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]

On the Google Play store it's showing as the number one top grossing for music and audio. Seems to me they're not having a revenue problem. Of course, we know that we are a minority when it comes to wanting higher quality sound out of the Pandora app. It may explain why even Spotify, after announcing lossless, decided not even to move forward with it and hopes that it's listeners will just stop with the high-res music request. Millions of listeners to these apps and most of them can care less or even notice that it sounds bad. I'm still exploring it, but of late I've been listening to the Tidal app on Android. I'll see where this leads me.

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[Trevor1]

I think since it’s 2024, Pandora could at the very least offer the 320 kbps which Spotify offers. Spotify is still indicating that lossless is still coming at some point. 320 kbps is absolutely a reasonable expectation for a music streaming service in 2024. 

[Tred]

I totally agree with you. Just seems like it will never happen..

[EmperorJJ1]

@chulohock one thing to keep in mind is on the google play store all services with the exception of youtube music (since its owned by google) pay up to 30% to google. in comparison youtube music on the google play store or apple music on the App store have up to a 30% bonus on revenues out the gate. Its really the people who subscribe via the individual services websites and the like that are keeping the lights on.

[cunruh]

I've been with Pandora for several years and have really enjoyed the several "stations" we've created.  We've ended up purchasing CD of artists we've discovered through Pandora and are currently on the Pandora Plus subscription which streams at only 128kbps.  It is my understanding that "Premium" offers more flexibility but does not offer a higher quality of audio.  What has caused us to reconsider our Pandora account is that those CDs of the same tacks we discovered on Pandora are so superior in audio quality that we now realize just how much of the music we've been missing.  In short we really dumbed down our level of expectation as a result and now realize what we've been missing and just what our HiFi system is actually capable of providing in quality sound. We now have an Amazon Music account and greatly appreciate the high fidelity of the flac files there.  Pandora really needs to "up their game" or they are going to lose accounts like mine.  I would happily pay $12-$15 monthly for music in a lossless format.

[samsplace]

Yes, 👍 agree. We have a nice system but CD and blue ray sound so much
better. We are probably as well dropping Pandora and going with Amazon, I
like Pandora's algorithm for the music we listen to but we will get used to
something else

[chulohock]

I listen to Amazon Music HD from an Android device connected to a USB DAC dongle and it sounds fantastic. It even sounds great through my Bluetooth headphones that employ the Qualcomm aptX Adaptive and LDAC codecs, which my phone is able to take advantage of.

I've tried Apple Music, Qobuz and Tidal. To these ears, Amazon Music HD sounds the best, with no need for any special equipment.

I love Folk, Blues, Roots and Americana genres and Amazon Music provides plenty of great curated playlists that satisfies my appetite for these musical styles and where I've been able discover new artists.

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[chulohock]

Even with everything I just stated about Amazon Music, I still can't stop loving Pandora!

[Married_Man]

It's a shame we have only two options for music streaming:

1. Great music stations where you discover brand new music that you love, but wish it sounded better (Pandora).

2. Great sounding music where you search for songs you know and like, but where there is very little discovery because the playlists are all static and terrible (Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon).

If Pandora could just get with the times (actually the 20 year ago times), all would be perfect in the world. And, I'd even pay more. 

But as it stands, I keep considering cancelling Pandora and continue to test pay subscriptions to Apple and Tidal. 

My guess is soon their playlists and stations will improve and I can cancel Pandora without regret. Pandora obviously has no plans to improve.

[Stereosonic]

@Married_Man

Yes it’s quite a shame about Pandora’s big lack of sound quality and seeing they are owned by SiriusXM who also lack in the sound quality department neither of which company has done anything to improve their services in any way whatsoever for at least a decade now if not more and are actually losing subscribers. The companies being to cheap to care will either wait until it’s too late to stay in business or will be the last ones to even try and offer better quality audio. If you haven’t heard of the music streaming service Qobuz you should also look into them as they have the best sound quality out of any of the music streaming services and are improving their feature set. Something that can’t be said about Tidal as of late. Deezer may be another one for you to look into but they don’t change much either but at least they offer better sound quality than Pandora. Pandora, YouTube Music and Spotify are the only major holdouts not offering full sound quality and it seems at least Spotify might finally be coming around to offer it maybe later this year if not next or longer as they are currently making new deals with the record companies as they want to offer new bundles. However Spotify thinks it can charge more for sound quality and get away with it. Whereas most other companies already offer it for roughly the same price as each other. This should force YouTube to maybe try and offer full fidelity however because they offer a lot of regular YouTube music content as well this might be harder for them to do if they are even willing. Although YouTube Music does have the largest catalog but of dubious sources often because anyone can upload something to YouTube. But the sheer amount of content available is undeniable.