get better...glad to hear you mention ogg-vorbis as I tried explaining that to non-audio/tech/streaming people and they think I'm speaking a foreign language!
At this point my hopes aren’t high. I think Apple Music’s release of lossless at no extra cost put a kink in their plans bc they were gonna offer it as a premium feature with a price increase.
This is a very well put-together video and gives great perspective. One thing I would've added is that a lot of DAC/Source file quality discussion and advice comes from the time when lossy compression was introduced and since then the algorithms have improved substantially so a lot of "you need to worry about your source files" talking points just doesn't hold true anymore. Also, audio engineers have learned a lot since then about mastering for digital and lossy compressed formats and it became the primary medium, so everything is optimised for that too.
I’m going to tell y’all right now. Listen to music on whatever you have access on. A lot of songs, especially underground songs and mixes can only be found on TH-cam.
so many songs that are near impossible to find high quality versions of. The four corners of the earth - the fire shall devour them Hindi Zahra - Stand Up (acoustic version) Royksopp - Eple (drum intro version, vinyl only) And the one that I simply cannot figure out the true source of: DJ AJA, Inc. - Yesterday... (Parts of this song show up in many other re-published versions and I have no idea who the true author is)
Audiophiles are the worst, if you want 3.5% improvement in audio get ready to fork over another $2,000. Oh, and everyone has a wrong opinion as to what it SHOULD sound like. I thought about diving into the audiophile world and quickly found out it's an extremely confusing hobby that costs a fortune, and everyone is divided on what equipment is and isn't good lol. Now I just read through the comments for entertainment. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hobby and understand people's love for audio, I'm just amazed how deep the rabbit hole goes.
@@XTSM1 Could you expand on the DIY route please? Do you mean making a DAC yourself (and some other audiophile equipment)? I've just recently learned about IEM's and DAC's and now I'm considering getting an IEM, as I will soon be doing a lot of video and audio editing in the near future. I have gen 1 AirPods Pro and they still work great, but I understand that IEM's are generally considered the best you can get for an earbud-like audio system. My main question is if you think getting an IEM (I am considering the Sennheiser IE 300 atm) would be worth it for the kind of work I am doing. And if so, would a DAC also be recommended? I have a PC at home, but I will be using my laptop exclusively for my studies at my university when I start again this fall - if that's any consideration for what kind of ports I'd have available. I do have a PS5 so I'd also connect to that too, and I have a separate usb mic that I connect to my PC/PS5; I know on DAC's you can switch the input/output cable to where the sound is coming from so I'm also wondering if it would work vice-versa with a usb mic input (if a DAC even has such a thing.) It would mean a lot if you would give me some pointers or direct me to a place to where I can find more info and ask these things.
I've had a Schiit DAC for a couple of years and was completely unaware that I could get better source audio on Amazon compared to Spotify. So thanks. That's fixed now.
I stream Spotify from my Mac Mini into a Schiit Modi 3+ (via USB), then into my integrated amplifier, then out some bookshelf speakers and I noticed the difference in quality immediately. Really pleased with the result.
After watching some other videos about sound quality, I do believe you nailed it with a simple yet direct explanation about the impact of a proper equipment and sound quality.
I used Apple music for 6 months or so but went back to Spotify.For me the Spotify UI is far superior and this is just as important, I am constantly finding new music through the Spotify recommendations that the other services just don't seem to do.I don't have a highly resolving system and spend many contented evenings listening to music.I think Spotify is excellent.
Big agree on the later point: how the recording is mastered is often the key point. I have TH-cam premium that's 256kbps. The good DAC of the iFi Zen Blue V2 (on LDAC) handles the lossy stream well enough to show better remasters of the same material as preferable to some older CDs.
Great video, agree with everything you mentioned. 3 years ago I bought my speakers and I follow the exact same direction you mentioned! Choose my speakers (though oversized to get the best I can afford - USHER Diamond mini 2) and I went with the amp the producer of the speaker recommended (USHER A8500) and got a Bluesound Node as a source. I was really lucky that reliable people helped me on the way, as even now I don't feel to change anything in my system. I listen to Spotify most of the time because after everything was set up, I really liked the sound and didn't feel Tidal worth the extra cost.
7:47 "So, choose the best speakers for your room, then choose the best amp for your speakers, then - don't fret about Spotify: Invest in an entry-level DAC, and then after that you can worry about what streaming service you use."
Thank you for this video John. I agree with you. I purchased a Schiit Modi 3 to run my Wiim Mini through using Spotify as the source and the Schiit Modi 3 saved my streaming as I have always been a vinyl/cd guy. I always enjoy your vid's. Please, keep up the good work.
Good thing about streaming on Good equipment is you still get a good sound and still have loads of shelf space!!! not taken up by LPs, CDs Cassettes MDs DCCs, But on the other hand if you're a Certain age we grew up with and love a physical media. 😊
man... You know, I see audiophiles who are super nice, who want people to join in on their hobby and understand! Annnnd this comments section is not full of them lol. Listen, it don't matter that much. There's no perfect way to listen to music. If you care, sure, that's fine. But you don't need to.
I feel like you can just EQ anything to your personal preference and all you need is a semi capable setup. Idk anything about audio, but seems like people justify spending way too much
the amazing thing is that between the squeezebox and dacs today is that you can get all the dac youll ever (yes ever) need for $100. thats not true even like 5 years ago when hi-fi was hi budget. if you wanna get an amp with it youre looking at about $400 total for a lifetime. which is for sure still on the low end of things but ive noticed thats the point of drastically diminishing returns unless you want a very specific tone to your audio or youre a hobbyist. speakers and headphones are too personal to go into but i guarantee that a flat tone dac (akm chips) and amp (thx chips or topping, among others) will power whatever you throw at it and you can adjust tone with the eq on your computer or by using different sound making things. put the focus on your source (computer, cd player, whatever) and your headphones/speakers first, then work the rest out from there
After waiting for years, and struggling with a Pi-based rig that never worked right for long, I just bought a Schiit Modi 3E, and installed it between my Wiim Mini and the Sansui integrated amplifier that I've owned for fifty years, and I'm thrilled with it. The texture that it brings to the sound of my system are amazing. Thanks, John!
Same, I'm a bit of a newcomer to the mid fi headphone world. Most of my rekordbox library is WAV, I have a few special albums in FLAC on my PC, but 95% of my listening is through Spotify. I'll definitely be upgrading to Spotify hifi when I get the chance. I'd thought about tidal, but I'd be losing out on a lot of the more niche stuff that I listen to. Not sure how deezer compares, but to be honest I know that Spotify has most of what I want to listen to, so I'll make do with 320Kbs mp3 for now.
I totally agree that the mastering matters WAY more than the bitrate as long as you compare 320kbps lossy to FLAC. Music recorded by chesky records on spotify sound AMAZING compared to some songs i have in FLAC. 330kbps i believe is the perfect compromise as long as recording and mastering is done beautifully
I can totally attest to this theory presented at about 7:00. I was running Spotify from a laptop via Bluetooth to a Dayton DTA120BT2 To a Sony sub and an array of vintage, but upgraded bookshelf speakers. However, I recently bought a Schiit Hel2e DAC and pushed that into an Aiyima A07 to the same speakers and it was a profound increase in the quality. Everything was clear, mud was gone. Things were bright, sparkly and punchy. TV, Movies, Music, Videogames. Even songs that have been mixed poorly and sound decent on crap systems.... Their deficiencies were there and more apparent due to how clean and neutral everything was.
I have Spotify and Tidal. Sometimes Spotify sounds better! Good recordings sound leagues better on Tidal. Average and especially below average recordings can sound more pleasant on Spotify though! Hearing a poorly mastered track on Tidal reminds me of when I first saw news anchors in HD 😂. All in all, it's been my experience that compression can help smooth over harsh qualities of bad mixing and mastering.
TIDAL HiFi/plus is not lossless. They use what they call Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), not FLAC. Qobuz on the other hand does offer you true lossless with FLAC.
I have same feelings for TIDAL. And A/B on same song gives very mixed reviews, also if u think u need DAC buy first some cheap AliExpress special like eassager. What track have poor masters on TIDAL?
