[sinkr]

Quote:

(...) I love mog and the all round 320kbps music catalogue and i don't feel confortable with this silly limitations.
We have Deezer here and we don't even know the music bitrate ---> Too bad they don't deserve my money.

 
This entire thread, originating w/ what the OP stated regarding not every song on Spotify being available as 320 is very interesting.  I remember having a discussion with a friend 2-3 months ago about discovering how my Spotify Premium player at work was not set for the high quality streaming, and when I finally set corrected it, I didn't hear a difference.
 
Originally, I assumed it was just because there was no difference in 160/320 Spotify, or that I just couldn't hear it.  Now I'm leaning that they may not have been streaming what I was listening to at 320.

 

[Haden2866]

How do people feel overall about MP3 vs. Ogg, at whatever bitrate? I'm fairly new to Ogg but relatively happy with Spotify (Premium). I quite often use it for mobile DJ work, when nothing more than simple crossfading is required. I pipeline it out through Breakaway Live for real-time multiband compression and auto gain control and am generally pleased with the results vs. using outboard EQ, & compression.

 

[sinkr]

Quote:

How do people feel overall about MP3 vs. Ogg, at whatever bitrate? I'm fairly new to Ogg but relatively happy with Spotify (Premium). I quite often use it for mobile DJ work, when nothing more than simple crossfading is required. I pipeline it out through Breakaway Live for real-time multiband compression and auto gain control and am generally pleased with the results vs. using outboard EQ, & compression.

For me, I was completely FLAC/lossless for years, meticulously scanning in each of my CDs, etc.  During that time, I tried iTunes higher bitrate stuff, as well as Rhapsody, and to a much lesser extent Pandora, but I will speak only of the iTunes music for now, which I know doesn't answer your question, but I hope my experience yields a useful viewpoint.
 
To make a long story short, sometimes I would buy music on iTunes before I got the physical media (or had the time to scan in), so I would listen to the iTunes version, then switch to my FLAC when I got it in the system.
 
I noticed an immediate difference that yielded the FLAC being more enjoyable, and I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone, but...
 
My previous experiences were somewhat reminded to me when I received my Fostex HP-P1 as I was switching between Spotify Premium and AAC files that I had transcoded to 256k directly from my FLAC masters; what I found was, music that was on my iPod 6G was grainy, especially in the midrange and pretty unenjoyable.
 
When I switched back to Spotify Premium, even for the same song, none of this harshness or graininess were exhibited.
 
None of what I say yields anything empirical and is purely anecdotal, but in two separate instances, using two separate pieces of source material, across two very good DACs (Empirical Audio modded Benchmark DAC-1, and the Fostex HP-P1), I've found AAC to be noticeably degraded.
 
Whether it's the options (typically, or the high quality ones I thought I) used to encode to lossy or the algorithm itself, I don't know, but I'm perfectly happy with the (Ogg?) 320 Spotify Premium sound.  Is it better than 16/44.1 FLAC?  Probably not, but I don't find myself dwelling on it, saying "I wish I had this song in FLAC format right now."
 
Having said that, I do not begrudge higher bitrates or lossless, as I hope technology, primarily delivery and storage systems increase, we can move to lossless and remove the issue of high(er) quality source media from the equation.

 

[iPaintCode]

I have paid services for both, but only for convenience. I don't have my library on my rMBP, it's all external but that's mainly due to the new Retina MacBook Pro's shipping with SSD and could only budget the 256gb drive. Me and a co-worker (we're both headfile noobies) tested this and we both swear some tracks have a slightly different extra oomph, but then again it could have all been a placebo affect. Recently I picked up a 2TB external usb 3.0 drive, super slim and I can fit my entire music collection and all the iTunes movies I've bought over the years (maybe 20).
 
Now I can save 20'ish bucks a month =)

 

[StratocasterMan]

It looks like it won't be much longer that we're choosing between Spotify and MOG.
 
Rumors are that Apple, Google, and Amazon are all considering launching paid streaming services. It looks like the really big tech companies are probably going to get into the game:
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/06/us-apple-music-idUSBRE92506120130306

 

[philo50]

Quote:

It looks like it won't be much longer that we're choosing between Spotify and MOG.
 
