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RE: Differentiating mp3 and HD music on streaming services

Posted by PAR (A) on February 6, 2022 at 02:55:23

In Reply to: Differentiating mp3 and HD music on streaming services posted by DAVID on February 5, 2022 at 11:41:18:

No, Qobuz no longer streams MP3 ( though you can set your Qobuz player to deliver this if you want). It shows a yellow "Hi-Res" icon for file resolutions above 16/44.1. Where there is no such icon the file is 16/44.1 ( CD resolution). It is all lossless.

It is important to understand that if using a PC/mac the fact that the streaming service may be sending you a hi-res file does not necessarily mean that you are hearing it. With such computers all of the incoming audio data files are sent to the onboard mixer. Therefore what you will hear will be upsampled or downsampled to the rate set in the mixer e.g. Qobuz sends 24/192 but if the mixer is set to 16/44.1 that is what is sent to your DAC and is what you hear. So you have to manually reconfigure the mixer to match the file resolution every time that the rate changes in order to send a bit perfect stream to your DAC.

If you use a PC and download the Qobuz desktop player ( i.e. do not use the web browser player) you will find an option called " Audio Device" in the task bar. Select this and you should ( or may) see options that identify your DAC by name and add "ASIO" or "WASAPI" or "WASAPI Exclusive" Select one of these and the mixer will be bypassed and a bit perfect stream sent to your DAC. The last time that I looked Amazon does not provide this facility.If you have a mac then you may need to purchase something like the BitPerfect app and install it on your machine for a similar outcome.

"We need less, but better" - Dieter Rams

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