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Comment by stochastic_monk | Hacker News Reader

I use Tidal more often because it has higher quality audio most of the time and a better UI, but fall back to Spotify prn. The emphasis on original music is nice.

I subscribe to both because one is not a subset of the other, which I dislike.

But hey, it’s been great, and I’ve actually found new music I love on Spotify/Tidal, unlike every other platform which has attempted recommendations.

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Can you tell audio quality of Spotify vs Tidal in a blind test?

The default quality for the desktop app is in OGG Vorbis at 160kbps and for the mobile app is 96kbps. With a Premium subscription you can change these to 'Extreme' (320kbps). The web player reaches is 128kbps AAC or 256kbps with Premium [0]. Many users might be unaware they can change the quality at all (or they don't use the desktop app but use the web player so can't change the quality at all).

I can definitely hear the difference between 96/160/256. Between 256/320/lossless I'd probably fail an ABX test [1] and I'm very doubtful of anyone claiming to hear the differences between 320/lossless regardless of how much of an audiophile they claim to be if they refuse to take an ABX test. I'd maybe believe telling 256 and lossless apart but still be doubtful without any ABX results.

[0] https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/system_settings...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABX_test

In that case given Spotify premium and just setting the config to use 'extreme' there should be no reason to pay for a separate subscription service? (At least for quality reasons).

At that point, you’re choosing between services based on content. And even without a quality issue, I have several artists I need one or the other platform to hear. I haven’t enabled the Extreme quality on Spotify (and was unaware).

I’ve compared the two, not blind, periodically. I seem to notice a bigger difference when using my higher-quality headphones and on certain albums (typically newer ones), but have not tested blind.

A confounding variable is that Spotify may use different bit rate heuristics than Tidal when streaming, so I’d need to preload the albums to be compared on both platforms, but I’m willing to conduct it blind.

A bigger complaint for me, honestly, is that Spotify’s navigation does not do what I want it to. (e.g., when trying to go to an artist’s page from a song, it just won’t do what I want.)

spotify premium (if you select “high quality streaming” in settings) uses 320 kb/s ogg vorbis, whereas tidal streams in a lossless format. on most audio set ups those will be indistinguishable but my understanding is that people who know what to listen for can tell the difference on a suitably powerful/nuanced sound system.

>but my understanding is that people who know what to listen for can tell the difference on a suitably powerful/nuanced sound system.

Or at least they claim they can. I've yet to know anyone with any expensive systems who claims to be an audiophile who can actually pass an ABX test with any more accuracy than random guessing would have given them. Largely because they'd need superhuman hearing - able to hear things that are literally outside the frequency of normal human hearing. Not saying these people can't exist... just that it's extremely unlikely.

I spent several months alternating between Tidal HIFI and Spotify to see if I could difference on my Sennheiser HD800S and the Chord Mojo DAC and couldn't. I also tried the "Tidal Masters". It wasn't some complex blind test though.

In the end, Spotify's content discovery was worth more to me, but if they finally release some lossless version for twice the price, I'll be happy to subscribe. Even at that price, one month of Spotify is stil cheaper than the first R.E.M CD I bought in 1991.

I've experienced a significant improvement listening to Tidal Masters tracks over Spotify. A very enjoyable improvement. Even non-Masters tracks on Tidal sound significantly better. Currently, almost all tracks on Tidal at the HiFi tier are 1411kbps (non-Masters) and still the Spotify desktop app caps out at 320kbps.

Spotify has been streaming 1411kbps for most tracks through their browser player in Chrome and only then I notice little difference between Spotify and Tidal HiFi. The Masters tracks still are noticeably better than the Spotify on Chrome app playing at 1411kbps.

There is an upside to streaming from the Spotify Chrome app for 1411kbps which doesn't incur extra cost but this is all functionality Spotify is not advertising. The downsides are this only currently works in the US (IIRC) and navigation in the Chrome Browser app is very limited compared to the desktop app.

I'm very surprised you were not able to notice a difference with such a great stack as the HD800s + Mojo and suspect it was something else in the chain limiting the potential. I suggest giving even just Spotify direct in the Chrome webapp a try again if not Tidal and ensure you have the chain configured properly.

>Currently, almost all tracks on Tidal at the HiFi tier are 1411kbps (non-Masters) and still the Spotify desktop app caps out at 320kbps.

You cannot compare bitrates directly like that.

1411.2kbps is uncompressed CD audio, while the 320kbps is a highly developed and advanced psychoacoustic format that aims to be completely equivalent to CD quality to the human ear.

So it's not "getting less than 1/4th of the music", like some audiophiles claim, based on faulty or non-existent understanding of audio codecs.

Also, you are absolutely not getting 1411.2kbps from the Spotify Chrome app. That is simply a display issue, or the actual decoding happening at another step in the chain, and it's either giving you Ogg Vorbis at 320kbps or AAC at 256kbps.

Have you done the blind test?

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