Thank you Wytse for featuring “Funk Heven” on your channel! It’s truly an honor to be part of this. Your kindness is very much appreciated! I would also like to thank everyone that will, have and continued to listen to the song! 🧡 This is only the beginning.

Such a great video, absolutely spot-on testing method and easy-to-understand explanations. ALSO... such a surprise to discover such an absolute banger of a tune, I can't stop listening to Funk Heven and simply must have more of this artist's music. How does their video only have 3K views?! Your mix is also superb!

Thanks for investing your time, money, and energy in this. Very useful to get the info coming from someone who has the original master which can serve as a baseline.

This is for sure one of my top 10 favorite videos on KZfaq - very, very well done !!!!!

Best audio comparison method i've EVER seen on a KZfaq video. So cool!!

I've searched for something like this for months. Thank you very much, what an awesome video.

Your results support my own experiences, I switched to Tidas because of the sound quality AND the much better suggestions what to listen next ...Thanks a lot!

I really like that this is an actual test Vs other reviews which just rehash info found online. Good work!

Omg, you did such an amazing and comprehensive video! Thank you for your work, it is greatly appreciated.

Wow I was just hoping you would do another one of these a few days ago lol. Great stuff

Absolutely great video. So interesting hearing what is lost through compression with the null testing. It would be great to see Amazon Music included in this too. But very thorough coverage! Thank you

This is an excellent demonstration, super interesting! Also, hey new glasses!

This is superb work you are doing for the community, and hopefully for the general public too, eventually! Thanks a bunch!! There's a hint of Sean Connery in your accent :D

Amazing video and a lot of quality effort in there. Thank you

I am relieved that Apple Music is truly lossless as I am also fully in the Apple ecosystem. Great explanations of your methodology and introduction to the testing protocols you used. Well done!

Would appreciate for any future tests of audio fidelity to have a display of the spectrographs of each song using something like spek, its a really good way to visualize the objective losses in audio quality. Otherwise very insightful and well-detailed video as usual!

An interesting result I hear is when these high frequencies are attenuated via the compression algorithms they apply, it tends to make the stereo image collapse inwards. Which makes sense, typically you have your high frequency information encoded further to the side channels than the mid channel.

Bloody interesting Thanks for all your efforts - Great job !

Super . Thanks very much. I love your objectivity.

This video is a great and very interesting watch. Fascinating stuff!

Great vid and comparison. Thanks for your hard work.

I'm glad at the end you mentioned that there are other factors. I hate spotify for a number of reasons but it's still my go to. The playlists, song recommendations, user communication (public playlists, song sharing, etc.) stuff just makes it the best platform for me. When I make enough money from music that I can pay all my own bills, I'll get Tidal to add on (but by that time Spotify Hi Fi might be ready lol)

Brilliant! Thank you for this fascinating analysis

Excellent video, and song!

Great Topic, thx for the tests, interesting results !

Sir, these are tremendously wonderful mixes and masters.

Brilliantly done!

Very cool test. Also very awesome in comparison to 2018 that they ALL got better. Especially the ability to have lossless now almost everywhere is amazing. I'm curious to see how the new spotify plan will be turning out.

Great as always

diggin' this technical content, and you're immediate reactions

Thanks Wytse for making this video it was really informative

Thanks for the video. Very helpful.

Excellent video - thanks ! I think that Spotify is very clever: they understand that investing heavily in lossless might not be the highest priority for their very wide client base. They have other more important challenges to meet: expand geographically and stay ahead of the fierce competition from Apple, Amazon and others by offering new services (podcasts, audio books, concert tickets, etc). (PS: subscribed to your channel)

Great useful video, thanks!

Great job, I like when you do all this research and present the findings. Saves us time, :-) which is a high value you are providing. A thought I had while watching is that it would be great if you did something like this streamed live, giving us notice ahead of time et al, and we could post questions, and you would read and answer them, why? Cause we are many heads, and we may come up with something you have not thought of, and we could all get more out of this type of interaction. Maybe here on YT or on Twitch. I would pay to attend a live stream on an interesting topic. Here are some topics I would love live-streamed. 1. Reaper Walkthrough, where you show us reaper, and we ask hey how you do this and that, and you do a live demo. Would be fab!. 2. Live mastering. 3 Live fix a phase issue. 4. Fix a muddy stem etc etc. I would pay for these, and I'm sure many others wound, especially if we get to ask questions. That artist was amazing and the Master job you did was amazing. Thanks again. 🙏

This is so good!

Thanks this was a really helpful video!

I am perfectly happy with the KZfaq Music paid service for music. Sounds good, best UI, combo of music and video and no video ads.

Many thanks for your efforts 👌 I wold like to mention that i have many subscriptions to the most popular streaming services. And very high end DAC's Amplifiers and headphones. Unfortunately i never been able to get any of the streaming services to sound exactly the same on PC because they all use a diferite rendering engine for the file (MQA, FLAC, MP3... ) . And i'm not talking about louder or quite difference. Micro-details and in special the stereo imaging is i bit diferite. Yes i did make sure it was bit perfect playback. As an example: in Audirvana (latest version as may 2022) FLAC losses songs brought from Qobuz sound the same as the streamed ones. Same songs have a touch diferite stereo image and micro-dinamics (not to be confused with micro-detaills) on Tidal. Even when i have set the output volumes equally or disabled entirely 🤔 🙄 I think the only way to test the differences is by using an streamer ( hardware) that supports all this services ( eventually MQA capable) I have the RME ADI-2 FS and i will tray to reproduce this on my own. I'm sure is an audible difference between the lossless formats because of diferite playback software. Or at least sounds like because of diferite dinamic range. One last think i wold like to mention, RME ADI-2 FS doesn't sounds to my ears the same on USB (DragonQuest Carbon USB cable) and SPDIF (optical) It has better "black background" , quiter background on optical. At least on PC. Any way great video as always. Many thanks for your efforts 👌

First of all, very nice review and very easy and nice layout both in terms of audio and visuals. Now... 14:52 : I can clearly hear just as urself the difference in terms of "Apple Music" using another type of sound fo the percussion in the song and also for thoose really clear and high pitches. I can even hear that they've re-arranged the position from where the vocals emerge from or am I crazy? I love your take on this and setup when comparing. I think audio is a very induvidual experience to each and one of us and it also comes down to matter of taste. But It's always a extra nice feature to just know that the song that you are currently blasting of is actually not "tampered" with in a sense of that it sounds exactly as the original, atleast to my own ears. Again, very very professional and skillfull production of this video! *hands down + clap* Also very nice beat/song! Love the MJ dna feel to it! :) Regards - Marcus Berntssn , Sweden.

Best review I’ve seen by far

Thank You!

Thank you sir, you are such a hero!

I'm so glad you did the null tests. This proves their lossless claims. The advantages of being a mix engineer!

And thanks for another great video.

That lossy compressions creates more ear fatigued is a hypothesis which needs proof. AFAIK the opposite is true. Also our brain AFAIK isn't "filling the missing part's" it is more like "the codec is removing/modifying the part's we probably won't hear in the original". If you stare in the direction of the sun you probably won't see every minute detail of the surroundings. It's the same with sound. You are unable to hear every minute detail of noise and high entropy part's. You probably aren't able to differentiate between two white/pink noises which share the same frequency curve.

Thanks!

Man, I just watched 20+ videos about audio quality even on streaming services and you just teached me to hear the differences even I see this on YT. The metod you showed with audio differences you can litterlaly hear it in the full audio playback. I closed my eyes and listen the music and I heard very clearly the differences. But I have to say I managed to hear that only with 1 specific tone there and its the "electronic drum base" (I dont know how to call it). So its not voice and the "clicking sound" (maybe the volume of the clicking sound as well) but the quality of the "drmmm" was hearable. In losless its much more clearer and satured. I dont think I can recognize 256kbps with losless when Im using the app because my brain imagines the quality of the music even it doesnt hear it :D. Will see. Thanks for teaching that!

Amazing video tnx

Brilliant bro!!!! 😮😊

Great video! It would be interesting to see what happens when you play a song that has the "Master" label without a Hifi+ account. According to the headphone show, it'll play in something way less than lossless (MQA without unfolding instead of CD quality)

Best comparison out there, very well done. Would love to have known your thoughts on how Qobuz hi res compared to original master.

Sweet...respect!

Update and comparisons appreciated! I would have liked to see more analysis of KZfaq, though. While I understood why you did the loseless comparison, I feel like we got a teaser of its quality and I am interested in learning more. I had no idea about the fact that we fill in the music--I am 100% with you that music is to be enjoyed. And now I'm wondering if I am tiring myself out more with KZfaq (and consider one of the other alternatives)-- or if it's just in my head!

Superficially they kind of sound the same to the average layperson in the street I guess. But the nulltest is quite the eye opener. I’ll think I stick with reflective silver discs. Never have to worry about connection speed, bandwidth and future availability of my favourite artists. On a streaming platform today, but maybe not tomorrow with some platforms. It can be volatile, some music isn’t always available on the streaming platforms either.

This is an informative video with good explanations, thank you! I personally don't understand why the music industry constantly reduced the sound quality over time. We started with Vinyl, then got used to CDs. After that, we were hijacked to MP3 and ended up with streaming between 128 and 320 kbits. Not to forget the removal of the cable and replacing it with Bluetooth. So, our hearing and brain "learned" to get used to these losses what I think is bad as I am sure we lost the memory about how music sounds. Having lossless sound quality back is the minimum we can expect from the music industry and the streaming services. I have been using Tidal Master (switching over from Spotify) for more than five months now and I am happy with it even I am not always able to hear the differences between Tidal and Spotify I can enjoy music for much longer without getting tired and hear more details and there is a slightly better instrument separation.

thanks you for that video :). i was thinking about moving to tidal in a while.. this video helped me alot looking for a streaming service ❤ and btw. was the tidal subscription the hifi or hifi plus

Not sure if it has anything to do with samplerate when it comes to Tidal. When uploading songs through Distrokid you get an option to upload the track for Tidals "Master" program which "Allegedly" processes the track in 24-bit. I think its more about the serverspace that youre occupying than the quality of the recording. I could be very wrong tho.

I know you've said that stuff about Tidal's Master quality and it also needs a special hardware, but I am just curious to see you put it to the test as well whenever you have the opportunity. Maybe in the next video when Spotify HiFi comes out?

Nice one

It was interesting seeing your video. For me personally I find Qobuz seems to sound a little better than Apple Music and I did wanted to know why. Your video suggests there is no difference in the Qobuz quality settings, so lossless at CD or low quality. Which makes sense to me as I have noticed changing to a low setting no speed improvement to downloading tracks. I stream at CD and if I like the track I download at lossless. I did wondered if there is some way to do a comparison playback of Apple Music to Qobuz and say how they actually differ between each other, rather than just the original recording. I agree the advantage to lossless is it is less taxing on your mind (ie fills in the gaps) especially on a long car trip. I like Qobuz as it sounds better, has better music discovery but definitely a buggy app, slower to play tracks. Apple Music better app, quick playback, poorer music discovery (new artists). Really hard to chose between the too. Thank you for the video.

I still wouldn't trust Spotify's coding even if I left the normalization turned on and my mixes doesn't overshoot. 😂 Wish you would've bypassed it! 🙁 Nonetheless it's weird that they attenuate the crunchy frequencies rather than the top/transient stuff. Weird. Awesome video btw!!!

