Firstly, having recently upgraded the ole hifi, it has really shown up the sound quality of the Spotify stream compared to CD and records. I have signed up for Amazon HD for a free month and that seems noticeably better, and it is £2 a month cheaper anyway if/when I do start paying, so it seems like a no brainer. I am using a Bluesound streamer, and another advantage is that Amazon music is available through their app whereas Spotify isn’t. Anyone else have Amazon HD? Any drawbacks?
Secondly, I am upgrading the music I have on my hard drive, also streaming through the Bluesound and want to use Flac files or similar hi res files rather than mp3, although I have always used the highest bitrate for these. How do I get the hi res files from Blu Ray discs onto my hard drive with all the relevant tags and so on? I also have Flac files that have been sent to me which I want to load up rather than convert to mp3. Mp3s are so easy to tag with metadata – can I do this with flac easily? Thought I’d ask here rather than flounder around!
pencilsqueezer says
Hi Nigel. I can’t answer your second enquiry as I don’t have any locally stored files, strictly CD and streams hereabouts. I’ve used Amazon HD and Spotify and you are absolutely correct Amazon does sound noticeably better in every way however this may well change when Spotify get around to offering lossless which is imminent evidently. I use Tidal. It’s pricey but the quality is excellent, although MQA is a mixed bag tbh. It’s the mastering that matters not the bitrate imho. Tidal are also going to be offering a cheaper option shortly which is going to be in the form of everything but MQA, Dolby Atmos and Sony 360° this will be where I end up I expect. As for Bluesound both Tidal Connect and Spotify Connect are available via the Bluesound App. You probably require a subscription to access them though.
fentonsteve says
You can tag Flac files as easily as mp3 files with mp3tag (www.mp3tag.de)
Ripping Blu-ray Discs is a palaver. You first need to crack the encryption with AnyDVD HD (www.redfox.bz) which costs 109 Euro (or wait for a sale). You then need DVDAudioExtractor (dvdae.com) which is $38.
And lots of drive space, as BD discs are up to 50GB each.
Chrisf says
An alternate to AnyDVD is MakeMKV which is about £30-40 (I think), but has an unlimited 30 day trial…..
https://www.makemkv.com/
This software is primarily used to extract BluRay movies from disc to an MKV file, but you can use to backup the BluRay disc, which strips out all the encryption and leaves you with the BluRay in a folder on your hard drive (which as Steve mentions requires lots of space). It’s available for both windows and Mac.
You will still something like DVDAudioExtractor get the FLAC files – but it’s an excellent bit of software and I think we’ll worth the cost (it can also extract from DVD Audio with all the encryption malarkey).
craig42blue says
Hi Nigel
I save cd rips of my collection as FLAC files using ‘Foobar2000’ and tagging them is just as easy as with mp3s and any missing data can be added with the excellent free ‘Mp3tag’ tool.
As for DVD-A and Blu Ray, google only knows!
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/rip-flac-audio-from-bluray.3078868/#lg=thread-3078868&slide=0
craig42blue says
John Walters says
I use Qobuz as my preferred Hi Res streaming service and am very happy with the choices and sound quality.
Like you, I use a Bluesound Node 2i to stream my music.
Qobuz have just informed me that they are reducing the price of their service from £15.99 to £13.99 per month.
I am fairly sure that this a response to the imminent Spotify upgrade to CD quality streaming.
dai says
We need an FAQ for streaming
fentonsteve says
It changes all the time, though. Perhaps when Spotify launch their lossless service we can compare and contrast.
Junior Wells says
Pencil and I have had quite a chat about these matters.
Tidal clearly best sound but poor cataloguing , stuff hard to find – type in artist or even album – zilch. Type in a song and sometimes the artist and Ethel album pops up. Go figure. Good for jazz – once you locate things. More prone to buffering.
Spotify best on everything except for sound quality. The equaliser is handy but in the end it is noticeably inferior. Massive catslogue Aussie African reggae bootlegs , playlists. Incredible really but shot sound. Listener fatigue kicks in really early for me.
Amazon HD is the compromise
Junior Wells says
Ethel? Try even.
Vulpes Vulpes says
There’s always been Ethel.
craig42blue says
…and there was a group/quartet called Ethel who supported Todd R and Joe Jackson at a gig I went to; 16 years ago (sixteen!! wtf) .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2005/03/16/music_jacksonrundgren_preview_feature.shtml
pencilsqueezer says
I can’t in all honesty say I ever have a problem finding pretty much anything I want on Tidal. The catalogue is roughly equal in size to Spotify, around seventy million songs I believe and growing all the time. There are gaps here and there but they are usually artists or albums that are missing across all the platforms I have access to. I guess its usage of any platform that smooths out the experience, you just get used to the individual foibles of each platform.
