Spotify fans threaten to return to piracy as music streamer introduces new face-scanning age checks in the UK
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It could be the quality of your headphones.
I'm not an audiophile, but back-in-the-day I bought some analog "sennheiser studio monitors" as opposed to "just headphones".
I actually returned the first one and exchanged them, because when I listened to a live recorded CD, I kept hearing loud "pops" that I didn't hear with my "regular headphones". I assumed they were defective.
The exchanged sennheiser had the same "pop" in this CD. It turns out, most "regular headphones" didn't have the same depth in sound frequency as studio monitors and the "pops" were accidental artifacts that were mixed into the CD.
For other CD's, I'd hear telephones ringing and sirens in the background.
Eventually, I got use to it. Then after a few years, I replaced my CD collection with mp3's... and I could tell a different in songs/albums I was really familiar with. The base wasn't as deep, the high sounds weren't as high, I didn't hear telephones ringing in the background.
I had the same sennheiser, it was just that the nature of mp3's "flattened" the music.
Now, with Bluetooth and the disappearance of 3.5 mm jacks, there are too many layers of digital conversion happening. I've given up... and now just have some cheap ear buds I listen to.
I have a pair Sennheiser HD 25.
I just took the NPR test suggested by another poster. I did horribly.
Thank you for your input. I will not be updating to Flac.
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This is another step closer to requiring an ID to use the internet at all, which is exactly what the ruling class wants.
Fight back wherever you can.
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Its not like every industrie can somehow lobby every consumer right away when someone wants to make a new law... oh wait they do...
Actually, I don't think this is industry mandated. I don't think it's in the interest of tech and content companies to create more friction to access their services. This one seems to have more to do with the governments wanting to exert more control over online affairs, and of course, over its citizens.
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Actually, I don't think this is industry mandated. I don't think it's in the interest of tech and content companies to create more friction to access their services. This one seems to have more to do with the governments wanting to exert more control over online affairs, and of course, over its citizens.
Yea my point was if people stopped using the apps then the big players will lobby the governemt to revert shit like that. But i also think that long term all big players would love to normalize taking your picture to open their app. Every bit of information they can sell is a win for them.
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Same for me, I got tired of the same artists being played over and over. I've switched to Deezer who does a much better job. I will probably switch to Qobuz soon.
I tried Tidal, and now I'm on Pandora. The 'radio' feature of Pandora more closely matches the way I want to listen to music (I feel like playing this, stay in this mood, but vary the artists), but I'm disappointed by the android app.
I should also try Qobuz, maybe even Deezer, but the real pain point is that I have literally thousands of playlists on Spotify. I can pay TuneMyMusic again, I guess -
I keep getting advice of Flac > MP3 320 kbs.
I can't tell the difference to tell you the truth. Is it really worth it for audiophiles considering how much more space Flac files takes up?
wrote last edited by [email protected]I'd say it's definitely worth it.
Our brains shouldn't have to work harder to listen to lossy music, which is what happens even if you can't reliably perceive it.
Listening to music on acid (a lot) has really shaped my views of it and how even the most minor things can have a major impact on the final experience.
I'm not an audiophile though and can enjoy music in a wide range of formats and quality; I just prefer FLAC almost anywhere.*
*some songs sound 'better,' or at least more iconic in a lower quality
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Yea my point was if people stopped using the apps then the big players will lobby the governemt to revert shit like that. But i also think that long term all big players would love to normalize taking your picture to open their app. Every bit of information they can sell is a win for them.
Ah I see, misunderstood your point then.
I guess that's also why Google is going to use some kind of AI to determine whether or not a profile is underage. That way, existing adult users of their services are (most likely) not affected.
In my opinion, draconian government overreach in matters of civil liberties is one of the few instances where we should be on the side of big tech companies.
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I used to use and praise Spotify and their algorithm, but I was starting to find that it would insist on playing the same 20 or 50 songs regardless of the playlist I was trying to generate music suggestions from. I read a rumor somewhere that it was a way to decrease the load on their servers and rely more on the cached songs already on the device, and got sick of that enough to switch to Pandora after over 10 years of Spotify
I recommend looking at song mixes over the daily mixes, that's what I use on tidal too and it's a lot better at mixing things up
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I tried Tidal, and now I'm on Pandora. The 'radio' feature of Pandora more closely matches the way I want to listen to music (I feel like playing this, stay in this mood, but vary the artists), but I'm disappointed by the android app.
I should also try Qobuz, maybe even Deezer, but the real pain point is that I have literally thousands of playlists on Spotify. I can pay TuneMyMusic again, I guessWhat issues are you having with the mobile app?
