If you are subconsciously primed to expect better quality from a source you know is supposed to 'sound better' then there's a good chance you will hear it even in situations where there is no difference to be heard. Even a 0.5 db disparity between Spotify and Apple Music can make us perceive the audio differently.Įxpectation bias - yes, the good ol' placebo effect. Volume difference - while our ears aren't sensitive enough to notice all the additional information contained in lossless formats, they are very sensitive to volume. bass/treble) or dynamic range compression, this is the most likely explanation. If you hear a clear difference in EQ balance (e.g. This is particularly true of older albums that have been reissued multiple times over the years.

This can potentially lead to a noticeable loss in audio quality, so Spotify (which does not use AAC) is at a disadvantage when used on Apple hardware with Bluetooth devices.ĭifferent master recordings - sometimes different streaming services use different versions of the same album. So why do people hear a difference? There are several likely factors, including:Īpple's Bluetooth implementation - In contrast to Android / Windows / Linux devices, Apple use their proprietary AAC codec for Bluetooth, which means that any audio files not already in this format must be transcoded to AAC before being transmitted to your Apple speakers or headphones. In reality, the codec/bitrate used by Spotify on Very High settings is already past this point as well, meaning that it is nearly impossible for the vast majority of people to tell between it and a lossless service in a properly conducted blind test. Online communities that spend a lot of time testing different lossy codecs against the original (like hydrogenaudio) have shown that the point of 'transparency' - meaning the point past which you can't tell one from another - occurs long before we get all the way to lossless. Contrary to popular belief, higher bitrates do not translate to audibly better sound past a certain point.

Spotify to macbook