You'd be hard pressed to notice a difference between Spotify on its highest quality setting (which I believe is 320kbps MP3) and the same song on a lossless format like .FLAC. You'd have to A/B the same section of the song repeatedly. At that point it's not really worth the trouble of fussing too much over it. I'm a big audio guy - I spend money on the hobby that some would consider absurd - And for years I curated a growing library of lossless music. But, a couple years ago I moved over to Spotify Premium. It gave me an absolutely vast catalog of music that I can access whenever I want. I don't have to buy new music or fuss with acquiring it, ripping it in lossless, storing it on my server and messing around with metadata etc. The feature set makes using Spotify very enjoyable. I've discovered a lot of new music thanks to its recommendations and its automatic playlists marrying new music to the existing music I like. I still go anal retentive over the rest of the chain - But as a source and media player find Spotify more than adequate. It's actually greatly increased the amount of music I listen too
Yes I agree its a tradeoff between convenience and quality. To each their own but even with quality headphones the difference is very marginal so I choose convenience for sure
I'm going to totally disagree here. I've just got into music streaming recently. I'm no audiophile in any sense but I can clearly hear how horrendous the audio quality is out of Spotify compared to Amazon Music, Tidal and Qobuz with the comparable audio settings. I can barely get through a track with Spotify due to how harsh the audio sounds which is probably due to the compression of the tracks.
i love your content alot, i went and learned all in the hard way but you have made it very simple and easy to understand, happy to be here and see more people care about there audio
Soundcloud/Spotify/TH-cam (Yt on at least 720p-1080p Audio Sources) always sound better as soon as i plug in any of my PreAmps/DACs. Even on a JBL Charge 4, the Astro Gaming 7.1 Headphone MixAmp for example, it totally transforms the sound and you can play around a lot with 4 customizable EQ presets. I tried something else too, used my Motu M4 and connected the headphone output onto my JBL Charge 4 speaker, guess what, the Sound was cleaner and still had crazy JBL bass, the Motu M4 headphone output even has so much PreAmp gain that 40-50% of the Knob are enough when the Charge 4 is already put to its maximal volume. The critiacal matter here is: Are internals inside your chosen product, PreAmp/DAC built well enough with good quality internals on the chipsets to drive your headphones/speakers and at the same time have clear sound or not. If you buy a quality product it will always sound better no matter how bad the source file you're listening to is.
I upgraded to a high fi system. Fairly entry level with shanling ua1 pro as DAC and blon-bl03 as the iem. What I figured intrigued me.Contrary to what people believe, the difference between lossy and lossless is as clear as night and day! Never listening to mp3's again
Bro I'm thinking of a portable DAC that can handle my entry level Blon bl03 as well as headphones like Sennheiser HD660S and Beyerdynamic DT 700 Pro X which I'll be buying in future. Could you recommend some ? or I need to get another separate DAC or desktop DAC to drive those headphones ?
Funny thing about lossless services like tidal. Sometimes the master copy that they stream is worse than what you can get via youtube or Spotify and will sound worse despite being “lossless”
Hi I am aware that Spotify are working hard to improve the quality of their streaming, and because I like their app I am happy to wait. However, I wasn’t aware the DAC would have a impact on the sound, I thought it was the source, so this has been very helpful and I will look to upgrade soon. Thx Stephen
This is an old video but I'd just like to share my own experience with Spotify/Tidal. So I got some new BT Headphones over the summer (Teufel Real Blue NC, 150€ - lesser known German brand) and initially I was a bit disappointed because they didn't really sound better than my previous ones (7 y/o 90€ open headphones from Teufel as well). But then I read about Tidal and thought I'd give it a shot and the difference was quite signficant. Even on high quality instead of HiFi, the instrument seperation and clarity is noticeably better than on Spotify with highest settings. So I can't say how it compares on speakers but on my bluetooth (!) headphones it makes quite a lot of difference. And for 5€ a months I can only recommend it. I don't own a DAC (yet) but I would assume it improves the audio, no matter if the source is Spotify or Tidal, but there's definitely more to work with on lossless streaming services.
Get a DAC, by all means. I stream Spotify out of my Mac Mini, into my Schiit Modi 3, then into my (classic) Creek 4042s2 integrated amp then out my (vintage) Mission 70s, and it has made a noticeable difference to these ears. I was pleasantly surprised. No more iPhone into Creek 😉
I pulled all of my old lossy files mp3 files which is 320kbps into the raspberry pi streamer with an added optical spdif hat. I listened to it on schiit modi+ magni combo into hd650 Sennheiser and it sounds damn amazing. I wouldn't imagine I have been listening to music for so many years and missing so many details in the music. Especially the old songs I've been so familiar with. They are a refreshing experience!
Good for u man, investing in audio is absolutely worth it, I just got a FiiO BTR5 that I connect to my phone and to my Sony XM4 and Sennheiser HD1 Wireless and WOW is everything I can say I can’t wait for my adapters to arrive
I was using the headphone output into my amp. It was only when I used my phone, and it sounded better, that I thought there might be a problem. I switched to an Ifi Zen v2. It's a lash up system - a wharfedale sub, JBL control 1's and a Rotel amp, all bits from Ebay. The difference is absolutely massive, between this and the headphone out. Interestingly - a lot of bass was going missing. I actually thought it might be a problem with the sub. I do have Spotify set to max quality. And yes, I know it's not lossless etc. etc. However, the dac in my Dell docking station was obviously not good. In short - the old hifi rule of having a decent source remains true.
What about audio from TVs and consoles? I use the Spotify app on my TV a lot, connected to a good stereo amp and speakers, but feel like I get better sound quality using my phone via a Dragonfly. Has anyone got experience with for example the Schiit Modi via the TVs optical out? Do you get sync issues with video?
It shouldn’t matter, Spotify will give the same digital signal no matter what its running on, what matters is what turns the digital signal into analog (built in DAC or separate one) and what you listen with.
The Master files are crucial because no matter how good your system is if the music is poorly recorded it's going to sound bad. It's like using a high end dac and amp to listen to the cell phone recorded video.
Half the music I listen to is "poorly recorded" due to the artists' budget constraints and have no MQA or other master-quality files available. I'd rather listen to good music that "sounds bad" than mediocre music that's well-mastered.
Thanks, interesting. Coming back to listening to music after 40 years, in the 80's had a Linn LP12/A&R A60/Linn Kans. It seems that HiFi philosophy has changed from being all about the source, invest in that, then amp, then speakers to the reverse. So much to catch up on, and what to do with a large vinyl collection!
Imo, Good musicianship and music recording triumph over high end equipment. I enjoy a good listening setup but bad music are always just gona be bad music…. Save up and listening live music is always a treat as well💪
Spotify on maxed settings is surprisingly good imo. Im trying the service out at the moment and so far I like it because the quality is better than I expected, the library is just endless and they have a solid desktop client that is not resource heavy and "just works" . My setup is Sundara + Fiio K3 (soon to be a Topping DX3 Pro+) and that's enough to spot a difference between TH-cam Streaming, random MP3 files, Soundcloud and Spotify on 320kbit. The Sundara were a big purchase so 10 bucks a month really is all I am willing to pay for a streaming service.
I totally agree with you on this, dac is way more useful for your hifi experience than ripping again all your cd in flac instead of lossy format. Just so you all should know, on the same hardware, most of us, even musicians or music lovers are just not able to tell the difference between flac and mp3 over 256kbps bitrate. Another thing is : use better lossy codec, vorbis is way better than mp3 and keep way more useful informations with the same bitrate, remember that the guys behind it are the same that are behind flac. Opus is even better (still the same guys behind it). Use also variable bitrate to save space when it’s not useful (on silences) and have more bitrate when it’s relevant.
Darko is the wheat from the chaff. Consive informative, clear and humble ration opinions. This guy and 'Cheap Audio Man' are the only ones who give me the reality of Audio research without the waffle. As always Darko, you are a pleasure to listen to. Gratidude.
I’ve just bought the FiiO KA1 and have spent a few hrs listening to Spotify on my MacBook through my KZ ZSN Pro’s and am impressed with the musicality and soundstage/ signature. I love the KZ’s and was happy just out of the headphone Jack on my old 6s plus. Ofcourse I’ve bought the USB-C KA1 so now I’m going OTG adapter route to see how things compare on the 6s and 12 mini. I think I’m more impressed with the KA1 sound than I was in my Schiit set up.
The biggest problem that I have with these lossless audio streaming services is that the music library usually isn't available to what I want to listen to. We all have different tastes, and if a service doesn't provide what I want to listen to or even a step up in quality, what's the point?
Can someone who knows about the technical details of a DAC explain why a DAC like for example the mola mola costs about 10k? What is inside the metal frame, a diamond, a bunch of gold nuggets super expenisve capacitors? Or has there been at least a decade-long extensive research going on by the manufacturer, inhouse knowledge which could justify the price a little bit? Is it an extremly cost intensive manufacturing process? I don't question that it has a better sound than a 200$ DAC but from a rational point of view that wouldn't justify such a ridiculous price. My guess is they know they serve a niche market and there is customers that pay any amount in search for that perfect sound. For me especially at such a high pricepoint there needs to be a reasonable relation between the price asked and the real value of the product.
