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Topic: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs (Read 8728 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #25 –
You're also standing by the idea that they are not doing it for every track in their library(?). ;)

Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #26 –
No. The OP said everything they play sounds brighter than his CDs. It could be, as you suggested, his CDs all contain different masterings than what Spotify is using, or shadowking suggested it could be buggy Vorbis encoding, or like I said, they are probably just deliberately "enhancing" the sound of their stream. The OP called this "pre-EQ" as if it is something done to static files, but in my experience it's more likely something they are doing in transit, and would indeed affect everything they play. (Though some tracks I would expect to be affected more than others, if dynamic range compression is involved.)

To rule out the possibility of the old Vorbis encoder, I was seeing if the effect could be reproduced, although that possibility is moot now that the objective bass difference was shown.

Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #27 –
Quote from: mjb2006 on
No.
Then you are being very selective about the evidence presented to you.  Try again...
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,112319.msg925622.html#msg925622

Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #28 –
Sorry about the timing difference. I didn't know you guys were doing all this advanced stuff to analyze the sounds. I don't have the advanced knowledge on signal processing, but I do have acoustics knowledge from deep knowledge in speaker design.

I did measure a bass difference as well, but this was through an RTA analysis from recording what I hear played back on speakers. The bass difference was very noticeable, especially since this song has deep bass.

What kind of processing do you think Spotify is doing to their music? I'm sort of confused on the choice of filtering. The "treble boost" to make the song sound clearer makes a lot of sense, and I thought it was done extremely well without sounding offensive even to an audiophile ear, but the reduction in bass makes no sense. Spotify is targeting average listeners, and less bass is like the worst thing you can do for your listeners.

Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #29 –
I performed my own capture from Spotify and got something quite different in terms of the encoding.  This was the link to the track I captured:
https://play.spotify.com/album/4DOcG4A40Wf3q2vPNGQwQg

Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #30 –
greynol, that last file you posted is corrupted and won't play for me.

I'm sorry—I'm 0 for 2 today, and I'm just trying to help.

I overlooked your other posts because I thought they were saying something different. Indeed, the song you captured via premium and free has no obvious changes, to my ears. So it does seem that not every song is being processed as the OP assumed. And if only some are different, it seems more likely, then, that they have different masterings on hand than the OP has on CD. Nevertheless, we are all speculating here.

Any chance the normalization setting mentioned in this inconclusive discussion has bearing on the situation? http://www.head-fi.org/t/747818/spotify-normalization-vs-dynamic-range-compression

Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #31 –
Greynol, can you tell me what song you used in your capture? I'm gonna try to listen to it on mine and see if I hear a difference.

Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #32 –
Quote from: bcodemz on
Greynol, can you tell me what song you used in your capture? I'm gonna try to listen to it on mine and see if I hear a difference.
https://play.spotify.com/track/0l7BSMpsEnjokVbgOKMYKv

Quote from: greynol on
I performed my own capture from Spotify [of bcodemz's clip] and got something quite different in terms of the encoding.
Turns out I had mistakenly thought I was getting premium content using the web player.  This isn't the case:
https://support.spotify.com/us/article/What-bitrate-does-Spotify-use-for-streaming/

Quote from: mjb2006 on
Any chance the normalization setting mentioned in this inconclusive discussion has bearing on the situation? http://www.head-fi.org/t/747818/spotify-normalization-vs-dynamic-range-compression
I was unable to find those playback options using the web player on firefox.

I'm also doubting whether I'm actually getting premium content in the web player using our premium account.  I'm not all that keen on installing the standalone player to find out.
Update: I was able to confirm that I was not getting premium content using the web player.  I have also since installed the standalone player and captured a premium version of the clip I shared earlier.  My CD source and capture of Spotify's version from the web player can still be found here.  The premium version can be found in the post below this one.

Also, take the accusations in that head-fi link with a grain of salt.  Common wisdom is that Spotify uses RG.  I tried to dispel this as FUD sometime ago.  Steve1979 (avatar looks familiar) could be right, but I personally doubt it.

EDIT:
I added some quotes and revealed a misconception I had about Spotify's browser-based player.
I also edited a previous post in order to reflect this oversight.

Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #33 –
In the event the OP didn't try to record a version of what I posted earlier using the Spotify Player set to premium, here it is.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

EDIT: Added spoiler.
 

Re: I think Spotify premium has pre-EQ'd all the songs

Reply #34 –
Quote from: shadowking on
Theres the GT3b1 version on rarewares. It is modified for Q5 ~ 10 for better pre echo handling and the bitrate higher. I believe the HF issue was there at the time.

http://www.rarewares.org/files/ogg/oggenc2.3-GT3b1.zip
Will evidence that Spotify ever used an encoder with this bug also be forthcoming?