For PCM Magazine I wrote an article about music streaming services available in The Netherlands. I compared 11 services: Spotify, Grooveshark, Napster, SONY Music Unlimited. Rdio, Xbox Music, Rara, Google Play, Deezer, Juke and Qobuz.

To compare the audio quality of the encoding algorithm a music streaming service is using, I’ve used three tracks and compared them in two ways:

I compared the encoded audio with the original uncompressed CD-versions, using my ears on my reference set at the mastering room of Wisselooord Studios. If the title above contains “stream”, it’s the encoded stream directly recorded through an AES-interface into a Pyramix-system, all with the same external wordclock. This is a substantial part for my verdict of the audio quality.
I used the encoding residu of each service. This is the audio left over, after playing the original and encoded tracks at the same time, with one of them in negative polarity. You’ll hear all the audio which is left out after encoding and also the audio which was not present in the original, normally distortion. You’ll see ‘encoding residu’ written in the title above, if this is the case.

Too fully benefit from these audio examples and their use, please download the wav-files an compare them yourself.

These audio snippets may only be used for research en teaching purposes. Any commercial use is prohibited.

The tracks used for this test are:

Empty Hearts by Alison Krauss
Every Teardrop is a Waterfall by Coldplay
Till It Hurts by Yellow Claw feat. Ayden

If one of these track titles is not used or a different on is being used, it means it wasn’t available at the service at the time these tests were done.

Encoding Residu Google Play

Encoding Residu Qobuz

Sander van der Heide