Number one factor is the branding I guess. Companies these days increase their prices just to make a name for themselves. Secondly, yes, many expensive dacs or audio gears are expensive because of the components used in them or the engineering gone into it. Other factor is that the expensive ones are more good looking and built with good materials, the money is for the looks too. But, it doesn't matter. Music is music. Research and find a good dac for your budget and buy it because at the end of the day, you know majority of the people listen in consumer grade stuff and they feel and enoy the music just as any crazy audiophile with a crazy budget would feel. It's not like you'll listen to any new bonus sound or instruments if you'll get expensive gear.
my thing about dacs, is that the better quality from the computers, the less volume i need to hear everything. thus saving my ears whilst still hearing the same quality as if i had the volume at high level. hope that makes sense. my first time using a dac and i can testify, it really does make me enjoy the music, rather than just listen to it.
Pricey DACs are made to last more than 2years warranty and if you use them within spec, they should last more than 10 years. As for engineering, with today's technology good audio design is easy, so the price is mainly for slightly better components pricer, more sturdy design and more often than not, brand markup.
Hi, I'm only about to finish my bachelors in EE, but from what I learned about DAC's so far, you need really precise components to not mess up your Signal to Noise ratio too much. To give a relatively easy to understand example, let's look at a R/2nR Binary Weighted Input DAC (that's the only one I learned about - no idea how exactly the mola mola works). Your most significant bit (the leftmost one) of the digital input signal connects to some resistor with value R. For every next bit you need twice the resistance of the previous one. R, 2R, 4R, 8R, etc. If you buy cheap resistors with a large margin of error, you mess up these ratios a lot and your analog output signal will get noisier. So quality control is important, but I'm sure branding is a much bigger factor :)
GOD, John i can't tell you how much it means to me to listen to you talk about various aspects of audio each day. You are a means of stress relief to me that brings greater meaning to my continued love of listening to my music at this point in my life. Thank you ever so much for existing. My children are all grown, i am at that point where i think about retiring and finally have time for my art while listening to music.
Agree! I love the way he explains things. It’s thorough and informative but entertaining as well. Almost calming, like “ don’t worry, we’ll sort this out.” 😊
Hey man, you're totally scaring people with 'loss' in 'lossy codecs'! I've 'doing' the mp3 basically since it got out - yes, like 30 years - and it (mp3) was tested and retested and whatnot in highly professional conditions... Say trained listeners, say uncompressed audio mono and compressed audio mono randomly sent to two channels of absolutely high-level headphones, stuff like that... Hell, I did some of it myself. But major guys, say the sound engineer on Star Wars films and suchlike lead experiments, too. Anyhow, the conclusion was that "The Devil himself can't reliably make a difference between mp3 256kbps (Fraunhoffer codec) and CD quality". That was then, and now everyone uses LAME (which is actually good) and the sad thing is there is no progress in audio compression, unlike the video - so stuff like OGG, AAC and whatnot have some difference on low bitrates, but not at the high-end. Truth. Spotify 320kbps is LAME mp3 audio-stream, which is as good as it gets for lossy audio and most people LIE they hear the difference on their damned phones and such. They don't. But DAC is needed, really. Even on 20eur headphones you hear the difference. Much more on any type of home audio. Reason is that say, damned iPhone boosts itself with bloody 0.65eur Infineon DAC, inside the case. Integral audio on motherboard is 0.5eur Realtek-something and all the power supplies and converters inside make a terrible mess... Soundcard needs to be shielded, if its DAC is used (can be found for ~100eur). External DAC is better, but no need to go super-high in price, say half of your Amp at max. I use ~300 NAD at home, and that's what's enough for my room and my old ears (were much better 30 years ago, heh) and mp3 stream. Now, if you're an audiophile and have a several thousand audio system, then by all means, go for better DAC and lossless audio stream. Point is, even you're not one, you'll mostly hear the difference if you're using phone, integrated audio card on laptop/desktop and phones or home audio. What price? Not that important, take what you like. And you'll never notice lossless vs. high bitrate stream...
Something important to share here. In midst of quest for loss less streaming. I am using Logitech transporter paired to the giant Nad 208 power amp. There is a plug in called 'Radio Now Playing' on the options on its server from the computer. It has a plethora of loss less streams the biggest one at 2736 kbps FLAC! Treasure hunted!!
Very good info. The tuner on my receiver died and the radio reception is bad in that basement space anyway.... just looking for some kind of streamer I could use for internet radio stations and Spotify or Pandora... need to plug it into my stereo and don't need ultra high fidelity sound, but would like good sound.
the more quality the better but when we are losing our mind with data, expensive hardware & being puppets of a business..... then we are losing the horizon and the essence of music that is the art and work of each interpreter. peace out
DAP's are ridiculously priced. I'm just looking for something to store my CD catalogue on so I can take it mobile sometimes and be able to see the cover work, liner notes, etc. How about just a tablet rather than a DAP? Is there really going to be that much difference if I'm plugging it in my car?
Dap supports a lot of audio Codec so its seamless if you have different audio files. removal storage is good feature which all daps have. output power is known on daps so you can choose which one is enough for your setup. no need for dongles since you get all the jacks. you pay for the feature sets which major companies don't have or removed, a specialized audio device. there isn't a difference between using a tablet or dap in a car, it sounds the same.
I use an Argon Solo streamer connected with a coaxial audioquest cable on a Metrum Dac. The Dac is connected analog with a red river audioquest on a Nad C326 classic NAD amplifier. And Spotify premium sounds really good!
I listen to all my music in mp3s at usually medium to high quality, and by far the biggest improvement I've noticed is by using a decent DAC. However, I will add that I was previously using a default PC soundcard, which are infamously bad
Funny you should mention. In 2005 I transferred all my LPs to cd & ripped everything to MP3 discrete 320k. My headphones were 200 Sennheiser. By 2016 I bought 450BT phones, then ATH M50X in 2020. I used the ATH phones to test differences between Bluetooth and hardline connects. In 2022 I upgraded the 200s to 650S. By that time I had a Samsung tablet & rog Strix motherboard playing flac- souce to 450bt. I changed my listening habits because of headphone resolution. Huge different between Bluetooth & hardconnect, between flac & pcm, between a $150 and $400 headphones. That's partly due to noise cancellation features, partly original media quality, and partly system component quality. Next phase is deciding whether a streaming service is worth it.
@@mikechivy Lots of audiophiles apparently refuse to acknowledge that confirmation bias is a thing. On Spotify Free I would argue it isn't that difficult to tell the difference, but on Premium (with the quality setting at max) it's much much harder. The difference is there but it's extremely subtle. Depending on the track it may often not be noticeable at all. And that's on a $1600 setup. Anyone claiming it's obvious on $35 equipment is just full of it.
If you have a Chromecast Audio lying around collecting dust, use the optical output (which until this year I didn't know even existed) and connect that to a budget DAC (like the Schiit Modi or even a Pro-ject DAC box E) via a decent Toslink cable. I connected it to a used Schiit Bifrost. You will be surprised how the good sound gets. I'm not talking about Koenigsegg class, but a Subaru WRX Sti ?? I've tried 3 external DACs and every one sounds different. I like one more for classical music, and another for jazz, and the third if I can't be bothered to reconnect cables before sitting down to listen to music :-).
I recently tried ATH-WP900 headphones at a hifi-store connected to my android phone(Spotify) with dragonfly cobalt and later red. I have to say it blew my mind how fantastic ATH-WP900 sounded with the dragonfly cobalt. It was insanely dynamic, clear, dimensional. I never heard anything like that before. Later I tried it with the red and it was muddy and dead sounding in compare, all magic was gone. Now I don't know if cobalt is specally better with smartphones or why, but cobalt won it for me. Red was embarrassing. So DAC really matters I learned.
I would rank the importance of components: #1 Speakers, #2 DAC, #3 Amp. I'd take my Topping D30 and cheap Fosi BT30D Amp over a high-end Amp and integrated phone DAC.
A quick couple of questions: (1) Which is better for sound quality, streaming Spotify through my Iphone 5 or macbook pro (2009) to my stereo (good NAD set-up). (2) Given that both are older devices, will a DAC noticeably improve sound quality? Thanks.
(1) The best audio hardware is the way to go. Look at the specs and audio comments for both devices if you can, because these specific technical features are usually difficult to find on general-purpose devices. Trust your ears and preferences as well. You can take the highest product price as last option. (2) Yes, a dedicated DAC in decent or good setups noticeably improves sound quality, compared to most generic-purpose devices (PCs, smartphones). Sound is typically better defined in tone and space, more detailed. As many guys said here in comments, around 100$+ you can get a very good DAC. No need to go far expensive here.
