Hi-fi and music streaming live harmoniously, but two Big Tech brands hold the relationship back

[What Hi-Fi?]

From where I’m standing, hi-fi and music streaming mostly live pretty harmoniously… save for one thing: two big companies are letting the side down.

Hi-fi and music streaming live harmoniously, but two Big Tech brands hold the relationship back : Read more

 

[fazalmajid]

Spotify is also immoral when even an A-list artist like Lily Allen makes more money selling feet pics on OnlyFans to about 1000 subscribers than to 8 million followers on Spotify.

Lily Allen claims selling feet pics on OnlyFans earns her more than Spotify streams

‘Don’t hate the player, hate the game,’ the singer says

www.independent.co.uk

 

[manicm]

Spotify is also immoral when even an A-list artist like Lily Allen makes more money selling feet pics on OnlyFans to about 1000 subscribers than to 8 million followers on Spotify.

Lily Allen claims selling feet pics on OnlyFans earns her more than Spotify streams

‘Don’t hate the player, hate the game,’ the singer says

www.independent.co.uk

There's also streaming platform inconsistencies, and favouritism - read minor monopolies. It only recently came to my attention that Sonos does not do Tidal Connect! It does connect via the Sonos app though. But it's currently the only platform that does Apple Music 'connect' i.e. it connects directly to Apple's service bypassing Airplay.

Everyone is pushing Atmos music - and for whatever reason Sonos will play Atmos in Prime and Apple Music, but not Tidal.

So it's an all round mess on both hardware and the streaming services too. CD and vinyl will be around a longer while still.

 

[JR75]

As far as Apple, that is a lost cause. Apple has always had the attitude of "Our way or the highway, and if you don't like it, F-off." So I expect nothing from Apple. And Spotify still has the most users - who apparently don't care about hi-res audio. Spotify has been talking about hi-res streaming for a long time, but it is still no where to be seen. Like Apple, they have their market so they feel no pressure to do anything more. Spotify too is a lost cause. I use neither and never will. For now I am using Tidal although I am disappointed they are phasing out MQA.

 

[WhiteKnight2020]

From where I’m standing, hi-fi and music streaming mostly live pretty harmoniously… save for one thing: two big companies are letting the side down.

Hi-fi and music streaming live harmoniously, but two Big Tech brands hold the relationship back : Read more

Well, airplay is, and always will be, both an irritatingly proprietary, 3rd rate solution and one for *the minority of users*, as, aside from the USA, *Android* is the predominant mobile OS. Not to mention that airplay is soundly outplayed by the latest Bluetooth codecs. Google's 'casting' is almost as ****, and deeply awkward to use.

If only Roon were open source....

 

[Mrmason62]

How is this a surprise?
If you want the best sound quality then rip your cds and vinyl. Don't use substandard streams.
I use roon with my lumin network bridge with vinyl and cds upscaled to dsd256. They sound sublime
Sadly, the majority today don't care about sound quality they want convenience. We live in the age where people think phones are hifi. They aren't.
Why would people with high quality oled TV not want the best picture quality with 4k bluray. Because they don't care about such things.
Streaming will always be inferior to the real thing.
As if the majority of people actually care.
Which is exactly how companies get away with it.

 

[Ian AV]

Don't mention Apple with a leading C to me. They did more damage to the demise of high quality sound than any other in history. It all started to go downhill with the introduction of the iPlod, (deliberate) and it's limitations, forcing the dumbing down of music quality.
Keep buying CD's for digital music and rip to a NAS if you wish to stream. When out and about, I stream from home. Very satisfying.

 

[Mr.Butterfingers]

Don't mention Apple with a leading C to me. They did more damage to the demise of high quality sound than any other in history. It all started to go downhill with the introduction of the iPlod, (deliberate) and it's limitations, forcing the dumbing down of music quality.
Keep buying CD's for digital music and rip to a NAS if you wish to stream. When out and about, I stream from home. Very satisfying.

I must have dreamed that era where everyone copied songs off the radio onto well worn cassettes and did high speed dubbing from used up tapes onto used up tapes to be copied onto other tapes. Only to be played onto whatever cheap radio, possibly stereo, or heard through the worst headphones, you know the ones, that weird foam that was scratchy and always fell off and held onto your head by super cheap spring steel. Playing at maybe 24kps. We all loved it, we were all fine with it, it was cool. The iPod with it's cheap way buds is far superior in every way. Even a $9.99 pair of skull candy is better than what we had.

Sure, what we have now is better, what was available then was better. Only the people who care upgraded. No one would or should trade higher quality sound for the awesome memories the great music made. Low bit, 128, sounds perfectly fine for nearly everyone. It makes them happy, it makes them dance. Stop harshin the buzz man.

 

[Ian AV]

I must have dreamed that era where everyone copied songs off the radio onto well worn cassettes and did high speed dubbing from used up tapes onto used up tapes to be copied onto other tapes. Only to be played onto whatever cheap radio, possibly stereo, or heard through the worst headphones, you know the ones, that weird foam that was scratchy and always fell off and held onto your head by super cheap spring steel. Playing at maybe 24kps. We all loved it, we were all fine with it, it was cool. The iPod with it's cheap way buds is far superior in every way. Even a $9.99 pair of skull candy is better than what we had.

Sure, what we have now is better, what was available then was better. Only the people who care upgraded. No one would or should trade higher quality sound for the awesome memories the great music made. Low bit, 128, sounds perfectly fine for nearly everyone. It makes them happy, it makes them dance. Stop harshin the buzz man.

Thankfully I have no memories of that harshin buzz, the pure though makes my ears cringe with pain and horror. Working my way up from a mono radiogram recording the top 20 to cassette tape direct from the speaker terminals, to a low end Amstrad hifi system was a revolution.

 

[Mr.Butterfingers]

Thankfully I have no memories of that harshin buzz, the pure though makes my ears cringe with pain and horror. Working my way up from a mono radiogram recording the top 20 to cassette tape direct from the speaker terminals, to a low end Amstrad hifi system was a revolution.

Sounds boring. No mixed taped or CDs? No ghetto blasters cranking Bell Biv Devo?

 

[Jasonovich]

How is this a surprise?
If you want the best sound quality then rip your cds and vinyl. Don't use substandard streams.
I use roon with my lumin network bridge with vinyl and cds upscaled to dsd256. They sound sublime
Sadly, the majority today don't care about sound quality they want convenience. We live in the age where people think phones are hifi. They aren't.
Why would people with high quality oled TV not want the best picture quality with 4k bluray. Because they don't care about such things.
Streaming will always be inferior to the real thing.
As if the majority of people actually care.
Which is exactly how companies get away with it.

I totally agree, I rip and purchase my music via download at the highest 1 bit DSD res possible, save it to local storage or NAS. Really happy with this arrangement.

Somebody needs to grab Streaming industry by the horns but who? In the computer world, JEDEC defines memory dram standards, we need same kind of entity for music streaming. Will it ever happen? I'm not confident 🙂

 

[Jasonovich]

Spotify is also immoral when even an A-list artist like Lily Allen makes more money selling feet pics on OnlyFans to about 1000 subscribers than to 8 million followers on Spotify.

Lily Allen claims selling feet pics on OnlyFans earns her more than Spotify streams

‘Don’t hate the player, hate the game,’ the singer says

www.independent.co.uk

Oh God, I spent my entire salary on Lily Allen's feet. Ha ha ha...so creepy. 🤣

 

[Ian AV]

Sounds boring. No mixed taped or CDs? No ghetto blasters cranking Bell Biv Devo?

I think that recording the top 20 is mixed taped! CD's what are CD's, in the 1970's we didn't have CD's, not invented, let alone recordable CD media. Thankfully, no ghetto blasters either. I progressed to 'real' HiFi, with floorstanding speakers, the very first with AMT's (Air Motion Transformers) and eventually a 400w per channel powerhouse amp. No distortion at antisocial SPL's, just pure fine sound like being at a live concert. Bliss.