Lossy vs Lossless Audio [Apple Music vs Spotify For Sound Quality]

Does lossless audio sound better? What's the difference between lossy audio, lossless audio, and uncompressed audio? Can you even hear the difference? In this video, you'll find answers to all of these questions.

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0:00 - Introduction
0:18 - Data Compression vs Dynamic Range Compression
0:52 - Uncompressed vs Lossless vs Lossy Audio
3:45 - Is Lossless Audio Worth It?
6:15 - Subscribe To Audio University!

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[isidoreaerys]

“All Bluetooth audio is lossy”
And that’s when I realized I don’t have a horse in this race

[grandrapids]

It seems to me you are correct: a 256k stream is likely indistinguishable from a lossless format without a top notch, well set up stereo set and a listener who habitually listens to well recorded material on such a set.

[ceu]

Thank you for explaining in a way that’s easily understood!

[brodelicious]

If you have really high quality speakers and amplification the difference isn’t quite night and day, but it is noticeable for sure. I can even hear a difference between plain old lossless and hi res lossless but it’s not as apparent as lossy vs lossless.

[shinvergil]

IMO, lossless can be much easier to listen to at higher volumes than lossy, and slightly more detailed and better sound stage, depending on recording quality and genre.
Some tracks aren't worth it but most of what I listen to are.
The recording has to be made with high bit rate in mind.

Nice channel and delivery!

[johnnixon]

I love observing differences. I took this challenge about a year ago with a different headphone system and got 5 out of 6 correct for picking the uncompressed file. Today I took the test with a much less expensive headphone system and I got 3/6 but I could still easily tell the difference between the 128 vs the other options.

Fun fact: I find the "cheap" headphone system much more enjoyable with current popular music and the songs that I selected 320 instead of uncompressed were the current popular songs.

ALSO, COLD PLAY could be played back at 64kps and there would be no change to the sound haha.

Reveling system: Iphone > dragonfly colbalt > Dan Clark Audio Aeon RT
Enjoyable system: Windows > modi 3 > magni heresy > Sennheiser HD560

[johnlira]

Thx for the video. Exactly i dont think people can tell the difference between both

[kevincampbell]

Thank you so much. I was looking for these answers, and you explained it great

[Seiskid]

320 is pretty good but you can still hear it occasionally. Transient instruments like bells, xylophones, Glockenspiel - especially if its a single note - are very obvious in the decay part of the recording. Once the algorithm thinks you shouldn't hear the decay it mutes it. But often you can. So instead of a nice sustained decay on you get an abrupt ending after a second or two. Another place where its obvious is orchestral works. The lead sections will be perfect in both 320 and uncompressed. But any second sections playing at reduced volume in the background at the same time as the lead sound radically different. Myself and anther engineer have listed to the same recording over and over on tidal 320 vs flac. We both noticed the second section in the background sounded plastic, fake and uninteresting on 320. Whilst on flac it sounded great and the main and second section playing together at different levels gave the performance great depth. My personal conclusion. high res compressed recordings are good. And way better than they were ten years ago. But they are not YET good enough if you have complex music, strong transients or significant dynamic range differences.

[audiou]

Sorry, did I miss something here? I quote... "For every second of uncompressed, CD-quality audio, there's approximately 1600 bits of data".
This is not correct. CD-quality means 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, stereo. And that means 1.4 million bits of data per second.
If you corrected this in a later video, ignore my comment, Kyle. Loving your videos, mate! I've been a working studio engineer for over 35 years and a lot of what I've seen on your channel is stuff I already know, but it's fun to watch/listen anyway! Keep up the good work.
And kudos for the assertion that correct speak placement will improve the listening experience far more than swapping streaming service. Bang on, my man!

[i_Lunardi]

I can’t wait for Spotify to bring this

[smhdpt]

I did the audio test on the NPR article and got 3/6 right, the other three I chose the 320 mbps vs the 110 or whatever it is. At the end of the day it's pretty difficult for most people to actually hear a difference. And even if you do, you have to try really hard. I had to listen to each sample 8-10 times.

[scbscb]

As a soft/hardware eng. People really miss why we use compression its to create BETTER results within the same bandwidth and/or storage. I know people will yell at me for this but its true. Lossless vs lossy is just the next step for some content we can remove more because we know the savings in bandwidth can be either used for better (upping the quality) or reduce the bandwidth. Given the same bandwidth compression is always better than uncompressed why else do it since it costs time, cpu, battery. Its not that i dislike this video at all but the starting point really is can anyone hear the difference even if reduce the bandwidth by xx amount since we feel it matches 'good enough' and the fact is most people can't and even if they do other changes in the audio chain will for sure have a bigger effect (like some of the things you pointed out).

[Wzkz_YT]

i was actually genuinely impressed with myself that quiz was a lot of fun i'm running hd600s out of a fiio dac and i was surprised i got 6/6 correct. if you are listening at low volumes compressed doesn't sound terrible and isn't that noticeable but once you turn up the volume i find it pretty noticeable.

[Leo_ofRedKeep]

Speaker placement is easy: headphones come on the head.
I hear no difference between lossless CD and aac at VBR5 level (through very good headphones: Sennheiser HD600).
I do hear the difference file I can make between both with audacity, so I know my hearing or my system are not the limitation. This missing audio is within my hearing ability but it doesn't matter. I cannot distinguish both files from one another when switching between them. At all.
And if I could, the difference would be in the shimmer of cymbals or the sharpness of percussions. None of this changes the character of the music, only that audiophile "presence" thing that conveys an impression of space or room. Not something worth going after. I want to hear music, not sound.

[erickmedmer]

man! you are awesome, thank you so much. a lot of new things I learned today. I hope you can reach more subscribers and views… you are why youtube continuos to be the best way to learn new things!!!!

[rando_guy]

Funnily enough, I tended to choose the 128kbps version more often than the uncompressed in the test ☠
Really shows how accustomed I am to lower quality audio

Nice video anyway!

[lostandfound]

Great video! 256 bitrate mp3 is all I need.

[BaddaBigBoom]

It's a bit ironic to me that this entire (though otherwise excellent) presentation is accompanied by what sounds like a constant wind noise.

[eebangpromotions]

Hi audio university, you have some unwanted noise on your mic recording in the face to cam parts. You may want to check your cables. Peace and love.