I have a DAC (Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100) and I use Spotify, and the sound is a bit cleaner, but what Spotify lacks is exclusive mode for ASIO or WASAPI. If I enable exclusive mode in Tidal for example, I get a much much better sound than I do with it off, since the sound is going through Windows' own mix of some sorts when not in exclusive mode. However, I imported my Spotify library to foobar2000 via plugin, which has an exclusive mode/mode for ASIO/WASAPI and it's night and day difference. DACs do help with Spotify but there needs to be a better way than using 3rd party software to make it sound really better.
@@real_one It's called "Spotify Integration" for foobar2000. Don't get your hopes up too much, you can't use the search function, you can only copy links from Spotify and import them as playlists to foobar2000. They don't downsample, phone DACs just suck and Windows' mix intereferes a lot, it's not a desirable sound by any means once you've heard how your music sounds with a proper DAC.
Having Amazon Music, I have HD Audio, so lossless - I know this vid is already 2y old - today getting lossless audio from a streaming service shouldn’t be a problem
Uncompressed audio is uncompressed audio and, with the exception of variable-samplerate stuff (that you never see because nobody uses it), operates at a constant bitrate. Period. CD Quality audio is defined as 44,100 samples per second and 16 bits per sample, which samplerate and bit-depth are replicated across two channels for stereo sound production. This always results in exactly 1411kbps when uncompressed. Using FLAC to compress this at level 8 can result in a final, average bitrate of between 400-1100kbps depending on the sound in question, which is probably where that "600-1411kbps" range came from. I understand, but lossless compression is not the same as uncompressed unless we're talking strictly about the output of the decoded file (and thus the output of the DAC).
I was previously streaming Spotify into Marantz amp through an Echo Dot. After watching this video, I bit the bullet and got a Bluesound Node. The sound quality improvement has been obvious and shocking.
Nice info. I can confirm this information myself as I find Spotify sounding much better on LG g8x with the quad dac than my previous Xiaomi smartphone which used the DAC from snapdragon. Btw, could you also share the playlist you use in your videos. I always like the songs.
My only problem with spotify is that some albums sounds horrible like Thriller, i tested with other services (Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon) and it only happens in spotify.
You can't hear what's being thrown away 99.99% of the time but you can convince yourself 100% of the time you're missing out if you want.
Right? Isn't most of the information thrown out redundancies to save the space?
Under controlled conditions, you can tell the difference. If you listen while taking a shower, then most likely you will not be able to tell the difference.
I hear it on a 800$ system: sony a-s301, q acoustics 3030 , polk subwoofer , and a fosi 70$ dac. I plug my computer in the dac via USB: spotify sounds good, but if i have the flac of that music on my HD. GOD the difference is so massive it CANNOT be MENTAL.
@@NoName-to5xlI agree. I recently downloaded flacs of all my songs I had on Spotify and I hear things now that I never heard before, almost sounds like a slight remix of the original song- but it's not. This is also with me just using a pair of HD 6XX plugged into my iPod.
@@kyyuhlwhere do you download flacs from
Funny, with CD we had actually very good quality...but made step back in time because the memory on devices was lacking and very expensive. So compression became new standard and finally....we're getting back to FLAC, WAV, CD and masters
It's like people going from vinyl to cassette back in the 70s/80s. Ultimately most people dont care about or notice the difference in quality and the convenience and cost is so much better that cassettes became very dominant. Caring about sound quality will always be kinda niche, because it's just not that important to the vast majority of people.
Yeah, it's so sad that convenience wins most of the time. Good quality music (FLAC or WAV 1141 kbps or better) is such good therapy on a great system. You just need to allow some time to do it right!
@@pvanb291 I think it's about circumstance. Most people listen to music whilst doing something else be it a whilst commuting, doing work, exercise or partying etc. In all these circumstances practicality wins out. We (the audio community) listen to music in a different way, the music IS the focus and when it's the focus, quality wins out.
Mainstream will always move towards ease of use and practicality over raw quality.
@@JoeNokers problem is tech has gotten so good that we can have the cake and eat it! The majority of people just don't care sadly.
Silence boomer
Spotify has the option to reproduce uncompressed audio (I believe it streams like a WAV of the original song) so it may be worth upgrading. But first you gotta ask yourself these questions:
- Do I have good headphones/speakers?
- Do I listen to Hi-Fi music?
- Can I hear the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and an uncompressed source?
- Do my ears really deserve the upgreade? Are they telling me "this experience is poor quality, I want more" or is it just you wanting to buy more gear?
Everyone likes a new piece of gear, but it’s a disease.
I have 10 guitars, trust me.
What do you mean by "Hi-Fi music"? You mean really well recorded music, or specific types/genres?
@@SnassySnoblin the former
People really should just go out to a hi-fi or home cinema store and listen to different speakers, headphones and recievers in combinations. If they don't hear a difference they won't notice an upgrade. If they get tears in their eyes they do lol
@AJ I can confirm. Just did some A/B testing and while I have pretty good hearing, I really couldn't hear a difference. I don't have ultra-high-end gear, but my K712 Pros reveal enough to make a difference. I just stopped worrying about the 0.001% nuance that you might miss when listening to lossy files. I'd rather enjoy music than having to think about what I might not catch or trying to make out some imaginary differences when listening to hi-fi gear because "there must be a difference, the people on the forum said so!"
When did they started offering that option? Is that something new?
Thank you for being open and non judgemental like many audiophiles out there. Really helps me who is just starting out and only looking for a budget set up.
What really helped me :
1/ think about your speakers,
2/ then the amp for those speakers,
3/ then the dac,
4/ then your streaming service.
thanks mate.
Seems common to bash Spotify music quality. Personally I find it surprisingly good and you have to listen very hard on high quality equipment to hear flaws.
Tbf it's reasonable for ppl to bash on Spotify music quality, but in the end we got our own standard especially for music
I've been hearing bad mastering flaws or even bails in producing 6 years back with my Philips SP5300 100W RMS 2.1 Speakers without any DAC and just the internal soundcard of my Alienware M18x Laptop back then. It's just a matter of getting used to the equipment you're listening with and know it's limits. Then you'll know when it's the fault of your gear or the fault of producing bails or bad mastering.
Can't hear any difference to tidal and that's on 1 000 euro EQd headphone system and 10 000 euro 2.4 2-chan system.
@@bjornelfsberg3518 Oh come on man, Tidal is far better than Spotify... on the marketing hehe.
@@bjornelfsberg3518 I hear the difference running dt 990’s but they are very subtle
Honestly Spotify isn't quite as bad as people make it out to be. 320kbs ogg vorbis is pretty solid. Solid enough that you'd probably only notice the difference between that and lossless with a decent DAC and a relatively good amp. Or at least the difference wouldn't be obvious.
That said, I don't think that's an excuse for them still not offering any kind of lossless option. I wouldn't blame them for not going the full master quality route like Tidal, there are very few people who would benefit from that, but they *at least* need to have a CD quality option.
If Apple Music is already doing it, Spotify needed to be doing it several years ago. Supposedly they're going to, but they'd pushed it back multiple times.
apparently it’s just that they’re in licensing hell with record labels and that’s why they don’t have lossless yet
Honestly, I've been so fed up with Spotify that I just ended up with Apple Music. And I don't regret it a bit. The UI looks phenomenal on Android, they have lossless (5.99 for students, it's a MUST) and now have added the last feature I missed in iOS 16: sorting playlists. When Spotify screwed up their library and how it works, that's when I jumped ship. Not regretting it at all.
2:26 that is a bit misssleading the bitrate on lossless files does not work like lossy files, for example a 320 kb/s MP3 is clearly better sounding/higher quality than a 192 kb/s one, but with FLAC a 800 kb/s song doesnt sound worse than a 1000 kb/s one because bitrate in lossless codecs doesn't determine sound quality, it determines the complexity and average sound levels. A loud song has a higher bitrate than a quiet one.
Huge fan of your channel. With all the buzz on hi-res audio, it's great to hear an audiophile strip down the tech jargon for the man in the street. I've been an avid audiophile enthusiast for most of my life and we are living in exciting times with music being accessible anywhere, anytime and anyplace. There is an amalgamation of 2 domains, that being the internet and audio which was never heard of when I started buying serious audio tech and with mobile tech here to stay, it can only get better...glad to hear you mention ogg-vorbis as I tried explaining that to non-audio/tech/streaming people and they think I'm speaking a foreign language!
Your channel - no fuss, no elitism, sensible audio advices. Good find!