Rumors are that Apple, Google, and Amazon are all considering launching paid streaming services. It looks like the really big tech companies are probably going to get into the game:
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/06/us-apple-music-idUSBRE92506120130306

 
isn't that interesting......

 

[MorAase]

JJ Cale. Roll on. 
High Q --320 kbps
Iphone 4S 
shure 535 
fiio e11
 
MOG
 
 
Northern norway. Custom dns
 
just fantastic lovely!!
does it get any better?
 
Spotify sounded not so "nice" - I subscribe premium to both. 

 

[TommyNavara]

My dream is a 24/96 music streaming service.
Maybe in a perfect bandwidth world is kind of possible

 

[eron]

Quote:

My dream is a 24/96 music streaming service.
Maybe in a perfect bandwidth world is kind of possible

 
How does OraStream compare?
 
I tried Orastream for about an hour playing available files, and it seemed pretty good.
 
 
 

OraStream will stream in the highest audio fidelity that can be supported by the music delivery ecosystem. It is able to stream lossless audio; from CD-quality (44 KHz/16bit) to HD (studio master quality) up to 192 KHz/24bit audio files. As the music delivery scales to the quality of the network connection, music streaming is smooth, uninterrupted and plays at the highest bitrate quality that your network bandwidth supports.       

 

[TommyNavara]

for sure we need a test to confirm that.

 

[jwusoccer]

I've been trying out google all access music for the past couple of days, and i have to say, i'm loving it so far. It's ui needs a lot of work, but the ability to upload your own local files to cloud storage is amazing. Granted, flac files are converted to mp3, but still, that's an option that has never been given to us by any other service. I currently have spotify free until the end of 2014, but if i was paying for a subscription, i would have switched to google music by now.

 

[TommyNavara]

I've been trying out google all access music for the past couple of days, and i have to say, i'm loving it so far. It's ui needs a lot of work, but the ability to upload your own local files to cloud storage is amazing. Granted, flac files are converted to mp3, but still, that's an option that has never been given to us by any other service. I currently have spotify free until the end of 2014, but if i was paying for a subscription, i would have switched to google music by now.

I don't get you sir: FLAC files are transcoded and we can choose to listen to FLAC or there are only mp3 to choose from and they guarantee that they are good transcodes?

 

[StratocasterMan]

Quote:

I don't get you sir: FLAC files are transcoded and we can choose to listen to FLAC or there are only mp3 to choose from and they guarantee that they are good transcodes?

 
I think I can explain. If you try to upload FLAC files to Google, it will look to see if it can find a match for the track. If it finds a match, it will place a 320 MP3 version of the track in the Cloud for you. If it doesn't find a match, it will convert your FLAC file to 320 MP3 and place that in the Cloud. Of course, you will still have the FLAC file on your computer, but it will not place a FLAC file on their server. It will place a 320 MP3 copy of your FLAC file on the server. You can't listen to FLAC on Google's service. You will be listening to a 320 MP3 copy of your FLAC file which was either matched or created from your FLAC file.

 

[TommyNavara]

I think I can explain. If you try to upload FLAC files to Google, it will look to see if it can find a match for the track. If it finds a match, it will place a 320 MP3 version of the track in the Cloud for you. If it doesn't find a match, it will convert your FLAC file to 320 MP3 and place that in the Cloud. Of course, you will still have the FLAC file on your computer, but it will not place a FLAC file on their server. It will place a 320 MP3 copy of your FLAC file on the server. You can't listen to FLAC on Google's service. You will be listening to a 320 MP3 copy of your FLAC file which was either matched or created from your FLAC file.

Thanks

 

[tjones1]

Hi Everyone,
 
In regards to subjective sound quality of Spotify vs. Mog, I was listening to Homecoming Heroes by the Head and the Heart on both Mog and Spotify and noticed that Mog had a significantly fuller, detailed sound. I thought this must be due to my excitement about discovering Mog, so I put it to a subjective blind test. I played Another Story by the Head and the Heart and Dirty Paws by Of Monsters and Men for my girlfriend on both Mog and Spotify. I just told her I wanted her opinion, without mentioning anything about Mog or Spotify. Both times she picked out the Mog playback as the better sounding recording within 20 seconds.
 
For what it's worth..