Lossy codecs are rated by datarate because of bandwidth saving. Lossless codecs are rated by bitdepth and sampling rate.
A lossy codec compresses the music and discards information to make it fit in a certain datarate.
A lossless codec delivers all information without loss. However, it can be compressed (like a zip file) but depending on how much information is in there the datarate wil vary. That’s why the datarate of a flac file doesn’t mean much. And, unfortunately bitdepth isn’t very meaningful either (16, 24 or 32 are practically indiscernible). 24 bit (or higher) is only useful for mixing but doubles the datarate.
The sampling frequency is what defines real high resolution files. All things equal, a 16bit 96kHz sounds better than a 24-44 even though the 16-96 flac is smaller. 96kHz is where HR material starts. PCM 24-96 or DSD64 are the most sensible choice. Going up gives only marginal improvements, but it’s a big step up from 16-44 CD quality and even more compared to lossy formats like MP3 or AAC.
Thanks for the info. I’m a bit puzzled. Everyone knows that Qobuz has the best sound quality – Qobuz’s 6,971Kbps data rate is the highest of all music streamers. To my newbie data rate knowledge, Qobuz 's high data rate supports the concept “the higher the data rate, the greater the sound quality”.
Crutchfield stated “Qobuz streams CD-quality and high-res FLAC files at up to 9,216kbps with a bit-depth sample rate up to 24-bit/192kHz”.
Techradar stated “Qobuz’s entire catalog is available in either CD quality (16-bit/44.1kHz) or up to 24-bit/192kHz”.
Amazon Music streams HD at 16-bit/44.1kHz with an average data rate of 850kbps.
Amazon Music streams Ultra at 24-bit/44.1 kHz to 192 kHz, with an average data rate of 3730kbps.
Both Qobuz & Amazon Music stream their Ultra Music at 24-bit/192kHz with Qobuz’s data rate almost doubling Amazon Music’s data rate. Qobuz sound quality is definitely better than Amazon Music. Hence, this makes me believe that the data rate highly influences the sound quality.
In conclusion, that’s why I am asking HiFi Rose @ROSEHAN what data rate does the RS130 passthrough for each music streamer.
I’ve just done more Googling. In summary, this is what I found:
Currently, Music Services’ bit-depth/sampling-rate & data rates are:
1. Amazon Music¹: 256Kbps, 3,730Kbps (HD)
2. Apple Music¹: 256Kbps, 1,152 Kbps (HD)
3. Qobuz¹: 6,971Kbps
4. Spotify³: 320Kbps (lossy)
5. Tidal²: 160kbps, 1411kbps
6. YouTube Music²: 256Kbps for premium members
7. YouTube Videos²: (48kbps to 256kbps) -- typically, 128kbps for free members
¹16-bit/44.1kHz CD Quality & up to 24-bit/192kHz is streamed
²16-bit/44.1kHz CD Quality & 24-bit/44.1kHz is streamed
³16-bit/44.1kHz CD Quality is streamed
Read my reply again. I can’t make it any clearer. The RS will always give you the maximum quality.
Any music will only sound as good as the recording and mastering. If you take some loud music, compressed to the max and upsample it for no reason other than just to show you get 24-192 you will get a very high datarate and it will sound terrible. Bad recordings take up a lot of data because recorded distortion takes up a lot of space (the distortion is also seen as information).
Datarate does not say much. Sampling frequency is much more important. But if the music is minimalistic the datarate will stil be low because there is just no more information. Yet it will sound good if the recording is also good.
A lot of recent music is recorded on a computer at home or a small studio with no more than 24-48. Some streaming services turn them in to 24-96 or 24-192 so it looks like high res. But the spectrograph will show that there is no information above 22.000 Hertz. Or 24-48 is touted as ‘high res’ with an HR badge. But it really isn’t.
Choosing a streaming service depends much more on what is on offer and the way it is presented (search algorithm). Tidal and Qobuz have the best quality and the largest catalog of high res material. The Rose streamer will give you the highest quality with those. Amazon is still expanding and Spotify has promised lossless for years now.
The Rose streamer can not take some low res music and magically turn it into high res music. Upsampling does not work that way. If done on a PC with a lot of computing power upsampling can improve the quality but only because upsampling is to make filtering easier for the dac. It doesn’t create new information. You can only lose information from the original recording along the line.
If you want the best quality you have to download some DSD material and put it on the internal SSD.
You can Google all you want on streaming services and bitrates but it’s more helpful to watch some YouTube reviews (like John Darko) or read reviews from reputable magazines. I chose Qobuz because of the quality and not Tidal that chose the MQA bandwagon selling lossy as HR. They made a bad decision. That’s a long story but MQA is all but dead now (thank God). Tidal is now going back to offering real HR streams now.
I only noticed some music that Qobuz doesn’t have or ‘not available’ but I have a very wide taste. Spotify has the wildest catalog and best search and suggestion algorithms, but the quality is not that great. Good enough for listening.
I’m really happy with Qobuz because the price is ok as is the quality.
Darko is a clown who will say absolutely anything that makes his sponsors happy, and in practice nobody will tell apart the same master played back at 16/44.1 vs 24/192, sampling at anything about 48KHz does not add anything audible (although it makes filtering in badly designed DACs a bit easier).
Data rate is not very meaningful when talking about lossless compression. With lossy, you can take the original signal and throw out enough information to fit into a specified rate. With lossless compression (FLAC is the universally used one) the music data rate stays constant (i.e. for 16/44.1 it’s 2 bytes (16 bit) * 2 (two channels) * 44,100 times a second). It might be compressed for transmission to some random fraction of it, depending on the actual content, but because it is lossless, ,the actual music data rate stays the same.
DSD is a different beast, but other than making storage manufacturers very happy, it has very little practical use. And no one is going to stream DSD in any foreseeable future anyway.
As a Patreon of Darko’s I think your comment is not true (my opinion). Darko is adamant about 16/44 being more than enough, almost to a fault.
To the OP, if you want the best streaming service you’l be fine with Qobuz or Tidal, pick the one that has the music that fits your interests or as I do get both.
Your 130 will have a 1GB network connection which can stream 125 megabytes per second. For the best quality use local storage high resolution files like DSD or uncompressed 24/192. Let us know if you can hear a difference, some say yes, some say no.
Even as broken clock is right twice a day but that’s the guy who peddles AQ cables…
Hi Boris,
I’ve read through many of your comments in different categories and they always speak plain language and I like that because that’s how I am too. The problem with many people who allow themselves to be blinded is that they declare them the enemy (that’s stupid…). In any case, I think it’s good how you try to clarify things with technical arguments (magic fuse or 24K Oled cloth). When I sometimes read here how people make the Hifi & High End Mafia rich it’s crazy…but in defense of the people:
Everyone is their own creator of happiness and everyone spends their money where they think.
I think you are a clown. An opinionated clown, who is also right twice a day. But that wasn’t hard because I explained the same thing already, twice.
Darko is definitely not always right, but he does know how to explain the pros and cons of streaming services. That’s why he sprung to mind as noteworthy. I’ve had my beef with him also, but that doesn’t mean I don’t watch him on things he has more experience with than me. Because I’m not a tool…
You obviously have an opinion, even if it’s founded on ignorance. Like I mentioned, high res makes it easier for ALL DACs to filter out high frequency digital rubbish. That goes especially for sigma delta DACs. While it’s debatable if human ears can hear above 22kHz, that’s definitely not the same thing as decoding frequencies above 22kHz. The difference is discernable bij anyone that is intellectually honest and has normal hearing.
I have had this discussion numerous times with people who just kept parroting this denial of the benefits of HR. I invited people over to put it to the test. I sat them down in front of my system with my dac (a basic dac that I heavily modified myself) and I won the argument in 3 seconds.
Flac is not ‘compressed for transmission’. It’s literally a “Free Lossless Audio Codec” from the time that storage was expensive and limited and there were no streaming services.
DSD is Direct Stream Digital and developed by Philips and Sony for the storing of studio masters in the best possible quality. Being able to do calculations or mixing etc like Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) was not a prerequisite. So besides being the best quality digital audio format is has a lot of practical use. The reason it isn’t distributed more is because the studios don’t like to hand out their valuable masters like candy on Halloween.
If you care to debate that, ask Paul, from PS Audio. Take his word for it. He records exclusively in DSD128 or higher. And he has the gear and the ear to know.
I really think you should think more before you speak.