Bear in mind now that lossless audio will be coming to Spotify later this year which definitely makes a DAC worth it
At this point my hopes aren’t high. I think Apple Music’s release of lossless at no extra cost put a kink in their plans bc they were gonna offer it as a premium feature with a price increase.
great, now all the plebs are going to think they know what hifi is.
@@plasmaglobe2850 LMAO fr
really? so does customer need to pay higher rate to enjoy that?
@@plasmaglobe2850
**plays Spotify lossless through Bluetooth Airpods**
"Ah yes, sounds much better"
This is a very well put-together video and gives great perspective. One thing I would've added is that a lot of DAC/Source file quality discussion and advice comes from the time when lossy compression was introduced and since then the algorithms have improved substantially so a lot of "you need to worry about your source files" talking points just doesn't hold true anymore. Also, audio engineers have learned a lot since then about mastering for digital and lossy compressed formats and it became the primary medium, so everything is optimised for that too.
I’m going to tell y’all right now. Listen to music on whatever you have access on. A lot of songs, especially underground songs and mixes can only be found on TH-cam.
so many songs that are near impossible to find high quality versions of.
The four corners of the earth - the fire shall devour them
Hindi Zahra - Stand Up (acoustic version)
Royksopp - Eple (drum intro version, vinyl only)
And the one that I simply cannot figure out the true source of: DJ AJA, Inc. - Yesterday... (Parts of this song show up in many other re-published versions and I have no idea who the true author is)
Audiophiles are the worst, if you want 3.5% improvement in audio get ready to fork over another $2,000. Oh, and everyone has a wrong opinion as to what it SHOULD sound like. I thought about diving into the audiophile world and quickly found out it's an extremely confusing hobby that costs a fortune, and everyone is divided on what equipment is and isn't good lol. Now I just read through the comments for entertainment. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hobby and understand people's love for audio, I'm just amazed how deep the rabbit hole goes.
@@XTSM1 Could you expand on the DIY route please? Do you mean making a DAC yourself (and some other audiophile equipment)?
I've just recently learned about IEM's and DAC's and now I'm considering getting an IEM, as I will soon be doing a lot of video and audio editing in the near future. I have gen 1 AirPods Pro and they still work great, but I understand that IEM's are generally considered the best you can get for an earbud-like audio system. My main question is if you think getting an IEM (I am considering the Sennheiser IE 300 atm) would be worth it for the kind of work I am doing. And if so, would a DAC also be recommended?
I have a PC at home, but I will be using my laptop exclusively for my studies at my university when I start again this fall - if that's any consideration for what kind of ports I'd have available. I do have a PS5 so I'd also connect to that too, and I have a separate usb mic that I connect to my PC/PS5; I know on DAC's you can switch the input/output cable to where the sound is coming from so I'm also wondering if it would work vice-versa with a usb mic input (if a DAC even has such a thing.) It would mean a lot if you would give me some pointers or direct me to a place to where I can find more info and ask these things.
@@jethompsn I guess he's talking about figuring out stuff by himself instead of spending time on audiophile forums.
I've had a Schiit DAC for a couple of years and was completely unaware that I could get better source audio on Amazon compared to Spotify. So thanks. That's fixed now.
I stream Spotify from my Mac Mini into a Schiit Modi 3+ (via USB), then into my integrated amplifier, then out some bookshelf speakers and I noticed the difference in quality immediately. Really pleased with the result.
After watching some other videos about sound quality, I do believe you nailed it with a simple yet direct explanation about the impact of a proper equipment and sound quality.
I used Apple music for 6 months or so but went back to Spotify.For me the Spotify UI is far superior and this is just as important, I am constantly finding new music through the Spotify recommendations that the other services just don't seem to do.I don't have a highly resolving system and spend many contented evenings listening to music.I think Spotify is excellent.
also good news. spotify is getting lossless streaming sometime idk when. probably gonna cost extra but could be worth it.
Yeah nothing can beat Spotify in music's variety and seamlessness
Big agree on the later point: how the recording is mastered is often the key point. I have TH-cam premium that's 256kbps. The good DAC of the iFi Zen Blue V2 (on LDAC) handles the lossy stream well enough to show better remasters of the same material as preferable to some older CDs.
the answer: if you're using Spotify you already have a DAC and chances are it's fine
Great video, agree with everything you mentioned.
3 years ago I bought my speakers and I follow the exact same direction you mentioned! Choose my speakers (though oversized to get the best I can afford - USHER Diamond mini 2) and I went with the amp the producer of the speaker recommended (USHER A8500) and got a Bluesound Node as a source. I was really lucky that reliable people helped me on the way, as even now I don't feel to change anything in my system. I listen to Spotify most of the time because after everything was set up, I really liked the sound and didn't feel Tidal worth the extra cost.
Thank you, I have always said that the mastering is more important then the formate regardless of it been on vinyl CD or Stream.
7:47 "So, choose the best speakers for your room, then choose the best amp for your speakers, then - don't fret about Spotify: Invest in an entry-level DAC, and then after that you can worry about what streaming service you use."
what if you have an active speakers?
@@mykeviper - That’s steps 1 and 2, move on to step 3.
Thank you for this video John. I agree with you. I purchased a Schiit Modi 3 to run my Wiim Mini through using Spotify as the source and the Schiit Modi 3 saved my streaming as I have always been a vinyl/cd guy.
I always enjoy your vid's. Please, keep up the good work.
Same setup. I love it and it's so cheap.
Good thing about streaming on Good equipment is you still get a good sound and still have loads of shelf space!!! not taken up by LPs, CDs Cassettes MDs DCCs, But on the other hand if you're a Certain age we grew up with and love a physical media. 😊
man...
You know, I see audiophiles who are super nice, who want people to join in on their hobby and understand!
Annnnd this comments section is not full of them lol.
Listen, it don't matter that much. There's no perfect way to listen to music. If you care, sure, that's fine. But you don't need to.
I feel like you can just EQ anything to your personal preference and all you need is a semi capable setup. Idk anything about audio, but seems like people justify spending way too much
the amazing thing is that between the squeezebox and dacs today is that you can get all the dac youll ever (yes ever) need for $100. thats not true even like 5 years ago when hi-fi was hi budget. if you wanna get an amp with it youre looking at about $400 total for a lifetime. which is for sure still on the low end of things but ive noticed thats the point of drastically diminishing returns unless you want a very specific tone to your audio or youre a hobbyist. speakers and headphones are too personal to go into but i guarantee that a flat tone dac (akm chips) and amp (thx chips or topping, among others) will power whatever you throw at it and you can adjust tone with the eq on your computer or by using different sound making things. put the focus on your source (computer, cd player, whatever) and your headphones/speakers first, then work the rest out from there
@donison1968 I’m new to this too. Some advise, expect there to be no personalised info, it’s a pain but you might be in the same boat as me.
After waiting for years, and struggling with a Pi-based rig that never worked right for long, I just bought a Schiit Modi 3E, and installed it between my Wiim Mini and the Sansui integrated amplifier that I've owned for fifty years, and I'm thrilled with it. The texture that it brings to the sound of my system are amazing. Thanks, John!
LOL, this is me. I use mid - high end gear and most of my content comes from spotify
watch out, the gatekeepers are gonna start attacking you any minute
Same but I use deezer hifi
@@erikpayne8202 well deezer is lossless, so
Same, I'm a bit of a newcomer to the mid fi headphone world. Most of my rekordbox library is WAV, I have a few special albums in FLAC on my PC, but 95% of my listening is through Spotify.
I'll definitely be upgrading to Spotify hifi when I get the chance. I'd thought about tidal, but I'd be losing out on a lot of the more niche stuff that I listen to. Not sure how deezer compares, but to be honest I know that Spotify has most of what I want to listen to, so I'll make do with 320Kbs mp3 for now.
Good thing Spotify will be going lossless x'D
You did good. I remember when I started 13 years ago and it’s been nice growing with you on tech.
I totally agree that the mastering matters WAY more than the bitrate as long as you compare 320kbps lossy to FLAC.
Music recorded by chesky records on spotify sound AMAZING compared to some songs i have in FLAC.
330kbps i believe is the perfect compromise as long as recording and mastering is done beautifully
I think the recording and mixing would be a more accurate way of putting it. Mastering is largely just EQing the already mixed file
I can totally attest to this theory presented at about 7:00. I was running Spotify from a laptop via Bluetooth to a Dayton DTA120BT2 To a Sony sub and an array of vintage, but upgraded bookshelf speakers. However, I recently bought a Schiit Hel2e DAC and pushed that into an Aiyima A07 to the same speakers and it was a profound increase in the quality. Everything was clear, mud was gone. Things were bright, sparkly and punchy. TV, Movies, Music, Videogames. Even songs that have been mixed poorly and sound decent on crap systems.... Their deficiencies were there and more apparent due to how clean and neutral everything was.
bluetooth?
