[damascato]

Please explain this in more detail - not sure what you mean, or how you are connecting things.

I don't use Spotify. I use Tidal and Qobuz. The DX300 is wasted to stream only lossy music IMHO.

I just set the DX300 as Squeezebox endpoint, so I can stream bit-perfect music from Roon to the device.

 

[Benno1988]

Spotify has lossless coming, won't be too long. I used to use Tidal but don't agree with the way they advertised and implemented MQA, so **** 'em. DX300 playing Spotify still sounds better than a $300 DAP playing Spotify, so I don't see any waste there. And I tried Qobuz, first two searches for my music and they didn't have it, so gave up there too haha. WIll just wait it out on Spotify to upgrade to higher quality.

I'll keep trying the various Android EQ apps, one might work for me.

 

[xand]

DX300 playing Spotify still sounds better than a $300 DAP playing Spotify, so I don't see any waste there.

Eh, for anyone else (Benno1998 I'm glad you enjoy it!) I must say that Spotify is positively atrocious.

Please don't judge pretty much anything with Spotify as a source.

I'm quite new to streaming and tried a Spotify premium trial for the first time when my tidal 4 months for a dollar thing ended - I hardly use Spotify whereas I did about 3-5 hours daily with tidal. (no Qobuz locally... Although I AM half tempted to try that via VPN... So am thinking about that first before I resub - plus I've been kinda busy with work).

I wasn't too surprised about Spotify underperforming on my IEMs/Headphones, but it's even pretty crap on my stock Honda Accord audio system. Spotify... really sucks the joy out of music.

 

[ThomasHK]

Eh, for anyone else (Benno1998 I'm glad you enjoy it!) I must say that Spotify is positively atrocious.

Please don't judge pretty much anything with Spotify as a source.

I'm quite new to streaming and tried a Spotify premium trial for the first time when my tidal 4 months for a dollar thing ended - I hardly use Spotify whereas I did about 3-5 hours daily with tidal. (no Qobuz locally... Although I AM half tempted to try that via VPN... So am thinking about that first before I resub - plus I've been kinda busy with work).

I wasn't too surprised about Spotify underperforming on my IEMs/Headphones, but it's even pretty crap on my stock Honda Accord audio system. Spotify... really sucks the joy out of music.

Did you make sure Spotify was set to it's maximum quality? Standard it's set to automatic and varies with signal strength. At max quality, it's not "atrocious".

 

[Benno1988]

No offense taken by anyone! I'm a big boy.

I've tried most things extensively over the last 18 years of being into headphones. Spotify on high quality isn't *that* far behind. It'll be good when they start their lossless for sure. For now, I'll just wait.

Tidal was better but also added a sort of fake edge to each note. And just can't get around their business practices.

Qobuz sounds good, but selection isnt as good unfortunately.

Edit: Yeah, if it's not on max quality....

 

[dmac6419]

Spotify has lossless coming, won't be too long. I used to use Tidal but don't agree with the way they advertised and implemented MQA, so **** 'em. DX300 playing Spotify still sounds better than a $300 DAP playing Spotify, so I don't see any waste there. And I tried Qobuz, first two searches for my music and they didn't have it, so gave up there too haha. WIll just wait it out on Spotify to upgrade to higher quality.

I'll keep trying the various Android EQ apps, one might work for me.

The three major labels are heavy investors in Spotify,so if they give Spotify MQA to stream your still fuxked

 

[Benno1988]

The three major labels are heavy investors in Spotify,so if they give Spotify MQA to stream your still fuxked

Until then though!

Might have to go find my CDs

 

[ThomasHK]

The three major labels are heavy investors in Spotify,so if they give Spotify MQA to stream your still fuxked

Spotify owns the streaming market. They're the biggest by a long shot (2x the size of the next competitor, Apple Music).
If you think they're going to pay MQA a fee for every stream, you're out of your mind. They call the shots here.
Tidal latched onto MQA because it gave them a marketing edge, but they're meaningless in share of the streaming market.

 

[xand]

Did you make sure Spotify was set to it's maximum quality? Standard it's set to automatic and varies with signal strength. At max quality, it's not "atrocious".

Yes. I've also set it to download in max quality. I've also tried listening solely to offline material downloaded at max quality.

Edit: I've also tried on different devices (DX300 - > C9 -> Utopia; iPhone via wired carplay, iPhone via bluebooth. SADNESS frankly, I really didn't expect the yawning gulf in quality.