You say a lot that isn’t true. You don’t really say anything helpful (only derailing and distracting) and you certainly don’t say it in a kind manner. And opinions are not facts.
As you can see, people do not want to be “educated.” They want to get a confirmation that whatever overpriced doodad they have bought on some swindler’s advice is good.
Unless you are some fancy “audiophile” equipment with a frequency response that looks like this /\/\/\/\/\/ you would be hard-pressed to find anything not sufficiently revealing above $100 price point.
And those things would be? Other than prostituting himself for free AQ cables, that is.
Unless your DAC is some overpriced NOS R2R hack job, this hasn’t been a problem in years.
Debatable? Why stop at 22KHz then? Debate whether MHz frequencies make any difference, too.
To people who on principle refuse blind tests (that is to say, ignorant clowns) it might be. Maybe to bats as well. But nobody else.
Lots of benefits of e.g. 24 bits (not so much of higher sampling rates) for processing. More headroom and all. None for final playback.
Reading comprehension isn’t your strongest suit… Streaming services send stuff in either lossy (AAC or MP3 usually) or lossless FLAC (or ALAC) to keep egress costs and bandwidth requirements reasonable. For the speciufic original question, how they store data isn’t relevant.
“Best Possible Quality” meaning “we get to sell you both the equipment and recordings again” nothing more. With almost all recordings being processed, somewhere in the chain in PCM (they even made up a fancy “DXD” term for high resolution PCM) wasting storage space on DSD means nothing WRT quality.
Tons of places will happily sell you DSD files. Sometimes it’s even what was recorded.
You mrean Uncle Paulie MacSwindler, who was railing against the terrible and useless DSD when BS Audio did not have any DSD DACs, but suddenly started telling everyone how great it is, conveniently coinciding with BS Audio finally making a (pretty bad, like everything else they make) DSD player. Oh, sure, that is a very convincing authority on the subject. Not. He will say anything that sells BS Audio products. Can’t really blame him for it, he certainly can not compete on quality, so marketing is the only thing he has left.
If you want kind, you might consider guzzling another mason jar of whatever moonshine you are getting wasted on this week and head to HeadFi or Audiogon. I heard they have very convivial circle jerks there, telling each other how their “highly revealing” systems with “audiophile” fuses and $50K cables sound so resolving and musical that even the wife notices from the kitchen, and how the quality directly tracks the price tag.
It seems that someone who deals in criticism can’t deal with any himself. Full of bitterness. Devoid of any open mindedness. Or real experience. It’s easy to be a critic, not so easy to be a creator.
It’s all fine by me if you want to be a modern day crusader, thinking that the one who knows best is by any chance yourself.
But why not try to be open minded and allow eachother to perhaps learn something from one another. If not, no harm done. Happy life, Happy people.
Should we also be “open minded” and seriously discuss Flat Earth, phlogiston, or ether as well?
It’s one thing, perfectly valid, to discuss things that do make a difference. Different DACs may sound different (not as much or as often as people think, but they can), some people might prefer Klipsch sound or B&W sound, and a sufficiently low rate MP3 sounds noticeably different from the original.
But being “open minded” about magic wonder fuses, files ripped to FLAC not sounding as well as the ones ripped to WAV, and whatever nonsense Uncle Paul is selling today is not it. It is only encouraging crooks who prey on (often willfully) ignorant.
That’s what I meant, if you try to educate people, you’re declared an enemy… yes, that’s how it always is. And as I said, I’m not going to judge anyone! If people think they can spend so much money and listen to some “supposed experts”, then they have to do it. Everyone spends their money where they think they should and I just said that Boris is trying to educate people but he’s immediately scolded by the people who are so deeply caught up in their matrix of “supposed experts”. People, be fair to each other!!! And that’s the end of this topic for me.
As many people have been trying to tell you here, from @Jeep to me, data rate is a meaningless parameter for your question. Any bit depth/sampling rate combo has one, fixed data rate.
Ignoring DSD, which no streaming service provides, the 130, just like 150, 250, or 520, will pass PCM either in native resolution, up to 32/768, or at up to whatever you configure in the PCM Resampling men u in Output settings.
but that’s the guy who peddles AQ cables…
People, be fair to each other!!! And that’s the end of this topic for me.