I have Spotify and Tidal. Sometimes Spotify sounds better! Good recordings sound leagues better on Tidal. Average and especially below average recordings can sound more pleasant on Spotify though! Hearing a poorly mastered track on Tidal reminds me of when I first saw news anchors in HD 😂.
All in all, it's been my experience that compression can help smooth over harsh qualities of bad mixing and mastering.
TIDAL HiFi/plus is not lossless. They use what they call Master Quality Authenticated (MQA), not FLAC. Qobuz on the other hand does offer you true lossless with FLAC.
I have same feelings for TIDAL.
And A/B on same song gives very mixed reviews, also if u think u need DAC buy first some cheap AliExpress special like eassager.
What track have poor masters on TIDAL?
@@SunilZishan I use Tidal, it's lossless FLAC btw
I have an old and fine Yamaha amplifier and beautiful speakers. I use a Bluetooth receiver and it’s amazing!
So… cheap solution and so much pleasure!!
You'd be hard pressed to notice a difference between Spotify on its highest quality setting (which I believe is 320kbps MP3) and the same song on a lossless format like .FLAC. You'd have to A/B the same section of the song repeatedly. At that point it's not really worth the trouble of fussing too much over it. I'm a big audio guy - I spend money on the hobby that some would consider absurd - And for years I curated a growing library of lossless music. But, a couple years ago I moved over to Spotify Premium. It gave me an absolutely vast catalog of music that I can access whenever I want. I don't have to buy new music or fuss with acquiring it, ripping it in lossless, storing it on my server and messing around with metadata etc. The feature set makes using Spotify very enjoyable. I've discovered a lot of new music thanks to its recommendations and its automatic playlists marrying new music to the existing music I like. I still go anal retentive over the rest of the chain - But as a source and media player find Spotify more than adequate. It's actually greatly increased the amount of music I listen too
Yes I agree its a tradeoff between convenience and quality. To each their own but even with quality headphones the difference is very marginal so I choose convenience for sure
Exactly.
I have a cheap dynaudio speaker under 2000$
No difference for me !
Maybe for high end stuff there would be a difference.
I'm going to totally disagree here. I've just got into music streaming recently. I'm no audiophile in any sense but I can clearly hear how horrendous the audio quality is out of Spotify compared to Amazon Music, Tidal and Qobuz with the comparable audio settings. I can barely get through a track with Spotify due to how harsh the audio sounds which is probably due to the compression of the tracks.
i love your content alot, i went and learned all in the hard way but you have made it very simple and easy to understand, happy to be here and see more people care about there audio
Soundcloud/Spotify/TH-cam (Yt on at least 720p-1080p Audio Sources) always sound better as soon as i plug in any of my PreAmps/DACs. Even on a JBL Charge 4, the Astro Gaming 7.1 Headphone MixAmp for example, it totally transforms the sound and you can play around a lot with 4 customizable EQ presets. I tried something else too, used my Motu M4 and connected the headphone output onto my JBL Charge 4 speaker, guess what, the Sound was cleaner and still had crazy JBL bass, the Motu M4 headphone output even has so much PreAmp gain that 40-50% of the Knob are enough when the Charge 4 is already put to its maximal volume. The critiacal matter here is: Are internals inside your chosen product, PreAmp/DAC built well enough with good quality internals on the chipsets to drive your headphones/speakers and at the same time have clear sound or not. If you buy a quality product it will always sound better no matter how bad the source file you're listening to is.
Great video, especially loving the b-roll footage
I upgraded to a high fi system. Fairly entry level with shanling ua1 pro as DAC and blon-bl03 as the iem. What I figured intrigued me.Contrary to what people believe, the difference between lossy and lossless is as clear as night and day! Never listening to mp3's again
I have a blon03 and I'm thinking to buy a dac what would u suggest
@@iamsathya Just get a Filo or Topping E30, if you’re confident about your ears. Welcome to the audiophile community!
Bro I'm thinking of a portable DAC that can handle my entry level Blon bl03 as well as headphones like Sennheiser HD660S and Beyerdynamic DT 700 Pro X which I'll be buying in future.
Could you recommend some ?
or I need to get another separate DAC or desktop DAC to drive those headphones ?
Of course. Blind tests does not prove anything! We choose truth over facts
/sarcasm
I just want to thank you for all your videos. So with that said, thank you for all your work.
Funny thing about lossless services like tidal. Sometimes the master copy that they stream is worse than what you can get via youtube or Spotify and will sound worse despite being “lossless”
How???
@@PM-wt3yedepending on the recording or the mastering/mixing of that particular album it can be good or bad quality
Hi I am aware that Spotify are working hard to improve the quality of their streaming, and because I like their app I am happy to wait. However, I wasn’t aware the DAC would have a impact on the sound, I thought it was the source, so this has been very helpful and I will look to upgrade soon. Thx Stephen
This is an old video but I'd just like to share my own experience with Spotify/Tidal. So I got some new BT Headphones over the summer (Teufel Real Blue NC, 150€ - lesser known German brand) and initially I was a bit disappointed because they didn't really sound better than my previous ones (7 y/o 90€ open headphones from Teufel as well). But then I read about Tidal and thought I'd give it a shot and the difference was quite signficant. Even on high quality instead of HiFi, the instrument seperation and clarity is noticeably better than on Spotify with highest settings.
So I can't say how it compares on speakers but on my bluetooth (!) headphones it makes quite a lot of difference. And for 5€ a months I can only recommend it.
I don't own a DAC (yet) but I would assume it improves the audio, no matter if the source is Spotify or Tidal, but there's definitely more to work with on lossless streaming services.
You only pay €5 a month for Spotify - Student rate or some such?
Get a DAC, by all means. I stream Spotify out of my Mac Mini, into my Schiit Modi 3, then into my (classic) Creek 4042s2 integrated
amp then out my (vintage) Mission 70s, and it has made a noticeable difference to these ears. I was pleasantly surprised.
No more iPhone into Creek 😉
Actually tidal is use MQA technology before put the sound to FLAC and unfortunately, the MQA is lossy as well.
we get what we pay for🙂 rent
Yes. Spotify sounds the best on Marantz SACD 30N. You will be surprised by the MMM, not just DAC alone.
Love this video, perfect for a newbie like me
I pulled all of my old lossy files mp3 files which is 320kbps into the raspberry pi streamer with an added optical spdif hat. I listened to it on schiit modi+ magni combo into hd650 Sennheiser and it sounds damn amazing. I wouldn't imagine I have been listening to music for so many years and missing so many details in the music. Especially the old songs I've been so familiar with. They are a refreshing experience!
Good for u man, investing in audio is absolutely worth it, I just got a FiiO BTR5 that I connect to my phone and to my Sony XM4 and Sennheiser HD1 Wireless and WOW is everything I can say I can’t wait for my adapters to arrive
I have the exact same setup :D
Hi I'm so noob and new info these audio stuff and I wanna get started to listen to high quality music. Where do I start?
I was using the headphone output into my amp. It was only when I used my phone, and it sounded better, that I thought there might be a problem. I switched to an Ifi Zen v2. It's a lash up system - a wharfedale sub, JBL control 1's and a Rotel amp, all bits from Ebay. The difference is absolutely massive, between this and the headphone out. Interestingly - a lot of bass was going missing. I actually thought it might be a problem with the sub. I do have Spotify set to max quality. And yes, I know it's not lossless etc. etc. However, the dac in my Dell docking station was obviously not good.
In short - the old hifi rule of having a decent source remains true.
What about audio from TVs and consoles? I use the Spotify app on my TV a lot, connected to a good stereo amp and speakers, but feel like I get better sound quality using my phone via a Dragonfly. Has anyone got experience with for example the Schiit Modi via the TVs optical out? Do you get sync issues with video?
I stream Spotify and TH-cam on PS4, connected to TV via HDMI. And then Optical out from the TV goes into DAC (Chord Mojo). No problem whatsoever.
It shouldn’t matter, Spotify will give the same digital signal no matter what its running on, what matters is what turns the digital signal into analog (built in DAC or separate one) and what you listen with.
The Master files are crucial because no matter how good your system is if the music is poorly recorded it's going to sound bad. It's like using a high end dac and amp to listen to the cell phone recorded video.
Half the music I listen to is "poorly recorded" due to the artists' budget constraints and have no MQA or other master-quality files available. I'd rather listen to good music that "sounds bad" than mediocre music that's well-mastered.