Listening on my Yamaha HS-7's I clearly hear more stereo information on the original master. Surely for Deezer that is the case. But like you said, it's subtle.

Thanks for the comparisons. My best streaming platform is my CD's and the CD player. Just can't compete when it comes to sound quality. And I don't need to be connected to the internet. I just wish lossless was standard across all streaming platforms with no lower or better options. Then as a mixing/mastering engineer having to worry about different LUFS's to cater for different platforms in case they add artefacts that compromise your songs dynamics. When I listen to music from the internet and then play a CD.... it's night and day difference.

Great video! Impressive. Have you done a comparison on video streaming video companies and the quality of audio coming from them such as Apple TV , DIRECTV streaming, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc. ? Your help is appreciated.

There are those who say that the minimum requirement for hi-res is 96 kHz . Well, that's the minimum requirement when it comes to certification for Hi-res. DXD is extremely 352.8KHz DSD is well at 2.8 MHz but then it is only one bit Technology used among other things on SACD

If all Tidal, Apple Music and Deezer in lossless pass the null test without any artifacts why do they sound different through the same DAC and hifi system ? Thanks

The fact apple music has lossless at not additional cost is enough for me. Tidal is double the price. Also Spotify said it will cost more too

Between the quality and military/veteran discount that made it cheaper, Tidal won out after using amazon hd for years.

I know nothing about music, stumbled across this video looking for better service than spotify. I feel better informed now ty

Thank you White Sea Studio for excellent work - world class!!! Is it just me that feels that hi res streaming services is for people that cannot judge sound quality by them selves...?? I have tested CD format against Spotify Premium streams with highest setting and cannot hear any audible difference nor could I hear any differences between your examples in this video. I think lossy codecs has come a far way in order to keep sound quality and save data traffic. I was close to jump on a Qobuz subscription, but I think I´ll pass due to above said. Is it just me being too honest and really compare things before I jump into "upgrades" in my hi-fi rig?

Great video - Thanks! Question - What is the LUFS level of the files being received by the listener for each of these platforms? My sense is though, for example, if one submits to Spotify at -14 LUFS, they then compress the files to a higher LUFS setting. And that might explain the differences you discovered in this video for some platforms.

Did you do the free spotify before or after the premium? Because spotify happily uses cached information unless you manually clear it, you can easily have played the same downloaded information for both the tiers.

Is there any way you can test it with Roon and Audirvana Studio along with all these streaming services with the method you used?

These compression schemes will sum to mono if there is not enough difference between L&R. That for sure will alter your center image.

Can casting features, like Chromecast, cast/stream lossless files? Excellent comparisons by the way!

Hi, do you tried KZfaq Music? It offers higher Streaming Quality.

What is your method of lining up the tracks and getting them all the same volume?

Were you logged into a paid account with KZfaq? From reading online, the premium accounts get higher fidelity, but I still doubt it is lossless. I also wonder how this compares to KZfaq Music. Thanks for the test and explaining the process - I'll post back results here if I try the test.

Is tidas available in the UK. I cant see it in play store. Also which was best for sound quality overall and recommendations

In the case of providers depending on the user's ability to compensate for the loss of quality, maybe it's in the interest of the streaming service provider to discourage subscribers from using the service for too long. Maybe that's how they maximize profit. There should be a point of diminishing return, for the provider, beyond which the cost of the bandwidth begins to significantly diminish the amount of subscription profit. Keep them only happy enough to continue paying.

something that bothers me with Apple Music although it is the one that i use, is how on my windows pc there is no way as of now to stream/download their lossless ALAC quality. on windows 11 you can use the windows android subsystem to get the android app which does offer lossless, but i'm on windows 10 :( thankfully my andoid phone can benefit from the lossless but my pc is where i have my large audio setup and so i find it unfortunate that i'm stuck with AAC files

which one was the best in terms of quality?

Some streaming services are lossless - and some are *lifeless*.

