Is it worth the cost? The answer, of course, depends on whether you can hear the difference, and whether that difference is important to you. So you’re paying a premium of 63 to 150 percent for high-resolution streaming. Amazon charges $13 per month for CD- and high-resolution streaming for Prime members and $15 per month for everyone else for 256 kbps MP3 streaming, the prices are $8 per month for Prime members and $10 per month otherwise. The plan will only be offered through Januto the first 100,000 subscribers. Qobuz originally charged $25 per month for high-res streaming, $20 per month for CD-quality streaming, and $10 per month for 320 kbps MP3 streaming, but in early November 2019 it began offering a limited-time deal that includes all of its content for a flat $15 per month, or $12.50 if you pay on a yearly basis. Tidal costs $20 per month for a mix of both CD- and high-resolution streaming and $10 per month for 320-kilobits-per-second AAC streaming (the same compression technology Apple Music uses). The new Amazon Music HD service uses the same FLAC technology. In May of this year, the Qobuz (“ko-buzz”) service debuted in the US with high-resolution audio compressed with FLAC technology, which reproduces 100 percent of the original audio signal. Tidal Hi-Fi uses Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) technology, which “folds” high-resolution audio data so that it can stream at lower data rates, but it doesn’t carry 100 percent of the added data. More recently, music listeners’ switch from CDs and downloads to streaming services inspired the launch of Tidal Hi-Fi, a high-resolution service offered by Tidal, the streaming company famously purchased by Jay-Z in 2015. Companies like HDtracks and Acoustic Sounds offer high-resolution downloads of many current and past albums. CD resolution is 16 bits and 44.1 kHz (written as “16-bit/44.1 kHz” or sometimes just “16/44.1”), and that has been considered the baseline for high-quality digital audio since the early 1980s.Ībout 15 years ago, distribution of music in high resolution-usually 20 to 24 bits and 96 or 192 kilohertz-became possible thanks to digital downloads. In both cases, more is generally considered better. Resolution is expressed in two numbers: word depth in bits (which tells you the difference between the loudest and softest sounds that can be recorded) and sampling rate in kilohertz (which lets you calculate the highest frequencies of sound that can be recorded). In digital audio, resolution refers to the precision with which a digital representation of an audio signal matches the original signal. The fact that the world’s 13th-largest company by revenue has entered the high-res streaming business has to be significant for the music industry, but with high-resolution streaming costing up to two and a half times as much as a standard non-high-res service like Spotify, does it offer a benefit that average music listeners will embrace?Īnswering that question demands a brief dive into the basics of sound-recording technology. Since May, the field of companies offering high-res audio in the US has expanded from one to three major players: Tidal, Qobuz, and now Amazon. Non-audiophiles, however, barely seemed to notice Amazon’s HD music launch. They considered the September announcement of Amazon’s launch of HD high-resolution music streaming to be as consequential as Apple’s introduction of the iPhone. So this perhaps the princess complaining about the pea, but Roon has previously set a high standard, and now we’re used to it.Audiophiles have long prophesied a day when all music would stream in high resolution and the MP3 would be retired to a comfortable recliner from which it could swap war stories with 8-track tapes and laserdiscs. ![]() ![]() It’s a fascinating browse but if you’re looking for something specific it’s a pain. I would love to be able to see, for instance, just the classical, or orchestral, or classical vocal, etc., albums, but the best I can do is a ‘BnF’ search with the ‘Label’ radio button checked, and see everything in that large library. For instance, the rich and varied BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) collection has some real gems in it, from Serge Gainsbourg to Paul Tortelier. ![]() The next disappointment is that we’re now used to rich search functionality in Roon, and that functionality is not available (at least not per my initial, feeble efforts) in the Qobuz app. This is something I think we could do some asking ‘why’, of Roon product management, and request that they achieve some kind of feature parity with TIDAL. The problem, in terms of customer expectations, is that the tight search and discovery integration available with TIDAL was not continued into Qobuz’s rich(er) library. After lengthy passive frustration I finally found this thread. I am a huge fan of Qobuz for both depth of library, number of options in high res, and sound quality.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |