What effect on SQ does the encoding used by a streaming service have?

[guy48065]

I'm not new to streaming but I AM new to careing about streaming quality since adding WiiMs to my home systems.
I'm unclear on the relationship between recording quality and streaming encoder quality. When I'm streaming from a source like Qobuz, Spotify, Amazon, Tidal, etc the player app displays the bitrate and the recording bit depth/sample freq.
It doesn't display the encoding used by the source. Is that because it doesn't matter?
What effect does it have on SQ?

Are 256kbps AAC and 320kbps Ogg (for example) perfectly equivalent & transparent or is that "901 kbps 16-bit/44.1kHz" on my display just an illusion?

 

[alpha_zulu]

If you stream with Qobuz, for example, all files are in FLAC format, which means that they are compressed and decompressed losslessly. This means (in theory) that there should be no audible difference between a locally played CD and the streamed identical song at 16 bit/44.1 Hz. Provided, of course, that the conversion takes place with the same DAC and the mastering of the song is actually identical.

 

[guy48065]

Is there a list somewhere of the various sources & the encoders they use?

 

[Burnside]

Is there a list somewhere of the various sources & the encoders they use?

The major services (Qobuz, Tidal, Amazon Music, Deezer etc) use lossless FLAC which is the highest quality streaming format, while Spotify uses a variety of quality levels/encoders as shown here https://support.spotify.com/uk/article/audio-quality/

This page may be of interest too, albeit ignore MQA https://www.audiophileon.com/news/best-music-codec

 

[alpha_zulu]

Thank you for that interesting link, unfortunately not error-free: FLAC is lossless but is not uncompressed.

FLAC - FREE LOSSLESS AUDIO CODEC​

Type: Lossless (uncompressed)

Use Case: Good for archiving and editing.

Device Support: High - The most popular codec for audiophiles

 

[Burnside]

Good spot

 

[guy48065]

What got me thinking about this was Spotify recommending I use Chromecast as a work-around to my issue of Spotify not finding my Ultra.
"Please enable Chromecast on the Ultra and check if the Spotify app can detect it. Please note that Chromecast streams at 256kbps AAC, while Spotify Connect streams at 320kbps Ogg, with only a minimal difference in quality."

I'm resistant to using this sort of band-aid if it lowers SQ. I never paid much attention to the subject in the past, but I recall that *how* encoders compress audio files was very controversial.

 

[d6jg]

What got me thinking about this was Spotify recommending I use Chromecast as a work-around to my issue of Spotify not finding my Ultra.
"Please enable Chromecast on the Ultra and check if the Spotify app can detect it. Please note that Chromecast streams at 256kbps AAC, while Spotify Connect streams at 320kbps Ogg, with only a minimal difference in quality."

I'm resistant to using this sort of band-aid if it lowers SQ. I never paid much attention to the subject in the past, but I recall that *how* encoders compress audio files was very controversial.

There is very little audible difference between 256kbps AAC and 320kbps OGG but you should be able to detect a difference between these and FLAC - even if you only have copper ears!

 

[harkpabst]

They should have said "Please note that we, Spotify, will only give you Chromecast streams at 256kbps AAC ...".

This is not a limit imposed by Chromecast or Google Cast.

 

[rccarguy]

Thank you for that interesting link, unfortunately not error-free: FLAC is lossless but is not uncompressed.

FLAC - FREE LOSSLESS AUDIO CODEC​

Type: Lossless (uncompressed)

Use Case: Good for archiving and editing.

Device Support: High - The most popular codec for audiophiles

Flac is compressed as in how the file is stored, ie similar to winrar/winzip. Compressed to save data, but when uncompressed (usually real time or into cache) is exactly the same as the original data (MD5)

Compression when it comes to lossy is when data is thrown away to save space.

 

[alpha_zulu]

Exactly what I said.

 

[Claudius]

Exactly what I said.

You mentioned not error free: can you elaborate?

 

[alpha_zulu]

You mentioned not error free: can you elaborate?

I was only referring to the link in #4, where FLAC is described as ‘uncompressed’, which it is not! It is a lossless compressed format.

 

[guy48065]

They should have said "Please note that we, Spotify, will only give you Chromecast streams at 256kbps AAC ...".

This is not a limit imposed by Chromecast or Google Cast.

Chromecast is capable of much more?
I notice when streaming Spotify via Chromecast that ALL the "media quality" settings are greyed out.
Spotify isn't very transparent about what the actual quality of you stream is (other than "low-medium-high"), but Chrome dumbs it down when more. Yuck!

I've been playing with Qobuz all week and I'm VERY impressed.

 

[alpha_zulu]

Chromecast is capable of much more?

Yes. Using Chromcast with Qobuz provides CD quality (or even higher, I am not sure. Maybe someone who knows better can help.)

 

[alpha_zulu]

Non-gapless playback is one of the reasons I would prefer a real Qobuz connect function. But - as we all know - it will arrive soon.