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This age-verification bullshit is a fine example of how governments represent their rulers, not their citizens.
I dont understand this take. This is a "think of the children" bs that panders to (certain) citizens. Also a thinly veiled attempt at data collection of its citizens en masse
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I tried Tidal, and now I'm on Pandora. The 'radio' feature of Pandora more closely matches the way I want to listen to music (I feel like playing this, stay in this mood, but vary the artists), but I'm disappointed by the android app.
I should also try Qobuz, maybe even Deezer, but the real pain point is that I have literally thousands of playlists on Spotify. I can pay TuneMyMusic again, I guessI had no trouble transferring my playlists to Deezer, but I only had dozens of them.
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Yes, I meant in case you have a library of FLACs. In that case it wouldn't be too problematic cause, well, it's just a script recursing your library, encoding from FLAC to Opus and if succeeded, removing FLAC files.
Okay. That makes sense.
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Never ran any tests here but the difference is so stark that I never really considered it a need.
Kinda like when I switched from SoundCloud to Apple Music. I couldn’t go back to listening to the songs I had in my SC library because it was just noticeably worse.
I’m sure there are ways to rip high fi YouTube audio but the basic options I used in the past yielded results worse than avg SoundCloud quality.
Will say it’s been a few years since trying and I never had any paid for YouTube subscription, don’t even have an account. So, while it may be acceptable, I just never had a need and if I wanted to rip music, I’d be torrenting .flac files, not ripping .mp3s from YouTube
I was impressed when iTunes added the option to get your album in .flac. And while I acknowledge there’s a lot of placebo effect with audiophillia, I still argue space is cheap and you never know how good your ears and sound system may get in the future.
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It's not necessarily your music though, it's the closest that they found in their library sometimes. I have tons of tracks that I uploaded the explicit copy of to gmusic but my library downloads only had the censored/radio version.
Found that out the hard way after a drive crash a few years back. Have spent a bit of time reacquiring the stuff I cared about.
Wow! You are right, I completely forgot about that. You can listen to your music still, but it is true that is not a good way for rebuilding your collection
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Don't threaten, just do it. Enshittification must end.
The only reason we have mainstream paid video streaming now is because early Netflix was genuinely better than dodgy, pop-up riddled mirrors on movie4k.to. The convenience was well worth 8 bucks a month. Same for Spotify.
Fast forward 10 years and Spotify wants me to pay 15 €, scan my face and listen to forced podcast ads AND pay extra for paywalled audiobooks that used to be free? Meet my good old friend youtube-downloader, then.
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I have Sennheiser HD 25 I bought 15 years ago. I play music through my Pixel 5a with a headphone jack and my iMac. I have no idea if this is good enough for the test but I will try it anyway.
I'm on my iMac and I chose 128 kbps four times... I chose 320 kbps once and Uncompressed WAV once.
I did so horribly. Lol.
This puts either my hearing limits or the limit of my tech. If I don't get better equipment, I have my answer forever.
This is truly great. Thank you for this suggestion.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I’m happy it helped. I was a musician and audiophile for most of my life so I was equally shocked to fail
I also tested on my iMac too. I’m tempted sometimes to get an external DAC and maybe a nice amp, but I’m not sure I want the clutter. -
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Never understood Spotifys appeal. Youtube has always been better imo.
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I dont understand this take. This is a "think of the children" bs that panders to (certain) citizens. Also a thinly veiled attempt at data collection of its citizens en masse
Sounds like you understand the take perfectly
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Its as if law makers don't learn from history. Do they not know what happened in the 90s and early 2000s when stores wouldn't sell M rated video games or CDs with mature content labels? We found ways to get around that. We would go to stores that didn't check or care, got our older sibling or friend to buy it for us. We burned copies of our friends CDs, or downloaded stuff off line with Limewire and Napster.
Same shit when there was prohibition in the US. People drove cars across the great lakes to bring alcohol into the US. People brewed there own spirits in bathtubs with radiator coils.
If people want to anomalously watch their favorite weird kinky shit or listing to music they like, they're going to find a way. And, if the easiest way to do that is through piracy, that is what they are going to do.
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Never understood Spotifys appeal. Youtube has always been better imo.
The few dumb artists who only release music there and nowhere else, the better streaming quality (I guess? I've read it somewhere), and slightly better at suggesting/categorizing music genres. I don't use it because all the time I'd see people cry "I wish this was on Spotify!!!" in a YT comment section, and YT music had everything I wanted. Plus YT free is way more bearable that Spotify free, and I use ReVanced now anyway.
But yeah Spotify always sucked to me and I'm tired of those who shame others for not using it. The "Apple green bubble shaming" of the music world.
