techspot Spotify is finally getting into high-end audio. The streaming music giant on Monday during its onlin

[UltraMega]

Quote

Spotify is finally getting into high-end audio. The streaming music giant on Monday during its online “Stream On” event announced a new subscription offering catering specifically to audio enthusiasts. Spotify HiFi will deliver music in a CD-quality, lossless audio format to devices and Spotify Connect-enabled speakers.

Source: https://www.techspot.com/news/88708-spotify-announces-hifi-lossless-streaming-tier-premium-add.html

 

Freaking finally! As an audiophile, this is very good news. Really can't even believe this has taken so long. 

Edited February 22, 2021 by UltraMega

[BWG]

What's Apple Music streaming at?

[tictoc]

1 hour ago, BWG said:

What's Apple Music streaming at?

AAC @ 256kbps.

[Diffident]

I still buy CD's and rip them to FLAC.

[tictoc]

Ha. That's what I do, and everyone I know thinks I'm nuts.  My music library has doubled in size over the last few years with everyone jumping on streaming.  You can grab boxes of CDs for a few bucks at most pawn shops.

[Diffident]

I used to rip everything to FLAC and MP3.  FLAC for home and MP3 in the truck, but now I have a head unit that reads FLAC..so no more MP3's.  I just need a USB stick big enough.  I only have a 128GB stick, which is way too small for everything.

[BWG]

I guess I'll tell everyone my little story since someone mentioned FLAC which is my trigger word.

 

I have, as of today, 48,361 FLAC files. The decades worth of time spent on this library is just unreal. From all sorts of apps to get tagging right and album art to just getting them to play on certain devices. Even have them on Plex and streamed them to cars. I've had a few usb flash drives and even went to a portable SSD case with a Samsung Evo 860 SSD. One day, it took 9 hours just for 1 of my cars to index the tracks! Oh yeah, I couldn't pick which tracks to leave off the drive to help with that. I'm that guy who closes the car door with a calibrated mic and pink noise playing inside while I tweak the eq from outside.

 

But, I threw in the towel in December and used the free Apple Music subscription that came with my phone plan and have not touched the library since. I have re-claimed a good bit of my life now that I'm not dealing with all of that anymore. My older ears can't notice the decrease in quality as much as they used too.

[Supercrumpet]

Interesting, I'll be keeping an eye on this. I'm especially curious about how much music will be available in a higher quality than they have now and how much it will cost.

[Diffident]

9 hours ago, BWG said:

I guess I'll tell everyone my little story since someone mentioned FLAC which is my trigger word.

 

I have, as of today, 48,361 FLAC files. The decades worth of time spent on this library is just unreal. From all sorts of apps to get tagging right and album art to just getting them to play on certain devices. Even have them on Plex and streamed them to cars. I've had a few usb flash drives and even went to a portable SSD case with a Samsung Evo 860 SSD. One day, it took 9 hours just for 1 of my cars to index the tracks! Oh yeah, I couldn't pick which tracks to leave off the drive to help with that. I'm that guy who closes the car door with a calibrated mic and pink noise playing inside while I tweak the eq from outside.

 

But, I threw in the towel in December and used the free Apple Music subscription that came with my phone plan and have not touched the library since. I have re-claimed a good bit of my life now that I'm not dealing with all of that anymore. My older ears can't notice the decrease in quality as much as they used too.

That's a lot of songs.  I only have 6,195.

 

If you want to get the tagging and album art right, use MusicBrainz Picard.

[Snakecharmed]

20 hours ago, Diffident said:

I used to rip everything to FLAC and MP3.  FLAC for home and MP3 in the truck, but now I have a head unit that reads FLAC..so no more MP3's.  I just need a USB stick big enough.  I only have a 128GB stick, which is way too small for everything.

 

I still do this. One of my cars' head units can play FLAC, but the reason I don't load it with FLAC is because I know I can't hear the difference between 320 Kbps MP3 and FLAC while driving—if at all, to be honest. Also, the head unit's interface for its USB ports and SDXC card slot is USB 2.0. Indexing all FLAC files would take forever. If the head unit were USB 3.0, then maybe.

[Diffident]

1 hour ago, Snakecharmed said:

 

I still do this. One of my cars' head units can play FLAC, but the reason I don't load it with FLAC is because I know I can't hear the difference between 320 Kbps MP3 and FLAC while driving—if at all, to be honest. Also, the head unit's interface for its USB ports and SDXC card slot is USB 2.0. Indexing all FLAC files would take forever. If the head unit were USB 3.0, then maybe.

I don't know what version of USB mine uses....it's a 2019 model unit. I am using a USB3 stick.  By the time I click agree to the stupid warning screen about driving and playing video, it's playing.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Diffident

[Snakecharmed]

4 hours ago, Diffident said:

I don't know what version of USB mine uses....it's a 2019 model unit. I am using a USB3 stick.  By the time I click agree to the stupid warning screen about driving and playing video, it's playing.

 

I have a Pioneer AVIC-W8500NEX which was their flagship 2019 model. The indexing isn't that big of a deal since it only happens when you insert an SD card or USB, but it's there. Once indexed, it's cached until the head unit detects a change in the file listing which would only happen if I removed the SD/USB, added/removed files on it from my PC, and put it back in the head unit.

 

When it does have to refresh though, it's slow with a 45 MB/s SD card full of MP3s and AACs. Even if I get a faster SDXC card, it's still getting capped at a theoretical 60 MB/s over USB 2.0.