Spotify Premium vs Qobuz streaming
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In comparing sound quality of Spotify Premiumm vs Qobuz (and vs purchased FLAC from Qobuz), I have discovered that Spotify sounds much better on all my BlueSound Setups and various tests. I have a stereo BS Pulse with Sub+ in my main listening room. then I have a standalone Pulse Mini in my office, and then the brand new Pulse M in my backyard.
And yes, I have logged in the Qobuz account as the highest level when loging into my qobuz account from BluOS app, and yes I have a solid internet line without any problems.
Across the board on all my 3 setups, the Spotify Streaming sound is much richer/crisper and has more volume (while volume level stays the same on different testings), when compared to streaming of the same HR track on Qobuz. However, when I purchase the same track from Qobuz and stream it locally from my NAS drive in flac format, then that version is a bit better than the Spotify streaming version.
Anyone lese has done a side by side comparison of Spotify Premium VS Qobuz Streaming VS qobuz flac purchased files?
I have also done several "blind test" with various people, and all pick the Spotify quality and the purchase tracked one.
To me this means Qobuz streaming is not the same as Qobuz purchased tracks. am I missing something?
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A lot of people prefer Spotify tracks, volume level is slightly louder and the tracks are brighter. This does not mean they are technically better just sound nicer to many, also the Bluesound Speaker devices are very sympathetic to lossy music in the presentation.
A slight volume increase always results is a bias towards the higher volume level track, you would have to find an identical test tone and use a SPL meter to ensure the testing is level matched but when streaming a track from one source vs another it’s almost impossible to get them to match as they are in different formats.
If you had a NODE or POWERNODE I believe you would hear the better quality with CD quality / FLAC tracks over Spotify.
Personally I find Spotify hard to listen to for extended period and I get “ear fatigue” but do have an active Spotify account!
In theory streaming vs local files should should the same but there are many threads on HiFi forums with polar opinions on the matter.
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Hello Seppi Evans,
Thank you for the feedback.
I actually think I discovered the exact problem by chance last night after my above post, and it has to do with the Bluesound re-play settings, believe it or not! So as it turns out, I had all my re-play setting set to "Smart Gain". After my last night post, I noticed it, and just tried disabling it, and there it was! After disabling the re-play gain, Qobuz sounded normal and at the same volume level as Spotify premium. So this means Bluesound is processing the Smart-Gain settings differently per platform (on the same exact artist track).
My Flac still sounds better than both, so yes, I believe local file streaming has advantages perhaps.
I think Belusound should be aware of this re-play setting, and make a big note that this setting may greatly impact the quality of the track you are listening to.
Thank you again and am glad I found this setting impact.
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The Replay gain settings only apply to local music not streamed,
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Seppi, after turning the replay gain, Qobuz streaming volume is fixed (in all my 3 setups). so it seems like it's applying to streaming. It made no difference on the NAS drive local streaming.
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The local files do need Replaygain tags added to make this work.
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Seppi, that's not the point. my local files from my NAS sounded the best.
the point is QOBUZ STREAMING (live from qobuz). when re-play gain is set to smarat gain, there is a very big drop in qobuz stremaing volume/quality.
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Well it’s possible that Qobuz has added replaygain tags at some point recently.
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I believe peak and track gain is provided by API for Qobuz (and Tidal?), but no tag is in the downloaded flac file. That will explain the drop, or increase in volume when you compare streaming vs. local files.
However, "quality" should not be altered because track gain only adjust the volume.0 -
hi Bjorn, I agree with your assessment. I think the drop in volume was so much, that Spotify version just "felt" much better, as it had a lot more "kick" to it in terms of volume. and to match the sound on Qobuz, I had to increase the volume pretty much by doubling it, so I never thought to do it.
now that I have the replay gain disabled, it is playing normal.
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Pretty amazing that spotify's low quality lossy 320kbps file would sound better than a lossless 9 Mbps quboz track. Possible but unlikely.
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Yes, hard to imagine, but set the replay-gain to Smart Gain, and compare the same track on both streaming platforms at the same volume level, and you will see how bad qobuz sounds compared to Spotify.
so this may be a bug in the way Bluesound is processing SemartGain setting.
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Why are you using any artificial gain settings? If using the analog outs it should be set to fixed and have your preamp manage it, or even better if you output the audio to your DAC.
Have you confirmed that the gain of these files is truly different using another device (like a computer)?
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Hi, because I had it set way in beginning when I purchased my BS setup (I have described it in the first posting above), and forgot about it (I must have assumed turning-on "SmartGain" well... would have been smart!)
No, I only listen on the system as I have described above. Now it's working, so it's better. But why would there be such a setting is the question...
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Having volume control as an option is a good thing. If the motivation is not sound quality but a uniform volume experience then it's a good function to have. For example, if using these devices as background music in a house with a bunch of ceiling speakers. Audio quality is not important. Uniform volume is.
As for "serious" 2 channel listening, ideally these artificial volume controls should be off.
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