Is Spotify Hifi Worth It?

As someone who loves to go wild, I admit, I was thrilled that my streaming service of choice, Spotify, announced the rollout of a new level of service for lossless audio streaming. Sure, it’ll cost more than what I’m paying now, but throwing in the planned $ 20 per month for perfect sound sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? My future road trips have improved ten times.

Perhaps.

Here is the thing. I wouldn’t pay a dime more for “enhanced audio” on a streaming service just because the opportunity exists. At least, not without seeing if I could tell the difference between the streaming service’s existing high-quality offerings and its lossless offerings. I’m going to argue that most people probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in most cases – and I’m not the only one saying this.

Like Napier Lopes from The Next Web written:

“Spotify Premium (the existing ad-free tier at $ 9.99) already streams at a maximum of 320 kbps (256 kbps on the web) if you enabled this in the app settings. Although at low bitrates the differences between lossy and lossless audio can be quite obvious, I’m willing to bet that most people cannot distinguish a lossless file from an MP3 file at 256 kbps. – not to mention a file compressed with the more modern Ogg codec. that Spotify uses.

Our hearing is subjected to a lot of placebo. Just believing that a certain upgrade or key specification will improve the sound of your speakers or headphones is often more likely to result in an “ improvement ” than any real change. Yet many audiophiles with golden ears will swear they can hear a difference without proof.

Since Spotify’s “HiFi” service won’t be released until later this year, you can’t directly test its lossless streaming. However, it’s pretty easy to see if you can tell the difference between audio files of different bitrates and compressions right now. Lopes recommends the Digital power supply ABX test, which gives you two audio files – an “A” and “B” sample – as well as a target sample. Your job is to tell whether A or B matches the target, and you can choose between a faster “can I say lossy or lossless” five-track test, a ten-track test, or a mega-20 track test. .

In other words, the test checks if you can tell a difference between a lossless version and a lossy version of a song. And if you think it’s going to be easy, well … here’s what the test setup looks like when you go to use it:

You click A, X, or B to start playing a track, and you can switch between different versions by clicking A, X, or B whatever you want. Even so, I found it quite difficult to tell the difference between the files in most situations. Either my hearing sucks, or it’s really, really hard to separate Spotify’s 320kbps streaming – its best quality – from a lossless file.

I won’t even show my results because I was guessing honestly most of the time. It’s plausible that my home audio setup – basically a pair of $ 150 headphones plugged directly into my desktop motherboard – just isn’t good enough for me to hear the difference between a file. high quality and lossless. But even on a more advanced setup it’s a tough test, as a Reddit user described:

I did this test with LS50W in a treated room. I got about 65-70% right. The point is, I REALLY had to focus hard, listen critically in a completely non-organic way. And I still have a high percentage of trouble even at that. The difference was so negligible that I switched to Spotify from Tidal after taking this test. I haven’t looked back since.

If you want a simpler quiz, NPR also published a similar study in 2015 that you can use to test your ears. On this one, I did a great job of selecting the 320Kbps file. But the lossless file? Not really.

And if you have a lossless and lossy file of the same song, you can try this old-fashioned trick to compare the differences between the two:

Anyway, I wouldn’t mind a more expensive “hifi” audio service if you can’t tell the difference between that and a streaming service’s “normal” offers on whatever you have. at home – your headphones, speakers or ears. You will be spending money on a “perk” that you will never appreciate, and that sounds silly.