what headphones do you own thread - i own dt150's :)

When i first received the k15 and I was comparing it to my old dac I may have forgotten that I had APO installed and it was affecting the old dac, after having re-compared them again there are genuine differences in the sound profile but they are quite small. The old dac has more body in the low end still and the k15 has a bit more aggressive/forward treble. Thinking back to the differences between the old dac and the r2r they were even smaller than this so I'm going back to my original opinion that the "R2R sound" is overstated online and doesn't make as big of a difference as people say. In NOS mode it has the biggest difference with adding some pleasing harmonics/distortion to the low end/mids, but it comes at the cost of muddy treble detail that just straight sounds noticeably worse. With oversampling, you lose the benefits of the NOS harmonics but it still sounds slightly worse in the treble.
 
mrk said:
Spotify Lossless has now launched and it's free for all premium users. The UK is included from launch so should get notified shortly and can update to enable the setting.

Perfect timing as just had tracking info of the K13 R2R too :p

www.whathifi.com

After years of waiting, Spotify is finally offering Lossless hi-res quality tracks for Premium subscribers

24-bit/44.1kHz FLAC streaming comes to Spotify Premium
www.whathifi.com www.whathifi.com
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Not available for me yet but I do have my region set to Brazil which is probably why. I don't expect I would notice a difference over MP3 320kbps anyway.
 
I suspect hardly anyone will notice the difference really, Spotify uses OGG 320Kbps for its very high playback setting, that is exceptional quality and I side by side tested it with Tidal lossless months ago to find no audible difference between the two, some songs sounded better on one or the other, all came down to which was using the better source master for its platform, so being lossless or not really doesn't matter IMO, but it does offer a peace of mind, especially at no extra cost.

Got a K13 R2R delivery date now, tomorrow, that's mega quick...

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About time with Spotify, that will save me from keep on switching between platforms as I find Spotify' algorithm and UI the best amongst the competitors.

Got the notification in the mobile app but nothing available as of yet.

Anyone else got it?
 
I have the CD and ripped them to my Mac with Apple Lossless and I actually listen to the same song on YouTube Music at home.

I can’t really tell the difference.
 
Spotify finally getting lossless is a very very very long overdue God send, I don't even care if I will hear the difference or not, all I know is in the 80's I was walking around with a CD Walkman listening to music @ 16bit 44.1kHz, 40 years later I can now enjoy the same quality via streaming!
 
I cannot tell the difference between the flac and mp3 files in my collection, but I can easily tell the difference between a well and poorly mastered album, regardless of format. I guess at least its free and not a higher-tier subscription.
 
Angst said:
I cannot tell the difference between the flac and mp3 files in my collection, but I can easily tell the difference between a well and poorly mastered album, regardless of format. I guess at least its free and not a higher-tier subscription.
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Yeah been saying this for years, don't dare say it on reddit though unless you like being forked in the eyes.

Kanpai said:
Anyone here got it yet?
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Rolling out over a few days.
 
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I wonder what people think about this article, it's from 2023 but it's relevant given the chatter I have seen on forums and reddit since Spotify's Lossless announcement and with it "only" being 24-bit 44.1.

Dynamic range is the loudest possible sound and noise floor is the quietest.

We already know that a quiet room has a background noise level of about 30db that we need to rise above. Even if the system is playing above the 30db room noise, the power supply in a DAC will mask the LSB if the peak-to-peak voltage of the noise in the power supply is not less than the voltage of the LSB.

In order for a DAC to actually resolve a specific bit depth the peak-to-peak voltage of the ripple in the power supply has to be lower than the voltage of the LSB. And in order for a DAC to resolve a specific sampling rate the speed of the power supply has to be faster than the sampling frequency.

Based on a 2.5V output of a single-ended DAC (about average), below are the voltages power supply noise must be below in order to hear the LSB:
  • 16-bit LSB noise floor voltage = 76uV
  • 20-bit LSB noise floor voltage = 4.75uV
  • 24-bit LSB noise floor voltage = 0.3uV
For a reference, the common LM317 power regulator, the quality used in most commercial electronics, has about 150uV peak-to-peak noise and the best ultralow-noise power regulators used in the best-of-the-best of audiophile electronics have about 5uV of peak-to-peak noise. So even the 5V output of a balanced DAC could not resolve anything close to the LSB voltage of a 24-bit recording.

Sorry to burst anyone's bubble and contradict the marketing hype, myth, and legend in the audiophile industry, but just because a DAC is capable of decoding 24-bits doesn't mean it is capable of actually resolving that bit-depth in its analog output stage.

According to the experts who manufacture the finest DAC chips, resistors, and power regulators, there is theoretically no way to make electronics that are capable of discerning much greater than a 20-bit resolution (120dB dynamic range). Any company who claims 24-bit resolution from their DAC is simply full of ****. Oh they can decode 24-bits, because 24-bits does exist on the digital side, but the analog output stage in the world's best DACs are not capable of resolving much more than 20-bits of dynamic range.

And don't even get me started on DACs with tube output stages: the lowest noise floor of a tube output stage is about 90dB which means despite whatever a manufacturer may claim no tube DAC can even resolve the dynamic range in a 16-bit recording let alone a 24-bit recording.
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LSB = Least Significant Bit.

The full article is very good too and gives context to the extract above, I picked it because it relates to the importance a low noise power supply plays, since we are now seeing regular DACs/amps coming out with high end components and the option of using a DC linear PSU. FiiO also has a new linear PSU coming out soon that matches the styling of the K13 R2R which I guess will replace the PL50 as that unit matched the shape of the K7 back in that day.

The quality of the recording plays a far more significant role than the format or resolution it is distributed in. But to increase profits, many modern recording studio executives insist that errors be edited out in post-production, significantly compromising the quality of the original master tapes. So no matter what format these recordings are released in, the music will always sound mediocre, since you can never have higher performance than what is on the original masters.
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www.mojo-audio.com

The 24-Bit Delusion

HD Music, HD Tracks, 24-Bit, 24/192, 24-bit 192KHz, DSD
www.mojo-audio.com www.mojo-audio.com
 
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