In terms of looking out for high-resolution streams from your music service and making sure you're getting the very best sound quality, you want to pay attention to the file's bitrate.
Today, Apple Music (opens in new tab) and Amazon Music (opens in new tab) also offer lossless and hi-res streaming services but despite its longevity - and its position as one of the most popular music streaming providers - Spotify currently has no better sound quality option on offer.įor reasons best known to itself, Amazon refers to lossless CD-quality content as HD and calls anything better Ultra HD. Spotting an opportunity and a move away from music file downloads, lossless services from Qobuz (opens in new tab) (2007) and then Tidal (opens in new tab) (2015) arrived, offering CD-quality streams and higher to meet audiophile demand.
While these smaller file sizes enabled music streaming to get off the ground and was less troublesome for bandwidth-limited network infrastructures at the time, fans of quality audio were less than satisfied. When Spotify launched its streaming service in 2006, not everyone was happy with its lower-than-CD-quality output - its data streams max out at 320kbps, which is around a quarter of that of CD specified at 1,411kbps. In the same way that watching HDR, 4K or 8K content on one of the best TVs can deliver a far more involving and immersive viewing experience over standard definition video, listening to music in hi-res brings the listener closer to their favorite bands, and often brings about a greater feeling of connection to an artist and their output. To audiophiles, being able to hear every nuanced element within a recording in the very best quality available is paramount to the overall musical experience and level of enjoyment. But for those passionate about hearing their favorite tunes through the best headphones or traditional hi-fi separates systems on full-range speakers, anything less than the highest-quality digital music file can seem disrespectful to the artist(s) as well as the art of the recording and production processes. Plenty of music fans wonder whether listening to high-resolution audio is really worth it.
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