YouTube music premium vs Spotify connect

[Dmpls79]

I just recently got a pro + and love it. I usually use YouTube music premium to cast music to it but I decided to test using Spotify and to my ears it sounds “better” or at least louder . This is the free version of Spotify and I guess I’m streaming thru Spotify connect. I made sure I changed all the audio settings of YouTube music at its highest setting.

Is it just me or is streaming with Spotify better (ie. Higher quality, higher resolution, etc) ?? Thinking of whether I should subscribe to Spotify premium?

 

[Wiimer]

I just recently got a pro + and love it. I usually use YouTube music premium to cast music to it but I decided to test using Spotify and to my ears it sounds “better” or at least louder . This is the free version of Spotify and I guess I’m streaming thru Spotify connect. I made sure I changed all the audio settings of YouTube music at its highest setting.

Is it just me or is streaming with Spotify better (ie. Higher quality, higher resolution, etc) ?? Thinking of whether I should subscribe to Spotify premium?

Spotify free : Up to 160Kbps
YTM premium : Up to 246Kbps 256Kbps
Spotify premium : Up to 320Kbps

The best of these is Spotify premium.

 

[Dmpls79]

Spotify free : Up to 160Kbps
YTM premium : Up to 246Kbps 256Kbps
Spotify premium : Up to 320Kbps

The best of these is Spotify premium.

Thanks for that info !! I remember reading somewhere that Chromecast max audio stream is 96 KHz / 24-bit . I'm not sure how that compares or relates to the "256Kbps" for YTM.

I see that Wiim has Spotify connect that plays music directly from the wiim device but with YTM you have to "cast" it through Chromecast from your device (iphone). Is there any further degradation by casting? Hopefully I am understanding how these apps are working.

Can someone educate me? which is the bottleneck ,if any.. the YTM app itself or the casting of the music thru chromecast?

 

[wunderkind]

Current sampling rate for Spotify is well below the threshold of Chromecast or any decent streamer in a modern home network. Spotify and YT are basically for those with low bandwidth connections.
I like Spotify for its intelligent curating engine. Wish it's streaming quality is hi res quality. That said, one can't tell a difference when played in say an Alexa or Homepod speaker. But through any decent hi-fi system, the reduced quality is quite observable during blind A/B. No highs, no lows.

 

[Wiimer]

Thanks for that info !! I remember reading somewhere that Chromecast max audio stream is 96 KHz / 24-bit . I'm not sure how that compares or relates to the "256Kbps" for YTM.

I see that Wiim has Spotify connect that plays music directly from the wiim device but with YTM you have to "cast" it through Chromecast from your device (iphone). Is there any further degradation by casting? Hopefully I am understanding how these apps are working.

Can someone educate me? which is the bottleneck ,if any.. the YTM app itself or the casting of the music thru chromecast?

To put it simply, the higher the "bps" number, the higher the sound quality. "bps" is the amount of data transferred in one second.

You don't have to worry about Spotify or YTM because the sound quality doesn't degrade due to casting.

For example, Qobuz has a maximum audio quality of 192kHz/24bit, but Chromecast limits it to 96kHz/24bit.

You can't directly compare "bps" to "kHz/bit", but a 96kHz/24bit track is roughly 2300kbps.

 

[Brantome]

Bitrate is usually expressed in kilobits per second, and for lossless tracks can be worked out as the number of channels (2 for stereo) times the bit depth times the sample rate.

So for example, lossless CD quality is often expressed as 16/44.1 (bit depth 16, sample rate 44.1kHz) which equates to 2*16*44.1 i.e. around 1,411kbps. However, this can be compressed in a lossless manner for storage and transmission in say a FLAC file, so you might see a rate lower than this - say 800-900kbps - for the bitrate of such a file.

Typically, rates below 320kbps are lossy compressed files, such as MP3 or AAC, and will be lower quality than the equivalent lossless CD quality file with its higher bitrate.

 

[Balthazar B]

Thanks for that info !! I remember reading somewhere that Chromecast max audio stream is 96 KHz / 24-bit . I'm not sure how that compares or relates to the "256Kbps" for YTM.

I see that Wiim has Spotify connect that plays music directly from the wiim device but with YTM you have to "cast" it through Chromecast from your device (iphone). Is there any further degradation by casting? Hopefully I am understanding how these apps are working.

Can someone educate me? which is the bottleneck ,if any.. the YTM app itself or the casting of the music thru chromecast?

Just a quick note.

Chromecast and Spotify Connect basically work the same way. In both cases, your mobile device is the controller, with the app used to find and select content. When a Chromecast or Connect target is specified, your mobile app is telling the online content provider to stream from its servers directly to the target device at the highest possible resolution (unless you specify it should be lower). Your phone is *not* used as a conduit for that stream; it's more akin to a remote. BTW, Tidal Connect, AlexaCast (I think) and Qobuz Connect (when the latter is released within the next several weeks, we all hope) work similarly.

 

[Brantome]

Thanks for that info !! I remember reading somewhere that Chromecast max audio stream is 96 KHz / 24-bit . I'm not sure how that compares or relates to the "256Kbps" for YTM.

I see that Wiim has Spotify connect that plays music directly from the wiim device but with YTM you have to "cast" it through Chromecast from your device (iphone). Is there any further degradation by casting? Hopefully I am understanding how these apps are working.

Can someone educate me? which is the bottleneck ,if any.. the YTM app itself or the casting of the music thru chromecast?

Think of Chromecast as the highway - at its limit of 24*96*2 i.e. 4,608kbps, it’s more than wide enough to take the comparatively puny bandwidth of 256kbps that YouTube can drive down its highway. Same for Spotify and its 320Kbps max.

 

[Matterhorn]

Also, have a look at Amazon HD. It streams flac files of up to 24/192. It's probably the best deal in streaming.

 

[Brantome]

Also, have a look at Amazon HD. It streams flac files of up to 24/192. It's probably the best deal in streaming.

The service is called Amazon Music Unlimited - it hasn’t been called Amazon HD for some time now. Plus I’d say that depending on where you are, Qobuz , Tidal and Deezer might be viable options too.

 

[harkpabst]

Can someone educate me? which is the bottleneck ,if any.. the YTM app itself or the casting of the music thru chromecast?

The bottleneck is neither the YouTube Music app nor Chromecast, it's the steaming service YTM as such. The bitrate offered by this service is 256 kbits/second or less (depending on settings).

Chromecast max audio stream is 96 KHz / 24-bit . I'm not sure how that compares or relates to the "256Kbps" for YTM.

Sample rate (e.g. 96 kHz), bit depth (e.g. 24 bit) and bitrate (e.g. 256 kbps) are directly related only for uncompressed audio files. In this case you need a bit rate of 4.608 kbps for too channels, as mentioned above. As soon as compression is used (either lossles or lossy) the bit rate and sample rate/bit rate are no longer directly dependant.

Using a very aggressive lossy compression on 24 bit/96 kHz recordings to massively bring down its bit rate doesn't make much sense, but is surely doable.

If you are into higher quality streaming that goes beyond Spotify (not to mention YTM) you have to look out for better streaming service. Chromecast or service specific protocols like Tidal connect can handle it.