You didn't show this in the video, but what are the differences between Spotify and KZfaq Music? BTW Goede video!

Man i need this video. I was using YT-Music for a while now. It features the biggest music library - theres nothing i wouldn't find. However, the sound quality is rather "meh", and there is litereally NO way to structure your library except using playlists. I wanted to switch to Apple or Spotify but didn't really know what I should go for. I guess its Apple after watching this video.

15:34 I’ve also felt like Apple Music’s sound is a bit weird. It sounds well seperated and clear but the music sounds too wide and empty or lifeless at times if you know what I mean

Awesome test! Although, I think the audio quality differences are pretty trivial. At the end of the day, it's not really going to matter which service is the best, since they are all pretty good in comparison and also since you have no control over how they process the audio. As long as you as the musician/producer upload 24 bit wav files vs uploading a mp3 file, you should be good! 😁👍

Hi! This is a really interesting way to test this! Thanks for doing it! It was really, really surprising to hear so much in those null tests. I've tried the NPR "can you hear the difference" test a few times with different equipment, and it is incredibly different for me to hear - so to have this much of a difference was a total surprise. I have a question though: (EDIT: I'm a moron. I just went back and noticed you recorded the stream through your interface loopback. Ohh boy. I'll leave this question here anyway in case someone else is wondering the same thing.) In the two Spotify files, High and Very High, you displayed that there is no difference - they are completely nullified. However, in the clip where you showed changing the Spotify quality, you were changing the Streaming quality, not the Download quality. Was this just an editing thing or did you actually just download the same version twice? It feels silly to even ask but I just, I have to ask it because it's stuck in my head now 😅 (EDIT: I'm a moron. I just went back and noticed you recorded the stream through your interface loopback. Ohh boy. I'll leave this question here anyway in case someone else is wondering the same thing.)

This week there was a serious problem in Holland about sand from the Sahara covering cars and streets. It got drifted here in a big windstream high up in the sky. That is what you get when you don't play Sandstorm enough Wytse, i'll bill you the cleaning costs.🌊🚙

So which is the best and what about KZfaq music?

Does anybody know why loopback software wont produce a result that will null correctly? I have been trying to recreate these results with different apps that record the system audio of the computer but every time the result is fractions of a millisecond faster or slower than my source file. I'm assuming this is a clocking issue.

Finally another song than sandstorm!

Is there a website to listen to songs post apple volume drop before uploading?

Curiously you didn't play any of the Qobuz streams (only the 'null' test for losslessness)....after all, you played and compared with your master recording all the others. I've tried most of them (with either a trial or sub) and have now moved to Qobuz which I find has the edge for sound (but not for track listing info. on classical releases!). Oh, and any comment on the Tidal/MQA scandal?

Can you do a comparison between KZfaq and KZfaq Music? Somehow youtube sounds better to me than youtube music but that is counter intuitive.

If you use the web player, the tidal hifi version should null.

The only two I use are SoundCloud and KZfaq music. Strange to leave those two out

This is interesting but i have a question. During the tidal hi fi vs original master comparison at around 8:44 I can see in the waveform (proper term?) that there is a visible difference ie some of the peaks and lows are in fact visibly different between master and tidal hi fi, yet there apparently no difference between the two recordings ie no sound in the comparison. Can you explain this?

For me it sounds like this Spotify is AAC 256 Kbps Tidal is WAV 1.411 Kbps Qobuz is FLAC Losless Apple Music is MP3 256 Kbps Deezer is MP3 When i record 1 song from Tidal in WAV i convert it to MP3 CBR 320 kbps. with dB Poweramp software, then i use a software called MP3Gain where i gain the music up to 95.0 dB. It sounds a lot better than original 320 kbps. Standard is 89.0 dB and the highes is 105 dB. I found 95 dB is the best volume, with more information and details. especially when it comes to 80s rock, soft rock pop and synth pop music