Music streaming services with best audio quality

For lovers ofhigh quality audioaudiophiles, for those who listen to music with high-quality headphones and want to hear every sound as clearly as or even better than what can be done with a CD originalyou can subscribe to a streaming service and choose the subscription that offers the most quality.

For most people, the basic subscription or even free listening (which when available is interrupted by adverts), will be fine. otherwise audiophiles, sound lovers and nostalgics of CD quality will want something better to be able to listen to music in the best possible way.
In this regard, an old quiz proposed in 2015 by the npr.org website is interesting, where it is possible to test one’s ability to distinguish high quality music from compressed music.
Very briefly, let’s say that the high audio qualitythat of a CD, has a depth of 16 bit while DVD audio goes up to 24 bit. The sampling rate for high-quality music is 44.1 Khz.

To choose which service is better, you can look for the technical specifications on the presentation page of each one so you can understand which of Youtube Music, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer and Tidal offers the best listening experience comparable to that of audio CDs or even higher.

READ ALSO: Differences between digital audio formats (MP3, AAC, FLAC, WAV files etc.)

YouTube Music

One of the best services for listening to music in streaming, YouTube Music It can be used for free with advertising or with a subscription. The database is very large, given that it is based on official video clips, mixers, covers and collections of songs also present on the YouTube site. Furthermore, Youtube Music is very good at recommending new music to listen to based on the tastes detected.

With a certain unanimity, among the many advantages of Youtube Music there is not that of audio quality, perhaps the lowest in general (maximum reaches 256kbps).

Amazon Music

If we have subscribed to Amazon Primewe will be able to use the collection of songs on for free and without limits Amazon Musicalbeit with advertising, a limited catalog and minimal audio quality.

With a premium subscription, however, things change and it is possible to activate quality options in the application Alta (HD quality 44.1 Khz 16 Bit come un CD) o Very high (Ultra HD with frequencies up to 192 kHz 24 Bit like a studio recording). In this case, opinions agree that it is an optimal choice if you also consider the price, the catalog and the possibility of being able to use Amazon Music on any device.

Spotify

The most famous service with which you can listen to music without time limits is Spotify. With over 50 million songs that can be listened to without limits, it is a favorite among young and very young people, with a free or paid account.

Only the Premium subscription allows you to unlock the high quality mode (320 Kbps), which however is a minimal difference compared to the free account and cannot be compared to the Ultra HD quality of an Audio CD.

Deezer

Deezer is a very popular app that offers one of the largest catalogs of music. Deezer is one of the best services for audio quality in the free account and has, in its Premium account, the CD quality listening option (Flac 44.1 kHz 16 bit), better than Spotify although with a slightly higher price.

Apple Music

Apple Musica service associated with all Apple devices but which can also be used as a web player and as a music app on Android, offers access to a very vast catalog of music tracks and albums (over 50 million), immediately provides maximum audio quality thanks to It uses the AAC codec (modulated to multiple bitrates based on the type of connection) and allows you to download songs offline and purchase them, so you can always listen to them even without connection and subscription (like iTunes service).

From the point of view of audio quality, Apple Music can be compared to Amazon Music, with a very high quality already in the basic plan, 192KHz 24Bit.

Tidal

Tidal is the music streaming service that promotes itself as the one with the highest quality. The problem is that it costs more than the others.
Tidal offers two subscriptions, one with 16-bit quality, 44.1 kHz and one, for 20 Euros per month, with 24-bit quality, 192 kHz. Probably, at this price, also given the competition from Apple Music and Amazon Music, it is not worth it, but you can still try it for free for 30 days if you want to hear the difference with your own ear.

Quobuz

Finally, we mention this semi-unknown streaming service, Qobuz, which you can try for free for 30 days or even without registration by listening to song previews. Audio quality has a frequency 192 Khz and 24 Bit depth.

Conclusions

These studies and research are very interesting, especially for those who want to choose the best and not waste their money on a poor service. You can delve deeper into the question of the quality of music streaming services on the Italian site Soundscape, which has made a good comparison, and then on the English-language site whathifi.com.

Other music streaming apps for your smartphone can be found in our guides Music streaming and cloud apps on Android and at App to listen to music on iPhone and iPad, including radio and streaming.