[SoNic67]

A lot of people think that listening to online streaming services can appreciate the various headphones, amplifiers, speakers... Well, I took a few FFT snapshots from: SiriusXM streaming Max Quality, Spotify streaming Max Quality and FLAC sourced from my CD. Judge for yourselves.
The software used is this one, big thanks: https://www.sillanumsoft.org/

SiriusXM

Spotify

FLAC

 

[msing539]

Now I'm depressed cause I think my hearing is only good up to 16k anyway

 

[Not so fat head]

Is that cutoff a bandwidth issue??
That’s not even CD equivalent..

 

[msing539]

I'd be curious to see what Tidal Master looks like

 

[SoNic67]

I don't have subscription to Tidal... But I have Amazon Prime.
No brickwalling.

 

[SoNic67]

I think I found a way to see how much the channels are "joined" together by the compression... the top scope in XY mode is "wider" when playing a FLAC (from CD) than when I am streaming. Hard to capture the max value, on FLAC it went all the way to +/- 37.

Pandora, SiriusXM barely hits +/-12.4, while Spotify and Amazon Music hits the same +/- 37 as CD. Note that Spotify does that while brickwalled at 16kHz.

PS: All in all, I am surprised how good Amazon Music sounds... I might keep it streaming in my car too, unlimited data.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I'd be curious to see what Tidal Master looks like

I have Tidal but what are we looking for?

 

[msing539]

I have Tidal but what are we looking for?

To see if the FR drops off on Master.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

To see if the FR drops off on Master.

Ok, I will check later, maybe, if I have time...

Actually, lemme take a look at my RME's spectrum analyzer, I can do that quickly.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Well the RME is not easy to read but it looks like it goes past 16K. The tool the OP mentioned seems reluctant to do what I want. After installing, I selected my output device and yet nothing is displayed on the app's UI.

If anybody can tell me the magic formula, I'll post the results of some MQA. But remember, there are only two options, either the desktop app decodes MQA (which is only the 1st unfold) or my MQA hardware does (full unfold). Windows won't be able to see the fully unfolded bitstream.

 

[SoNic67]

You need to select the input device too. The simplest way to do it is to select "What U Hear", but that has limitations (48kHz SR):

What I did was to connect the SPDIF output of my sound card with the SPDIF input and "play" the music trough SPDIF at 24bit / 96kHz SR. Selected those in the software. Not all sound cards have that capability though, mine is a SoundBlaster ZxR with a separate module (called DBpro) for input/output.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Thanks. I cannot select the input device, only Windows Default Device is listed there.

 

[SoNic67]

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Thanks, I'll look again later.

 

[SoNic67]

And something very wild: