Vinyl Vs Spotify Sound Quality

Both spotify premium and tidal premium offer streaming at a data rate of 320kbps cd quality.

Vinyl vs spotify sound quality.

Sound quality is particularly rich for recordings made in the 50s 60s and 70s as they were recorded analogically. There s very little compression so the loudest parts of those sounds often. Vinyl can still push music to the limits of its dynamic range 55 70db but it often shies away from doing so in order to maintain sound quality. Tidal also offers the option to listen to tracks in better than cd quality.

The streaming music wars are on with apple music and spotify now locked in a battle on price features and artist selection. But the majority of today s new and re issued vinyl albums around 80 or more several experts estimate start from digital files even lower quality cds. Is there a difference in sound quality. That said we found that tidal streams offered a more spacious soundstage and sounded that little bit more engaging.

Spotify isn t about sound quality. Spotify as digital sound in general sounded that level color and pitch were there but strangely ozzy and david among others didn t seem to have emotion or facial expression at all when comparing to vinyl. Spotify has flirted with offering lossless audio but now the company is advertising 320kbps as high quality sound as hi res audio competition heats up. A lower bitrate could translate to a softer bass response or weak sounding drum cymbals or it could blur the attack and decay of a plucked guitar string.

Old lps were cut from analog tapes that s why they sound so high quality. That s why snare drums cymbal splashes and other loud instruments have so much more punch in vinyl recordings. The sound of vinyl has a depth and authenticity that more modern mediums find difficult to match. Bitrate has a direct impact on sound quality.

As far as cd s vs digital i have cd s and digital versions and i don t notice much of a difference but then i m over 25. As mentioned above vinyl is an analogue medium so is well suited to reproducing analogue sound. Digital music as source for vinyl.