I listen to music in various formats from physical to streaming and I always wondered if I could genuinely tell the difference between a Spotify stream and other formats, especially as I would consider my set ups from hifi separates to mobile listening at the budget end of the spectrum.
Last night I did a little experiment. Sat in bed with my budget Motorola phone, £180, my on ear Sony headphones £50, I set up an hour long playlist from my NAS drive through the Bubbleupnp app. After the play list finished, I played the last three songs ACDC's Razors Edge, Thunderstruck and Highway to Hell, through Spotify.
What a difference I find it difficult to actually put into words the difference I could hear but just to highlight one thing I could hear, the impact of the simple every 2 second drum beat on the intro to Thunderstruck was incredible through Bubble (I have my CD's ripped in the highest possible quality on my NAS drive.)
The drum beat was so much softer through Spotify and the discernable difference as each guitar; lead, rhythm and bass joins the introduction.
I'm not saying Spotify is awful but I'm actually glad I can tell the difference.
On another note the difference that sticks out like a sore thumb when we listen to Spotify at work. I have my old 30+years Denon PMA 250 MK2 at work driving some TDL book shelf speakers my son got from Facebook, and the source is a Harmen Kardon Bluetooth receiver and whatever phone we use. I have an old budget phone Honor 10 lite (£170 when new) that I use for streaming at work and my son has a ASUS ROG phone 3 £500. The quality of the sound through the ROG phone is miles better than my Honour phone. I was surprised at the difference it's compressed music from Spotify being compressed again over Bluetooth I didn't think that much difference would be evident.
So yep even at the budget end of the scale the difference is plainly evident.
Last night I did a little experiment. Sat in bed with my budget Motorola phone, £180, my on ear Sony headphones £50, I set up an hour long playlist from my NAS drive through the Bubbleupnp app. After the play list finished, I played the last three songs ACDC's Razors Edge, Thunderstruck and Highway to Hell, through Spotify.
What a difference I find it difficult to actually put into words the difference I could hear but just to highlight one thing I could hear, the impact of the simple every 2 second drum beat on the intro to Thunderstruck was incredible through Bubble (I have my CD's ripped in the highest possible quality on my NAS drive.)
The drum beat was so much softer through Spotify and the discernable difference as each guitar; lead, rhythm and bass joins the introduction.
I'm not saying Spotify is awful but I'm actually glad I can tell the difference.
On another note the difference that sticks out like a sore thumb when we listen to Spotify at work. I have my old 30+years Denon PMA 250 MK2 at work driving some TDL book shelf speakers my son got from Facebook, and the source is a Harmen Kardon Bluetooth receiver and whatever phone we use. I have an old budget phone Honor 10 lite (£170 when new) that I use for streaming at work and my son has a ASUS ROG phone 3 £500. The quality of the sound through the ROG phone is miles better than my Honour phone. I was surprised at the difference it's compressed music from Spotify being compressed again over Bluetooth I didn't think that much difference would be evident.
So yep even at the budget end of the scale the difference is plainly evident.
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