If someone were to try and download a song from (say) Youtube, Spotify or Soundcloud which site would provide the best audio version?
Sometimes the songs I seek aren’t available via the usual places (like soulseek, electronic fresh or dj soundstop ) and I have to opt for a less desirable choice.
I’m currently using Media Human’s incredibly versatile Youtube to MP3 ripper (it also rips songs off Soundcloud, Spotify, Vimeo, Bandcamp, Mixcloud etc) and is highly recommended.
The sound quality of its rips are great (I usually only play these rips in the car or on my mac so I’m not sure I’d notice any degradation in sound quality).
This Afrobeat rip, for example, sounds fantastic when turned up and becomes a full on electronic song.
Why not pick a few songs available on each platform and listen to them yourself?
Honestly, it’ll depend on what was uploaded either way. A crap version could be uploaded with a very high bitrate, and an excellent version could be uploaded at slightly above average.
Unless you have a very nice DAC and monitors, you’re probably not going to be able to tell the difference between average and excellent versions anyway.
Not just Tidal, even qobuz, deezer (I find most on this one), Amazon music have a flac option or you can use apple music and download alac. All way better quality than YouTube or Spotify.
Anything that isn’t mp3. I’m actually stunned people still use that codec. Willingly. AAC is just far superior. ALAC/FLAC for lossless can get quite large. Then there’s the gorilla in the room: do most of these songs even get resampled properly when a new format is released? Atmos is all the rage but a lot of songs from the past that are now available in the codec sound off because the separation of instruments and sound is so far away from the original.
Your current system probably sounds like music from 1998, muddled and drowning in bass.
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Why not pick a few songs available on each platform and listen to them yourself?
Honestly, it’ll depend on what was uploaded either way. A crap version could be uploaded with a very high bitrate, and an excellent version could be uploaded at slightly above average.
Unless you have a very nice DAC and monitors, you’re probably not going to be able to tell the difference between average and excellent versions anyway.
The highest quality on youtube is about 128K AAC or OPUS. Spotify and Soundcloud have 256K AAC, but only with a premium membership.
IF you can find the song you want on Tidal, they have some actually very high quality tracks as FLACs
There’s also some services out there that let you rip from Tidal as well as other platforms ;)
Not just Tidal, even qobuz, deezer (I find most on this one), Amazon music have a flac option or you can use apple music and download alac. All way better quality than YouTube or Spotify.
Guides for Deezer, Qobuz and more + premium tokens/ARLs
Try Qobuz. The have the best quality most of the time
Anything that isn’t mp3. I’m actually stunned people still use that codec. Willingly. AAC is just far superior. ALAC/FLAC for lossless can get quite large. Then there’s the gorilla in the room: do most of these songs even get resampled properly when a new format is released? Atmos is all the rage but a lot of songs from the past that are now available in the codec sound off because the separation of instruments and sound is so far away from the original.
Your current system probably sounds like music from 1998, muddled and drowning in bass.
Tidal, Qobuz, NetEase Cloud Music, Deezer, Apple Music
Everything you mentioned is garbage