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Afaik Spotify normalizes the tracks by default and from what I gather that means it boosts the volume across the track and applies a limiter to roll off the loudest parts, which I guess should make them sound much flatter.
You're not alone though, my gf reported the same thing so we've spent an afternoon comparing the same albums on Spotify and my Jellyfin collection. Same phone, same headphones, the differences listening to some albums were huge.
Yeah, I was suspecting some "normalization" trickery from the streaming services.. I absolutely wouldn't have noticed this if I had just continued using them.
Nice to know other couples spend quality time the same way we do! :)
Adding to all other good info here (mastering, compression rates) one thing old mp3 players had was often a very good DAC!
Digital to Analogue Converter. It is what generates enough "punch" to make your headphones vibrate exactly this or that much, and it makes a world of difference. People buy soundcards and stuff like that because computer and phone DACs are almost always abysmal.
Very good add, thank you! And possibly an idea for my next PC build..
Spotify and YouTube music are known in the audiophile world for their not-so-great audio quality. I.e. the audio files that you stream via those services are very compressed.
An mp3 file 320 kbps is not a huge jump in quality, but it's definitely noticeable without being an audiophile! You're definitely experiencing that
Thanks to you too! This seems to be a combination of so many factors, but the most important thing is that my tunes are banging. :) I didn't plan on learning this much today hah!
It could be that your MP3 player is applying some level of equalisation where your streaming services aren't. It's amazing what just alittle bit of EQ can do.
I've found that my rips do sound better than the standard Spotify quality but are about the same as Spitifies High or Lossless options. I'm listening to both through my phone and same headphones.
Could be the opposite as well, youtube a while ago rolled out a “normalization” thing by default that absolutely ruins all audio on the platform and needs to be disabled on every device you have. Supposedly it was set to automatically disable for music but that depends on the uploader
Spotify streams have always been garbage in my experience, but I haven’t had a subscription in about a decade now so no idea if that’s still true
Very possible, very possible.. Thanks for your input!
320kbps mp3 is practically indistinguishable from lossless audio, so it is going to sound amazing compared to more compressed audio that streaming services tend to use by default. Also the hardware in the mp3 is likely much better than anything in your phone or PC, if you never invested in anything audio specific. I always recommend to purchase a DAC/AMP for PC.
Codecs are psycho acoustics in practice, maybe there’s your answer.
I am learning a lot today! Thanks! :)
Is it a.bitrate thing?
Thank you! I did some searching and it could be because of this. I have used YouTube music most recently and it has, depending a bit on the source and the app and the settings, "only" 256 kbps at best so I guess that could be it. Weird if 64 bits make that big difference! Maybe I am an audiophile, or at least turning into one.
As you already noticed.
Same effect is even more noticable in video streaming services. Amazon/Netflix/etc full HD(1080p) video, even downloaded is visibly of worse quality than same video and same quality from lets say pirates sources. Difference is noticable even on something as small as a phone screen.
That's 64 kbits, or about a 25% boost in bitrate.
.. Welp, that's a whole lot more! Thanks for this correction!
Just to not sound like a complete asshole... ofc the 25% boost does not depend on bits/kbits, the difference is still 256 vs 320, but I just wanted to emphasize that the expected result is 25% bigger in all terms.
If it helps to imagine, the space needed to store a 256k 5 minutes song will store a 320k 4 minutes song. Then, you are already relying on a quite decent quality beforehand so it's all extra quality and details.
I usually hear the difference in the high frequency sounds, which is exactly what is otherwise sacrificed in low bitrate compression formats.
FLAC will produce an even better sound, as it's lossless, but for most songs I couldn't justify the file size difference.
Not asshole-y at all, I'm real grateful and learning a lot today! :) I have never really even thought about these things.
I haven't really listened to my songs in FLAC, but the MP3 already sounds very, very good and it takes such a tiny space, so it could be enough for me. For now..?
It's important to note that bit rate is only part of the story. Spotify uses the Ogg Vorbis file format which is a lossy compression algorithm (just like MP3). 256 kb/s .ogg vs 320 kb/s .mp3 both offer about the same sound quality, it's not likely one could differentiate between them in a blind test.
Have you done and blind testing? I'd be curious if you can really tell or if it is the ownership thing.
What a claim for ownership it would be!
Not yet, but I'm very interested into trying this out! I am happy and proud with my collection so far, so yeah, I'm absolutely biased.
Songs on my cds sound much better. Always have.
Of course, but shouldn't transferring them into MP3 form still hurt the quality? It's such a tiny format. Apparently not that much.
It does technically hurt the quality, but 320 kbps mp3s are largely indistinguishable from lossless to most people.
On a side note, why mp3 instead of a lossless format?
Oh, alright! Makes sense.
I "chose" MP3 because I had my old MP3 Walkman around and wanted to quickly test if I could have a few songs on that stick. Then the test grew into a bigger project and now I'm here with a about 20 hours of MP3 form music. So no real reason, just a quick, thoughtless decision while goofing around. :D
Songs are often mastered differently for different media. Streaming services often do this automatically. Mastering is why vinyl often sounds better than CD even though CD should be better, CDs enabled the loudness wars which vinyl couldn't handle so vinyl got a more musical content.
It's almost certainly just your thinking different about the music. There could be real effects. Different masterings, different DAC in the old player. But those are likely less effective than it just being your own perception of music you own vs stream.
Also, I'd recommend ripping your CDs into FLAC for permanent storage, then converting to other formats for any specific purpose.
I am absolutely listening more carefully for the whole album, and the collection is very carefully hand-picked so I have tunes for all weathers.. While streaming I would just put on something, maybe change into whole another genre in the middle of listening to another album. This does make me more appreciative for what I happen to be listening to, as I only have a limited number or albums.. You're probably right!
// EDIT; I gotta look into re-ripping my CDs, feels like a bigger job than it is in reality. I'll leave that for some rainy day!