I’ve been swapping back and forth between Tidal Hifi and Amazon HD Ultra equivalent.
For me, since I listen to vgm mostly, it’s actually complicated.
Well it’s not if the ost is available for purchase (like for example, a lot of the pokemon ost can be bought on itunes), then I just buy them if I really like said ost, but this is unfortunately very rare. There’s also the issue that I personally HATE to have DRM in my music so I do not use any streaming services like spotify because I think it’s dumb to have DRM like these in my stuff.
So what I end up doing is I have to manually extract the original audio files from the game’s files. The process varies WILDLY depending on the platform and it’s quite an involved process so I only do it if I REALLY want the songs in my library, but it is the way that gives the best possible quality. What I usually end up with are wav files that I then convert to flac. On that note, there’s a program called vgmstream that does the decoding for you and there’s even plugins in players like foobar to listen to the files directly without converting to something the pc can understand beforehand.
However, if it’s just an ost that I only occasionally hear/would be too difficult to extract, I just end up on decent quality rips on youtube, but obviously, that’s less than ideal.
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Damn, that’s really impressive and cool that you end up extracting the audio yourself since rarely it is sold. Do you like any final fantasy or kingdom hearts stuff? It’s pretty solid. And sorry but I what’s DRM?
Digital Rights Management, essentially anti piracy
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I don’t stream and don’t collect discs unless I really want them so have to hunt my flacs from any sites like digital7, onkyomusic(closed) and few random ones. I do have mp3s(altho idealy I prefer finding the flac) so to buy mp3s I use the Google play store. Pretty easy and neat to use. Or I download some shit for different circumstances. I have a small library so I don’t need music streaming sites
Oooooooh thnx mon
20 chr
Ok i just subscribed to Qobuz. They have changed their plans. they used to offer their highest quality tracks on a expensive subscription. But now they offer them on a more economical plan. Its 15$ a month first month free.
Ive checked the web and people are saying it sounds better than Tidal. And maybe better than Amazon Music since there seems to be this problem with playing Amazon Ultra HD. The Amazon app is reporting that our DAC’s are not playing at the Ultra HD quality frequencies.
I fixed my settings in the windows sound control panel so Amazon Music app now reports that its playing at the correct frequency. But ive heard people say that its not really playing at that frequency. That Windows is somehow up sampling the music, but it doesnt sound good, since Amazon music goes through the windows mixer and doesnt support exclusive mode witch Qobuz does supports.
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You are correct: Amazon HD music app does not support an exclusive output. Seeing as how they’re marketing their new HD music service to audiophiles (at least to some degree), I’m puzzled why they didn’t offer such an option out of the gate.
I don’t know if a 96/24 Amazon signal streams at 96/24 once you set Windows’ mixer to that level. I also don’t know how much that matters, honestly. I’ve been trying to devise a test to do blind A/B testing between exclusive wasapi or asio output vs windows audio mixer. Short of having 2 identical computers where one is a clone of the other and having them both routed through identical listening gear I haven’t figured it out yet. However, my suspicion is that if there is an audible difference, it will be tough to tease out.
Also I agree Qobuz sounds better than Tidal. I haven’t done a Qobuz-Amazon comparison yet.
DRM is digital rights management and basically, the entire point of drm is to restrain control and access to files or service. I am fine with soft DRM like steam for example, but where it annoys me is for media because I would like to actually keep my file and use them however I want. When using services like spotify, the files are encrypted in a way that they ONLY work with the service so that’s why I am not too into it. It doesn’t just apply to music, but yeah.
As for FF/KH, well I am not huge on KH, but I DID tried 2 ff games and realized I didn’t like it much because I tend to have issues with step based encounter system. THAT BEING SAID, there’s some FF songs I really like such as prelude from ff6, it’s just not a huge part of my library. One Square enix rpg’s ost I LOOOOVE though is octopath and I highly recommend to check it.
As for extracting, it’s not that impressive, it’s just tedious because chances are, people already made the tools (like vgmstream) to do it. It’s fine if you know the procedure, but it gets annoying to google them the first time. Sometimes, like for snes games, you can just get them directly, there’s a site I think it’s like zophir domain or something where you can get the files and then use vgmstream to listen to them.
USUALLY, the quality is very good, but on rare cases, the quality has been nerfed from the source. One example is the persona 3 ost because it has its sample rate set to 24k (not 44 or 48k) and that’s enough for me to notice cymbals and drums sounds mushy. Though, I don’t have complains with 32k sampled songs which is interesting as it’s around where my hearing stop (16-17k).
Very interesting! thanks for doing that. I always wonder if WASAPI and AISO really does make a difference. you doing that test adds ammunition that it doesnt that much.
I would like my music to be as uncomplicated as possible. when i got my SU8 DAC i had to go to the SMSL site, find the driver, and install it, then figure out how to use it and see if it was actually working. whew. who needs all this? i would think that Microsoft would have all this setup and automatic by now lol.
There is an audible difference on some devices when using asio or wasapi, but you have to weigh the pros and the cons
I didn’t actually do a test, as I don’t have the equipment to do a true test where that’s the only variable.
I just hypothesize there’s not much difference. But there might be, it’s a hypothesis.
My Tidal-Qobuz comparison was done using Audirvana, which supports both and allowed quick switching between the 2 services in exclusive mode. I thought Qobuz sounded better than Tidal through their respective apps running both through Windows mixer as well, but that introduces a variable of app quality and programming - which would make it ambiguous if differences in sound were primarily due to the quality of the stream or something the apps were doing.
I’ll trust you’ve heard a difference, you clearly have gear knowledge and a trained ear. Can you comment on what those sonic differences are?
So, it really depends on the dac. Sometimes with like a topping d10 or something, it is very hard to tell the difference between windows directsound and asio/wasapi. With higher end dacs it can sometimes make a difference. Typically you can tell the output is more accurate. For me, a good place to tell is the spatial information, and asio and wasapi can sometimes allow for better spatial ability. This mainly comes down to bit perfect playback, devoting more system resources to audio playback, and also it depends but the dac may respond better to it’s asio/wasapi driver. There’s more I am forgetting but I’m in a meeting rn lol
I’ll buy there’s improved spatial presentation. To my ear, that’s the biggest difference between Redbook 16/44.1 and 96/24. I am curious on how to devise an A/B test here. If you have ideas on how to set up an A/B using 1 computer sending signal to the same input on the same dac, I’m all ears (pun fully intended)
Hmm you could use coax and get a rca switcher for a coax signal from 2 identical PC’s with one on direct sound and one on asio. Personally I have macros that I can quickly switch my dac from directsound and asio so I can go back and forth
Post back in a few days and let me know how you are enjoying Qobuz. I tried it last year, the quality was good but the AI was piss poor, there were no good suggestions/recommendations being made and eventually I went over to Tidal because i preferred the interface. At the current price I really want to switch back over to Qobuz but if the AI hasn’t improved And making better recommendations meh, maybe. Can we still purchase hi-res files from them? That option was real nice.
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Yes you can purchase (Hi-Rez) albums for reduced price if you are a subscriber.
This is very good imo too!
And of course they don’t use MQA.
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Qobuz is awesome. best sound and i love the way it uses Aiso. even shows it in its menu. I hate though that i cant move songs up and down in teh playlists i make. Also it doesnt have vary good new music and artist discovery. but there is something there. everything else seems fine
I posted a review of the various music streaming services here:
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Just a friendly reminder that streaming doesn’t pay artists much and this is especially tough for artists who aren’t well known or very popular…
That said I have a decent flac collection and recently started using my laptop as my source. Any recommendations on program’s for playback and organization?
I also have tidal to supplement my collection and explore new music… I’m happy with it.