Best hi-res streaming services

Both services offer a free trial. Try them both out and see which service you like better.

Whether or not you can tell the difference between hi-res or “standard” quality music is up to the individual. Some can hear the difference, some can’t. Some think hi-res music is a joke. Some love the fact that they are getting the highest quality audio.

If you plan on getting an Arc or Beam (Gen 2) and are interested in Dolby Atmos music, Amazon Music Unlimited is currently the best option.

In terms of peer reviewed studies you’ll not be able to find any proving that 16-bit is inferior to 24-bit distribution to consumers. There are good reasons why 24-bit is better during studio processing prior to generating the final 16-bit distribution. In some of the “hi-res” tracks a better sounding master is used and this copy might sound better than the common retail release.

It is standard practice for general retail releases to be highly compressed. It is well known that compression sells more copies because typical listening environments are very noisy and compression enhances the listening experience in noisy environments. These highly compressed tracks don’t sound good while listening through high quality equipment in a quiet room.

In some cases the “hi-res’ version is simply up sampled from a 16-bit copy. This is pure snake oil.

While not good enough to be passed as a “peer reviewed study” I can recall an album where I had British, Japanese, and US retail LP pressings, along with a premium LP and CD release generated from a high quality master tape that was not available to the other releases. Listening was done through a premium system, using a premium turntable. The differences were so stark that I had some difficulty proving to myself that all versions came from the same recording session.

Bottom line -- “best” is in the ear of the listener. Don’t let anyone try to convince you that you are a bad listener.

You will find a lot of threads here by people that need to see the HD label to know that they are listening to Hi Res. That need should tell you something about the answer to your question.

For a lot more, see:

https://en.community.sonos.com/music-services-and-sources-228994/the-beginner-s-guide-to-hi-res-audio-6863305

I’d not pay for higher than CD quality because I can hear no differences in the sound.

I would pay extra for a stream (as Buzz mentioned) where the studio engineer hadn’t chopped off the bottom of the bass and over-boosted the rest, compressed the dynamic range and all the other evils needed to push mass-market music to folks with low quality systems or using ear-buds.

Going back to LP days, what the studio engineer does to the master has more audible impact than the equipment used to record, mix, or press the LP.

As an example, scroll down a bit to: The Sound Mastering (below the booklet section)

http://pinkfloydarchives.com/Discog/Japan/DSCD1/JADS1.htm#_[1986_%E2%80%93_The

[quote]Mastering: This release uses the very first EMI mastering of Dark Side of the Moon for compact disc. Both the EQ and levels have changed from the prior Sony mastering. Using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) software to read the peak levels for each track on the CD, the results are:

1985/1986 Toshiba-EMI mastering track peak levels: 87.8 / 94.7 / 100 / 97.2 / 100 / 99.1 / 100 / 96.1 / 100

This is a substantial change from the previous Sony pressings, which were:

1983/1985 Sony mastering track peak levels: 39.9 / 43.3 / 70.1 / 55.2 / 72.3 / 44.5 / 53.9 / 54.6 / 61.2

Pre-emphasis: The EMI mastering of the Dark Side of the Moon CD does not have pre-emphasis.

snip

So although the CD basically looks identical to the earlier pressings, there was a substantial change in the sound of the CD. And the only way to visually differentiate between the Sony pressings and the Toshiba-EMI pressings is to check the matrix information on the CD.[/quote]

Good read: http://www.itwriting.com/blog/91-the-loudness-wars-why-many-cds-sound-bad.html

A lot of that discussion is the fact UHD won’t play when stereo pair is bonded with a Sub/gen2. It’s hard to tell the difference when the sound stage is completely different.

Also just because some people can’t tell the difference doesn’t that all people can’t tell the difference.

https://www.ecoustics.com/podcasts/mark-waldrep-interview-episode-8/

Many won’t have the patience to listen to the full podcast. However the strength of feeling against the marketing of ‘hi-res’ to innocent consumers is palpable. And this is from an industry expert who originally set up a recording label which provided hi-res content. 

TL;DR: 16/44 is perfectly sufficient for final delivery. No-one can tell the difference. (The interesting developments are in immersive audio.)

Agree Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio appear more game changers to the industry than the difference between HD/UHD music playback.

Simple to hear the sound difference between immersive audio and the regular recording, especially when wearing a good pair of headphones.

Dark Side of the Moon MFSL trivia.

Here’s the thing - everyone can hear the difference between CD and HD audio, usually, but the important question to ask is whether this difference will survive a controlled listening blind test with just one variable left in the frame. And none that claim to hear the difference explain how they have first eliminated all the variables that will cause an audible difference to arise, that most listeners will hear. Admittedly these tests are not easy to set up at home, but people conversant with and in possession of the tech have set these up to substantiate what they say, and what they say should not be dismissed just because the test is hard to do at home.

In the case of Apple, even Apple say that their engineers can't pick between Apple lossless and lossy in a blind test - and yet, there are users that claim that differences can be heard here as well. In this instance it is almost certainly because Apple lossless streams play at a slightly louder level that Apple lossy. Eliminate that variable as Apple must have done in their labs, and the difference, as Apple itself says, ought to disappear.

Apple spatial audio is an altogether different beast. When I heard it on the Apple earphones that could play it, the difference was vast and did not need careful attention to be hit by it. Which isn't to say that I would prefer that style for my music listening, but that is just personal preference; there is no argument that via the surround or immersive effects, it sounds quite different.

I’ve done a few dozen anecdotal comparisons with people claiming no audiophile credentials, only curiosity and a desire to help me decide which technology was “best”. I used 120K MP3, 320K MP3, and 16bit FLAC files ripped from the same CD. I only asked that they rank the files. I did not suggest anything about the relative quality in advance other than they might use different technology. I identified the tracks only as ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’. I did not allow direct A/B comparison, there was a silent period between the trials because small, difficult to measure level differences, sway the jury’s conclusions.

One of these listening sessions involved a room full of middle age+ computer nerds using bookshelf speakers thrown on a conference table. They were somewhat annoyed that I did not preface the demo with any hints about what they should expect and asked that they not discuss any results until the demo was complete. 100% ranked 120 as least desirable and FLAC as their favorite.

I estimate that about 80% of what I classify as “street people” ranked the files in this order.

The few self declared audiophiles settled on this ranking only about 50% of the time and rejected my demo because my equipment was not high enough on their audiophile ranking system. I had to bite my tongue. In their opinion, if I had used proper equipment, this would have been a slam dunk task. The 80% would listen to the three files and form an immediate conclusion, while the audiophiles would struggle with multiple trials. My thought is that the audiophile’s credibility and self esteem were on the line, rather than simple curiosity.