The Gamers Arms

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/ ... io-quality

I got 3/6 right at Loss less

I choose 2/6 320Kpbs and believe it or not choose Mozart at 128Kpbs.

I guess if you have an amazing system with top of the range speakers, app and streaming device you could hear the marginal improvements, but given I got 50% right, it was a lucky guess between loss less and 320Kpbs.

Try it, its kind of fun. This has reassured me I do not need to subscribe to loss less and current Spotify is good enough.

https://gizmodo.com/lossless-audio-does ... 1851341155

I got uncompressed on all but Vega and Young which were 320. I just guessed the coldplay one because I didnt want to listen to it ¬___¬



Theres stuff you can listen for but its probably more luck with the beatings my ears have taken over the years :p

I considered making the jump to Tidal when I treated myself to some new Hi-Fi stuff a year ago including a Cambridge Audio Network player. I had a month trial so was able to play the Hi-Fi Quality Tidal source (same as CD so 44.1kHz so not technically lossless I think?) against whatever the high quality setting is on Spotify. The difference was astonishing - there was loads missing from the Spotify stream - which didn't sound bad by any means mind, just not as good. So there was definitely a significant jump up - something I wasn't expecting at all. Tidal do do a Master Quality level which is truly lossless but I doubt my old ears would get any mileage from that.


I was sold and moved to Tidal and it's been absolutely decent - the algorithm isn't as good and some integrations aren't as good or as broad but other than that I've really enjoyed the sound improvement. On top of this they're dropping the price of subscription from next month.

I guessed one 'right', but for the rest pretty consistently picked the 320Kbps options.

I have some really cheap speakers though as I had to replace my nice old Creative ones at a time when money was tight, supposedly they were temporary but I've had them a couple of years at this point They're fine for my needs honestly as I'm not an audiophile by any means, but for the purposes of a quiz like this I expect it had a detrimental effect.

I think arqueturus you are in the minority which is great. If you can afford it and its important to you, why not. The Gizmodo article was interesting. Streaming over Bluetooth really downgrades the quality because the data gets compressed. I listen to music 2 ways - on my phone to my wireless headset or from PC, so Tidal would be a waste of money.

Achtung Englander wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 26, 2024 8:21 pm

I think arqueturus you are in the minority which is great. If you can afford it and its important to you, why not. The Gizmodo article was interesting. Streaming over Bluetooth really downgrades the quality because the data gets compressed. I listen to music 2 ways - on my phone to my wireless headset or from PC, so Tidal would be a waste of money.

You're not wrong Achtung, Tidal actually warns you if you're streaming for just that reason - shows the quality as 'disabled' in the app. Ignoring actual hearing ability (I assumed that I have old man ears at this point) I'd expect to be able to tell the difference on any half decent setup. I no longer have Spotify to compare to and test on my PC's old Creative setup but I think focus is an important one - you have to be actively listen to hear the differences and I almost never do that on my PC.

Tidal is marketed as an audiophiles platform to be fair - I just wanted to have a source that my reasonably pricey Hi-Fi could take advantage of.

I got 5 out of 6 but admittedly at least two of those were a lucky guess. Used headphones on my laptop and just picked the ones where I could hear the background instruments the best. With Susanne Vega it was the wet sounds of her mouth opening and closing

That wasn't her mouth...

3/6. but these ears have taken a pounding with far too many too loud gigs etc, so not a great surprise.