@@willywonka3050 mqa sucks bro
As we say in the recording industry: 'Crap in is Crap out'
Thanks, interesting. Coming back to listening to music after 40 years, in the 80's had a Linn LP12/A&R A60/Linn Kans. It seems that HiFi philosophy has changed from being all about the source, invest in that, then amp, then speakers to the reverse. So much to catch up on, and what to do with a large vinyl collection!
In the various setups I have in my house, the DAC makes a significantly bigger difference than lossless audio does.
Imo, Good musicianship and music recording triumph over high end equipment. I enjoy a good listening setup but bad music are always just gona be bad music…. Save up and listening live music is always a treat as well💪
Spotify on maxed settings is surprisingly good imo.
Im trying the service out at the moment and so far I like it because the quality is better than I expected, the library is just endless and they have a solid desktop client that is not resource heavy and "just works" .
My setup is Sundara + Fiio K3 (soon to be a Topping DX3 Pro+) and that's enough to spot a difference between TH-cam Streaming, random MP3 files, Soundcloud and Spotify on 320kbit.
The Sundara were a big purchase so 10 bucks a month really is all I am willing to pay for a streaming service.
I mean, is for consumers rather than audiophile or actual audio enginners.
@@JoseRivera-rl3qv audiophiles are just snobby consumers
@@vincentnguyen7271 🛐
Heard the sundaras are good, how do you like them?
watching this with my $30 logitech speakers:
I totally agree with you on this, dac is way more useful for your hifi experience than ripping again all your cd in flac instead of lossy format.
Just so you all should know, on the same hardware, most of us, even musicians or music lovers are just not able to tell the difference between flac and mp3 over 256kbps bitrate. Another thing is : use better lossy codec, vorbis is way better than mp3 and keep way more useful informations with the same bitrate, remember that the guys behind it are the same that are behind flac. Opus is even better (still the same guys behind it). Use also variable bitrate to save space when it’s not useful (on silences) and have more bitrate when it’s relevant.
Darko is the wheat from the chaff. Consive informative, clear and humble ration opinions. This guy and 'Cheap Audio Man' are the only ones who give me the reality of Audio research without the waffle. As always Darko, you are a pleasure to listen to. Gratidude.
thats amazing. I use spotify on my phone but i only use tidal when listening on my sound system with cabasse speakers.
I’ve heard if you play over Bluetooth it won’t sound any different. Can you tell me if that’s true?
@@scootsmcdoots80 Bluetooth maxes out at somewhere around 250Kbit/s so lossless likely won't have any impact.
I’ve just bought the FiiO KA1 and have spent a few hrs listening to Spotify on my MacBook through my KZ ZSN Pro’s and am impressed with the musicality and soundstage/ signature. I love the KZ’s and was happy just out of the headphone Jack on my old 6s plus. Ofcourse I’ve bought the USB-C KA1 so now I’m going OTG adapter route to see how things compare on the 6s and 12 mini. I think I’m more impressed with the KA1 sound than I was in my Schiit set up.
The biggest problem that I have with these lossless audio streaming services is that the music library usually isn't available to what I want to listen to.
We all have different tastes, and if a service doesn't provide what I want to listen to or even a step up in quality, what's the point?
just buy the CD and rip em in FLAC format
@@fhf17 the entire point of spotify is its free
@@fhf17 I have 2000+ songs no
you can include your offline music library in spotify
also spotify sometimes suggests artist that are barely represented on youtube
qobuz is pretty good
The question is rather; what Type of headphones/speakers do you have and do they need a DAC.
Not whether you need a DAC for spotify..
Spotify audio quality isnt great. You'll hear it on higher grade gear.
Hello!
What about external dac versus the dac from a reciver? Let’s say the Yamaha Rx V581. Would it be a difference? Thanks
would like to know the answer to this as well.
THIS is the video I was looking for.
Can someone who knows about the technical details of a DAC explain why a DAC like for example the mola mola costs about 10k? What is inside the metal frame, a diamond, a bunch of gold nuggets super expenisve capacitors?
Or has there been at least a decade-long extensive research going on by the manufacturer, inhouse knowledge which could justify the price a little bit?
Is it an extremly cost intensive manufacturing process?
I don't question that it has a better sound than a 200$ DAC but from a rational point of view that wouldn't justify such a ridiculous price.
My guess is they know they serve a niche market and there is customers that pay any amount in search for that perfect sound.
For me especially at such a high pricepoint there needs to be a reasonable relation between the price asked and the real value of the product.
Number one factor is the branding I guess. Companies these days increase their prices just to make a name for themselves. Secondly, yes, many expensive dacs or audio gears are expensive because of the components used in them or the engineering gone into it. Other factor is that the expensive ones are more good looking and built with good materials, the money is for the looks too.
But, it doesn't matter. Music is music. Research and find a good dac for your budget and buy it because at the end of the day, you know majority of the people listen in consumer grade stuff and they feel and enoy the music just as any crazy audiophile with a crazy budget would feel. It's not like you'll listen to any new bonus sound or instruments if you'll get expensive gear.
my thing about dacs, is that the better quality from the computers, the less volume i need to hear everything. thus saving my ears whilst still hearing the same quality as if i had the volume at high level. hope that makes sense. my first time using a dac and i can testify, it really does make me enjoy the music, rather than just listen to it.
Pricey DACs are made to last more than 2years warranty and if you use them within spec, they should last more than 10 years. As for engineering, with today's technology good audio design is easy, so the price is mainly for slightly better components pricer, more sturdy design and more often than not, brand markup.
a ton of design a ton of superclean semiconductors op amps and capacitors, and a ton of quality control
Hi, I'm only about to finish my bachelors in EE, but from what I learned about DAC's so far, you need really precise components to not mess up your Signal to Noise ratio too much.
To give a relatively easy to understand example, let's look at a R/2nR Binary Weighted Input DAC (that's the only one I learned about - no idea how exactly the mola mola works).
Your most significant bit (the leftmost one) of the digital input signal connects to some resistor with value R. For every next bit you need twice the resistance of the previous one.
R, 2R, 4R, 8R, etc.
If you buy cheap resistors with a large margin of error, you mess up these ratios a lot and your analog output signal will get noisier.
So quality control is important, but I'm sure branding is a much bigger factor :)
GOD, John i can't tell you how much it means to me to listen to you talk about various aspects of audio each day. You are a means of stress relief to me that brings greater meaning to my continued love of listening to my music at this point in my life. Thank you ever so much for existing. My children are all grown, i am at that point where i think about retiring and finally have time for my art while listening to music.
Agree! I love the way he explains things. It’s thorough and informative but entertaining as well. Almost calming, like “ don’t worry, we’ll sort this out.” 😊
Hey man, you're totally scaring people with 'loss' in 'lossy codecs'!
I've 'doing' the mp3 basically since it got out - yes, like 30 years - and it (mp3) was tested and retested and whatnot in highly professional conditions... Say trained listeners, say uncompressed audio mono and compressed audio mono randomly sent to two channels of absolutely high-level headphones, stuff like that... Hell, I did some of it myself. But major guys, say the sound engineer on Star Wars films and suchlike lead experiments, too.
Anyhow, the conclusion was that "The Devil himself can't reliably make a difference between mp3 256kbps (Fraunhoffer codec) and CD quality".
That was then, and now everyone uses LAME (which is actually good) and the sad thing is there is no progress in audio compression, unlike the video - so stuff like OGG, AAC and whatnot have some difference on low bitrates, but not at the high-end. Truth. Spotify 320kbps is LAME mp3 audio-stream, which is as good as it gets for lossy audio and most people LIE they hear the difference on their damned phones and such. They don't.
But DAC is needed, really. Even on 20eur headphones you hear the difference. Much more on any type of home audio. Reason is that say, damned iPhone boosts itself with bloody 0.65eur Infineon DAC, inside the case. Integral audio on motherboard is 0.5eur Realtek-something and all the power supplies and converters inside make a terrible mess... Soundcard needs to be shielded, if its DAC is used (can be found for ~100eur). External DAC is better, but no need to go super-high in price, say half of your Amp at max. I use ~300 NAD at home, and that's what's enough for my room and my old ears (were much better 30 years ago, heh) and mp3 stream.
Now, if you're an audiophile and have a several thousand audio system, then by all means, go for better DAC and lossless audio stream.
Point is, even you're not one, you'll mostly hear the difference if you're using phone, integrated audio card on laptop/desktop and phones or home audio. What price? Not that important, take what you like. And you'll never notice lossless vs. high bitrate stream...
Really informative. Thanks for sharing!
Something important to share here. In midst of quest for loss less streaming.
I am using Logitech transporter paired to the giant Nad 208 power amp.
There is a plug in called 'Radio Now Playing' on the options on its server from the computer. It has a plethora of loss less streams the biggest one at 2736 kbps FLAC! Treasure hunted!!
Very good info. The tuner on my receiver died and the radio reception is bad in that basement space anyway.... just looking for some kind of streamer I could use for internet radio stations and Spotify or Pandora... need to plug it into my stereo and don't need ultra high fidelity sound, but would like good sound.
the more quality the better but when we are losing our mind with data, expensive hardware & being puppets of a business..... then we are losing the horizon and the essence of music that is the art and work of each interpreter. peace out
DAP's are ridiculously priced. I'm just looking for something to store my CD catalogue on so I can take it mobile sometimes and be able to see the cover work, liner notes, etc. How about just a tablet rather than a DAP? Is there really going to be that much difference if I'm plugging it in my car?
Dap supports a lot of audio Codec so its seamless if you have different audio files. removal storage is good feature which all daps have. output power is known on daps so you can choose which one is enough for your setup. no need for dongles since you get all the jacks. you pay for the feature sets which major companies don't have or removed, a specialized audio device. there isn't a difference between using a tablet or dap in a car, it sounds the same.
I use an Argon Solo streamer connected with a coaxial audioquest cable on a Metrum Dac. The Dac is connected analog with a red river audioquest on a Nad C326 classic NAD amplifier. And Spotify premium sounds really good!
I listen to all my music in mp3s at usually medium to high quality, and by far the biggest improvement I've noticed is by using a decent DAC. However, I will add that I was previously using a default PC soundcard, which are infamously bad
Even something like an Asus Xonar U3, which is comparable in price to a decent restaurant meal, is miles better than typical PC onboard DACs.
How much you pay for the dac?
I like your attitude and the way you put things.
Great video with a lot of great information. You just answered every question I had.
Funny you should mention. In 2005 I transferred all my LPs to cd & ripped everything to MP3 discrete 320k. My headphones were 200 Sennheiser. By 2016 I bought 450BT phones, then ATH M50X in 2020. I used the ATH phones to test differences between Bluetooth and hardline connects. In 2022 I upgraded the 200s to 650S. By that time I had a Samsung tablet & rog Strix motherboard playing flac- souce to 450bt. I changed my listening habits because of headphone resolution. Huge different between Bluetooth & hardconnect, between flac & pcm, between a $150 and $400 headphones. That's partly due to noise cancellation features, partly original media quality, and partly system component quality. Next phase is deciding whether a streaming service is worth it.
spotify is good for finding new music and overall experience, apple music has good audio quality. whats your current setup on pc?
This explanation lines up 100% with my experience. The mixing/mastering of the music makes a massive difference.
I’m using hd600 with my shiit stack dac + amp but I still can’t the difference between Spotify free (160kb/s) and some 320kbps files.
@@mikechivy Lots of audiophiles apparently refuse to acknowledge that confirmation bias is a thing.
On Spotify Free I would argue it isn't that difficult to tell the difference, but on Premium (with the quality setting at max) it's much much harder. The difference is there but it's extremely subtle. Depending on the track it may often not be noticeable at all. And that's on a $1600 setup.
Anyone claiming it's obvious on $35 equipment is just full of it.
THAT TRESOR STICKER LOVE IT
Dude your no bullshit approach is music to my newbie ears...Wait....Neverminded....Subscribed!
perfect escenario, DAC + Spotify HIFI, guess what! it's happening !
iam new to these kinds of deep audio things (audiophile things i mean) but these are really interesting to learn
If you have a Chromecast Audio lying around collecting dust, use the optical output (which until this year I didn't know even existed) and connect that to a budget DAC (like the Schiit Modi or even a Pro-ject DAC box E) via a decent Toslink cable. I connected it to a used Schiit Bifrost. You will be surprised how the good sound gets. I'm not talking about Koenigsegg class, but a Subaru WRX Sti ?? I've tried 3 external DACs and every one sounds different. I like one more for classical music, and another for jazz, and the third if I can't be bothered to reconnect cables before sitting down to listen to music :-).
I used Spotify for a loooong time. I guess from start to 2 years ago. I swtiched to Qobuz. No audiobooks and Podcasts. Just music.
the first DAC units like the Neko D100 from years ago, where amazing, now we have the dongles DAC for 10 dollars who do the same thing
I recently tried ATH-WP900 headphones at a hifi-store connected to my android phone(Spotify) with dragonfly cobalt and later red. I have to say it blew my mind how fantastic ATH-WP900 sounded with the dragonfly cobalt. It was insanely dynamic, clear, dimensional. I never heard anything like that before. Later I tried it with the red and it was muddy and dead sounding in compare, all magic was gone. Now I don't know if cobalt is specally better with smartphones or why, but cobalt won it for me. Red was embarrassing. So DAC really matters I learned.
it does, it changes every sound not just music, also like you mentioned, versatile, can be used on various devices
I actually emailed Cambridge Audio.
DAC gets used for Spotify so I think quality of DAC can make a difference.
I would rank the importance of components: #1 Speakers, #2 DAC, #3 Amp. I'd take my Topping D30 and cheap Fosi BT30D Amp over a high-end Amp and integrated phone DAC.
It’s the other way around for me. Most dacs sound identical to the ear and higher quality amps actually make an audible difference.
Thank you. This is pertinent, well explained, and I can't but agree with your conclusion.
A quick couple of questions: (1) Which is better for sound quality, streaming Spotify through my Iphone 5 or macbook pro (2009) to my stereo (good NAD set-up). (2) Given that both are older devices, will a DAC noticeably improve sound quality? Thanks.
(1) The best audio hardware is the way to go. Look at the specs and audio comments for both devices if you can, because these specific technical features are usually difficult to find on general-purpose devices. Trust your ears and preferences as well. You can take the highest product price as last option.
(2) Yes, a dedicated DAC in decent or good setups noticeably improves sound quality, compared to most generic-purpose devices (PCs, smartphones). Sound is typically better defined in tone and space, more detailed. As many guys said here in comments, around 100$+ you can get a very good DAC. No need to go far expensive here.
I have a DAC (Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100) and I use Spotify, and the sound is a bit cleaner, but what Spotify lacks is exclusive mode for ASIO or WASAPI. If I enable exclusive mode in Tidal for example, I get a much much better sound than I do with it off, since the sound is going through Windows' own mix of some sorts when not in exclusive mode. However, I imported my Spotify library to foobar2000 via plugin, which has an exclusive mode/mode for ASIO/WASAPI and it's night and day difference. DACs do help with Spotify but there needs to be a better way than using 3rd party software to make it sound really better.
What plugin would be that?
Also what happens when you play it through windows or android native audio processors? Do they downsample?
@@real_one It's called "Spotify Integration" for foobar2000. Don't get your hopes up too much, you can't use the search function, you can only copy links from Spotify and import them as playlists to foobar2000.
They don't downsample, phone DACs just suck and Windows' mix intereferes a lot, it's not a desirable sound by any means once you've heard how your music sounds with a proper DAC.
Having Amazon Music, I have HD Audio, so lossless - I know this vid is already 2y old - today getting lossless audio from a streaming service shouldn’t be a problem
Unless you are sticking with Spotify
My only advice for anyone new enjoy the schiit out of your dac before upgrading and enjoy it for a long while 😄
Uncompressed audio is uncompressed audio and, with the exception of variable-samplerate stuff (that you never see because nobody uses it), operates at a constant bitrate. Period.
CD Quality audio is defined as 44,100 samples per second and 16 bits per sample, which samplerate and bit-depth are replicated across two channels for stereo sound production. This always results in exactly 1411kbps when uncompressed.
Using FLAC to compress this at level 8 can result in a final, average bitrate of between 400-1100kbps depending on the sound in question, which is probably where that "600-1411kbps" range came from. I understand, but lossless compression is not the same as uncompressed unless we're talking strictly about the output of the decoded file (and thus the output of the DAC).
I was previously streaming Spotify into Marantz amp through an Echo Dot. After watching this video, I bit the bullet and got a Bluesound Node. The sound quality improvement has been obvious and shocking.
Nice info. I can confirm this information myself as I find Spotify sounding much better on LG g8x with the quad dac than my previous Xiaomi smartphone which used the DAC from snapdragon.
Btw, could you also share the playlist you use in your videos. I always like the songs.
Thanks for the video and for allowing comments. Much obliged.
This video aged pretty well since many are getting into the hobby.
My only problem with spotify is that some albums sounds horrible like Thriller, i tested with other services (Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon) and it only happens in spotify.
Same here, some albums sound like 💩 even at highest quality, I guess it depends on what sources Spotify use 🤔
turn off auto-normalization
"Birthday" by Sugarcubes, always super top musical choices!
I know this is an audio channel so it should be a given, but the audio/music you used in this video is excellent