Ideas: Higher Audio Quality

[pboser]

How about higher audio quality?  Amazon has introduced this feature, and others have been ahead of Pandora as well.  It would be great to have the Genome Project advantage with higher audio quality.  Do others agree?

Moderator Edit: Edited title for clarity

[chulohock]

I totally agree!

Anytime I listen to Pandora I always have a smile on my face. I cannot say that about the others.

Listen to Amazon Music in standard streaming quality. It sounds great! Why? Because they encode music at that setting with the Opus codec. Listen to YouTube music in the normal setting. It sounds great! Why because they encode music at that setting with the Opus codec.

If technically high res is unattainable for Pandora they should encode using Opus - open source and free.

Do you really want to be blown away? Now listen to Spotify streaming at their low level. Guess what? It sounds great! Why? At that setting Spotify encodes music with HE-AACv2 (24kbps), which actually sounds better than their highest setting at 320 kilobits per second. Why? because it's a superior codec to Ogg Vorbis, which is what Spotify uses at the highest setting.

My vote is for the free, open source Opus codec.

Pandora are you listening or do you just not care?

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[chulohock]

I totally agree! 

Anytime I listen to Pandora I always have a smile on my face. I cannot say that about the others.

Listen to Amazon Music in standard streaming quality. It sounds great! Why? Because they encode music at that setting with the Opus codec. Listen to YouTube music in the normal setting. It sounds great! Why because they encode music at that setting with the Opus codec. 

If technically high res is unattainable for Pandora they should encode using Opus - open source and free. 

Do you really want to be blown away? Now listen to Spotify streaming at their low level. Guess what? It sounds great! Why? At that setting Spotify encodes music with HE-AACv2 (24kbps), which actually sounds better than their highest setting at 320 kilobits per second. Why? because it's a superior codec to Ogg Vorbis, which is what Spotify uses at the highest setting.

My vote is for the free, open source Opus codec.

Pandora are you listening or do you just not care?

[Captkaos2211]

Have you compared it vs lossless direct PCM,dsd, or not on gear that can you can actually hear the difference like a good dac trust me it's a big difference between aac and lossless.... Regardless of the encoding listen to flacc vs Spotify or YouTube or standard Amazon you will quickly understand.

[chulohock]

I've been a lossless high-res fanatic since it was introduced into streaming. There is no question that it sounds better than any lossy codec. I'm just pointing out that if Pandora has technical limitations maybe they can consider a free and open source lossy codec like Opus. If you haven't tried streaming Amazon Music in the standard setting or YouTube music in the normal setting go ahead and try it. Let me know what you think.

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[fudney]

Maybe the staff at Pandora should listen to hi-def stations and see what we mean.  I'M 71 and can hear the difference.