 

[CharlyBrown]

I will bow to the person who can distinguish Spotify 320 vs. Tidal MQA / Qobuz highest quality / Apple Music in a scientific A/B double blind-test with volume perfectly matched (and of course the track has to come from the same recording).

I can’t, just as anybody who ever participated in such a test. Even the best goldy ears achieve no more than a 50% hit rate (just like a trained monkey does..).

Fun fact: most audiphile people with expensive high end gear even preferred the „bad“ quality version in this test: MP3 vs. Super great Quality

But I think it’s funny that these discussions still come up every day

I tried pretty much all large streaming services and the only way they are different is 1) volume 2) suggestions. For me, Apple, Spotify and Tidal are the best. Qobuz is pretty much unusable to me as it doesn’t offer any suggestions.

 

[Ultrainferno]

We finally got round to publishing our iBasso DX300 review, but what a DAP it is!

Find out why we like it and are giving it our recommended buy award, now on Headfonia!

https://www.headfonia.com/ibasso-dx300-review/

 

[monsieurfromag3]

I will bow to the person who can distinguish Spotify 320 vs. Tidal MQA / Qobuz highest quality / Apple Music in a scientific A/B double blind-test with volume perfectly matched (and of course the track has to come from the same recording).

I can’t, just as anybody who ever participated in such a test. Even the best goldy ears achieve no more than a 50% hit rate (just like a trained monkey does..).

Fun fact: most audiphile people with expensive high end gear even preferred the „bad“ quality version in this test: MP3 vs. Super great Quality

But I think it’s funny that these discussions still come up every day

I tried pretty much all large streaming services and the only way they are different is 1) volume 2) suggestions. For me, Apple, Spotify and Tidal are the best. Qobuz is pretty much unusable to me as it doesn’t offer any suggestions.

Indeed. The usual claims that someone hears a vast difference between modern 320 mp3 and lossless FLAC, let alone “high-res”, mostly point to a problem somewhere in the testing parameters . Pre-conceptions and placebo of course, volume mismatches, basically any problem related to something very different from the bitrate (for me Tidal files do sound better than Spotify streams when played through UAPP and avoiding Android upsampling - otherwise it’s a wash, with Spotify’s sly DSP usually more capable than Tidal’s underdeveloped native player).

 

[voja]

Finally, I have finished and uploaded my review of the DX300. What can I say? Simply a beast. You can read it here:

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/ibasso-dx300.25040/reviews#review-25852

You can find everything in the review, including several tables & technical specifications. This is a comparison table that I've made (also featured in the review):

 

[justanut]

I will bow to the person who can distinguish Spotify 320 vs. Tidal MQA / Qobuz highest quality / Apple Music in a scientific A/B double blind-test with volume perfectly matched (and of course the track has to come from the same recording).

I can’t, just as anybody who ever participated in such a test. Even the best goldy ears achieve no more than a 50% hit rate (just like a trained monkey does..).

Fun fact: most audiphile people with expensive high end gear even preferred the „bad“ quality version in this test: MP3 vs. Super great Quality

But I think it’s funny that these discussions still come up every day

I tried pretty much all large streaming services and the only way they are different is 1) volume 2) suggestions. For me, Apple, Spotify and Tidal are the best. Qobuz is pretty much unusable to me as it doesn’t offer any suggestions.

Well, I really wanted to stay with Apple and was pretty anti-Tidal... But the difference was substantial enough that after a couple of weeks of going back and forth, I cancelled my Apple Music sub, which was substantially cheaper... So I was biased against Tidal but still ended up choosing it. And back then I was only using the AirPods Max as my headphones to decide...

 

[CharlyBrown]

Well, I really wanted to stay with Apple and was pretty anti-Tidal... But the difference was substantial enough that after a couple of weeks of going back and forth, I cancelled my Apple Music sub, which was substantially cheaper... So I was biased against Tidal but still ended up choosing it. And back then I was only using the AirPods Max as my headphones to decide...

I think as long as you feel good, it’s right. I am currently using Apple, Spotify and Tidal and do not hear any differences other than volume.

I once compared a song between Apple and Tidal and found Tidal much better. Like tremendous differences. Until I discovered that I listened to two different versions of the same song. As soon as I compared the same version, I couldn’t hear a difference anymore. A lot of placebo in the game imho.

The placebo of better file quality doesn’t work for me but the placebo of a better device does. Funny. That’s why I use the A&K DAP because I am convinced it sounds better than a phone dongle wich it probably in reality / A/B blind-test does/would not.