I’ll take a good look again at Spotify when they launch a lossless option. The decision on if I switch back from Tidal will be made entirely upon quality grounds. As I mentioned above Tidal are launching a new payment tier of CD Redbook quality for a lower cost which I imagine will be around the £10 to £15 mark and that will do me just fine, Hi-Res is imho unnecessary, the increase in audible quality it supposedly offers is to my ears almost if not entirely inaudible so why pay for it. It’s all about the initial recording and the mastering, if that’s crap an increase in bitrate will make absolutely zero difference. A turd despite buckets of marketing hype or “advances in technology” will always be a turd. On a slightly different tack… Interestingly it seems that Qualcomm have finally cracked the lossless Bluetooth conundrum and have a codec which they are shaping up to offer on a new chipset next year that will deliver true bit perfect Bluetooth. Now that will be most interesting especially for headphone enthusiasts.
fentonsteve says
Bluetooth 5, launched in Dec 2016, supports up to 2Mb/s which is (just) enough for CD-quality lossless.
Apple have finally caught up, the iPhone 8 & X support BT 5.1 (launched Jan 2019) . Although the iOs native media player app does not support lossless files, download apps such as Onkyo HF Player do.
pencilsqueezer says
Latest from Darko.
fentonsteve says
Yes, it takes a while for new standards to appear in chipsets, then for those to appear in products.
AptX has been around for a while, although it uses Flac-like codec. AptX lossless doesn’t need the codec so should use less power.
John Walters says
Have to disagree I’m afraid. Having auditioned all the streaming services I plumped for Qobuz. I found it had a slightly better sound quality for a cheaper price.
pencilsqueezer says
That’s fine by me. I think when the differences are so minute and they are, I prefer to say it’s not that one is better or worse merely that the difference is simply one of personal preference. On my kit I prefer the marginal difference I perceive from Tidal. On your rig I may think differently. We all want different things from the music we listen to and everyone is right no one is wrong. It’s personal.
John Walters says
That’s absolutely spot on.
There is no wrong and no right.
Looking forward to how Spotify will handle a better sounding product and at what price point.
pencilsqueezer says
I’m waiting too. I’ll try it for a month finances allowing and let my ears guide me as is my usual practice. If the quality is good and the price is lower than Tidal are going to offer the new tier at I’ll probably switch back.
John Walters says
The fact that apple didn’t increase their prices when they started providing CD quality, I’m almost sure that Spotify will keep their charge the same at a tenner ( have been known to be wrong though 😊 ! )
pencilsqueezer says
I agree John. I think both Apple and Amazon by aggressive pricing will pretty much make that unavoidable for Spotify. Tidal are evidently going to roll out the new pricing structure in Australia first but I imagine the States, Canada and Europe won’t be far behind. From what I have gleaned today from t’net a price of around a tenner seems likely in which case I’ll stay with Tidal as I’m used to it and have invested a lot of hours in building album and artists lists. However with all things to do with t’net I won’t count chickens ’til Bob’ s a Dutchman’s uncle.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
My (old) ears are very happy with Amazon HD which if you also have Prime is a monthly steal.
Now just let me wrestle with my conscience….
pencilsqueezer says
Amazon HD sounds fine. I just prefer using Tidal Connect. The app is infinitely better.
The last time I bothered to check up on streaming platform’s artists payment models it was reported that unsurprisingly Amazon were the worst with Napster, yes who’d a thunk it being the most generous. Tidal were the second best. So get your hair shirt spruced up.
johnw says
If they all sound the same with much the same catalogue then the interface/app is the key. When I chose my (nonHD) streaming service I went though all the one’s with 30 day trials. I found Amazon one of the worst and least configurable. Going through the trials also puts the day you need to give anyone any money a few months down the line!
pencilsqueezer says
I used Spotify for a couple of years quite happily, it was when I started making improvements/differences to my kit that I started to think about Qobuz and Tidal and Amazon HD. I couldn’t get along with Amazon’s app. I found it far too opaque. I tried Qobuz and Tidal instead, admittedly far more niche than Amazon and because of that probably far more focused on delivering a service attuned to music lover’s needs and tastes. This is where I get a smidgen audiophiley, there are differences between the different platforms quite apart from the obvious ones such as lossy Vs lossless. I took Qobuz as a freebie for a month and Tidal at 99p for three months and compared and contrasted the two. Both are excellent, however I found Qobuz a touch more etched and a smidgen drier than Tidal. I hasten to add that this difference is absolutely tiny and only perceivable at all on very few files but there nevertheless. I find the difference of Tidal preferable. It may also be that I’ve just become more accustomed to Tidal because I’ve been using it for far longer. This listening to cheap, sentimental music can get really, really complicated.
NigelT says
Just to say a big THANKS to all of you for debating the questions and it has actually helped a lot! There is obviously no simple answer, except that Spotify is clearly audibly inferior, which is great as that sort of confirms where I am at the moment. I will continue giving Amazon HD a trial for a month as it is free. I don’t stream as much as some of you clearly do, so spending more is hard to justify (especially as Mrs. T keeps grumbling about Spotty and Sky subscriptions….but that’s another story), but will keep my eye on the various platforms and maybe trial others too.
The responses about Hi Res files on Blu Rays are great too because I was worried I was missing a trick. I assume I can play them on my Blu Ray player, which is hooked up to my Roksan Caspian stereo amp as well as my Surround set up, but I have never explored them as my CD player (also a Roksan) sounds so damn good.
Another thought occurred yesterday – is streaming the end game for playing music…? It is hard to envisage anything else replacing it. I guess physical product will continue for a while as a specialist interest, but my guess is that costs will rise, CDs will disappear and the vinyl bubble will surely burst. I’ve been busy plugging those gaps in my CD library while I can and prices are cheap!
fentonsteve says
You might well find the BD player does not sound as good as your Roksan CD player. But your Bluesound has an optical input hidden round the back (in the analogue input jack) and the audio DAC might sound better than the one in your BD player. Get hold of an optical cable with a 3.5mm plug at one end and try it.
A slight buyer beware: BD data rates are higher than CD, so don’t be tempted by a really cheap optical cable.
Mike_H says
Definitely think the vinyl bubble will burst soon. Once the folks who are currently buying vinyl albums as objects to display move on to some other trend. That’s not to say they’ll stop manufacturing vinyl, it will just return to being a niche and prices will rocket.
I wonder if the next step for recorded music is going to be everything in surround sound, right from the initial recordings.
Moose the Mooche says
The sooner the bubble burst the better. I’ve just seen that the Titanic soundtrack is to be reissued on pink vinyl.
I’m a tolerant man* but anybody who pays money for this shit wants the thick end of a ragman’s trumpet, as my old dad would say.
(*OOAA)
pencilsqueezer says
Hi again Nigel.
Your Bluesound will have come supplied with an adapter to convert the input I think Steve is referring to into a toslink input. Slot it into place at the rear of the Node and then insert an optical cable. I used it for a while for an audio connection for TV but I had latency problems with lip syncing so I desisted, that of course won’t be an issue with using it for audio only. I Bluetooth my TV’s sound to my amp now. No more lip syncing problems.
NigelT says
Thanks @Pencilsqueezer and @fentonsteve – I dug the box out of the loft today and indeed there is an adaptor hidden in there that I had missed entirely! I love it here….
fentonsteve says
My pleasure. You can now stick that on the end of a normal Toslink optical cable. Don’t be tempted to buy a really skinny cheap one, though, go for one at least 4mm diameter. QED sell a glass fibre one for about £120 a metre, which might be a bit OTT.
I am very dull…
Moose the Mooche says
Girth is worth it!
Moose the Mooche says
Reminds me of this old classic…
pencilsqueezer says
Fine & dandy Nigel. I’d be interested to read of any differences in sound you may perceive.
I’ve found mucking about with different DACs to be most interesting, especially when comparing MQA files in a completely unfolded splendor to a not completely unfolded splendor.
*Whispers* I’ve often found the latter state preferable to the former which is probably almost entirely due to the behaviour of the various DACs I’ve had at my disposal.
NigelT says
PS…I have found a technical hitch in that my BD player (Denon DBT 1713UD) doesn’t seem to have an optical output!! Another argument for an upgrade!!?
On DACs – before I upgraded to the Roksans I found that my old Arcam CD player actually sounded better through my Sony Minidisc player (optical link from the Arcam) and figured it must have been the DAC. BTW – that minidisc player is still brilliant sonically.
fentonsteve says
If your BD player has HDMI out but no optical audio you can “break out” the audio using a HDMI audio extractor (about 15 quid).
Don’t forget, it runs off a USB power supply (not supplied) and you’ll need another HDMI lead.