Buh Bye Spotify

darko.audio

10 points·hnburnsy··5 comments

> Streaming is too cheap

People aren't willing to pay more for music. The music industry learned that throughout the 2000s, and why things ended up the way they are. If the price increases, the path of least resistance becomes piracy.

"Chasing that last few per cent of performance is fundamental to the audiophile pursuit."

Then you better spend a lot of time in used record stores, looking for CDs pressed before the late '90s. The labels have ruined all popular music mastered or "remastered" since then with DYNAMIC compression, and those are the only versions you're going to find on streaming services. Lossless delivery of shit is still shit.

We all have cheap, widespread access to nearly flawless audio-reproduction technology... and nothing to play on it.

> That compression is excellent but its shortcomings are evident to trained ears listening via decent playback hardware.

Sounds like the kind of training that should come with compensation for life long costs.

I doubt even the premise. Hydrogenaudio users (ie. audiophiles) can barely notice any flaws with 96 kbps lossy[1]. On a rating where 5 means "imperceptible" and 4 means "perceptible but not annoying", 96 kbps AAC scored 4.4, and 96 kbps ogg (vorbis) scored 4.2. Spotify premium uses 320 kbps ogg, which should firmly put it in "imperceptible" territory.

[1] https://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm

I doubt the premise too, but assuming you believed it, how low would music appreciation have to be in your priorities to be willing to develop that skill?

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