Sound quality
I have a number of questions, but the first is pretty straightforward: Is the sound quality (kbps) for music synced to iphone exactly the same as sound quality streamed from the website?
Secondly, I would like to know, if Rdio is capable of upgrading its sound quality, is Rdio considering doing so in the near future? Without mincing words, I will say that I can hear a distinct difference between Spotify sound quality and Rdio iphone-synced sound quality (Spotify's is superior, but I have not tried their mobile app).
I have recently signed up for Rdio unlimited with mobile access. As someone who is very excited about Rdio and its innovative interface for discovering music, sound quality is a very very important issue for me - it will help me determine whether I want to use Rdio only as a music discovering platform or, (preferably) for music consumption as well as discovery.
Is Rdio's sound quality something that Rdio has decided was not worth a higher investment or is it simply not possible to sync higher quality files to a mobile device?
I would appreciate honesty in this answer and not simply the "Rdio does not disclose information about sound quality" stock answer that I have seen floating around.
Thank you.
Community Responses
Rdio Employee
Feb 08, 2012 12:49PM PST
Hi Alex,
Thanks for writing in. We’re not actually sharing exact bitrates at this time, because we experiment with different rates and encoding formats in an effort to provide the best possible listening and user-experience. We stream high quality audio over the web and wifi (for mobile devices), and only stream a lower bitrate if you’re on a 3G connection. Synced tracks will play at the same high quality as tracks streamed over Wifi.
We realize that this may not be as much detail as you’d like, and we apologize for this — if you have feedback about Rdio’s sound quality, please do let us know.
Cheers,
Vivian
Hi Vivian,
Is the WIFI stream quality the same as music that is downloaded from Rdio?
Thanks,
Nick
Rdio Employee
Feb 09, 2012 03:37PM PST
Hi Nick,
Purchased music downloads are delivered as MP3 files in the highest bit rate we have available to us, 256 kbps. (We will stream over wifi up to this whenever available.)
Best,
Vivian
Just a question out of curiosity. How does Spotify have 320kbs available to them and you guys don't?
Still think Rdio's experience is worth the tradeoff, but I think you'd convert a lot of Spotify/MOG subscribers if this was clarified.
Rdio please match the new "Extreme" setting in the ios Spotify app! I agree with Ryan I do prefer the Rdio app UX over ALL the others but... 320kbs can(is) changing my mind
I've recorded a few tracks by capturing output of RDIO App to the OSX system (via Audio Hijack) and compared them to the same capture from MOG and iTunes for the same songs (Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, Jean Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk) in all cases I could clearly see that RDIO filters out all frequencies above 16.5Khz. I believe is the cause of the shitty audio quality usually mentioned when people review RDIO. I really would like to know why RDIO decided to impose such a crazy restriction on their music? Are there any plans to change that? The issue I have is that RDIO is really superior to any other music service in terms of usability but I can't pay for this kind of sound quality :(
I believe 16.5Khz vs 22Khz I see on MOG captures is what makes all the difference and not 256 vs 320kbps.
Rdio support staff is there any validity to those claims?
I will say that the quality of the audio from the free version of MOG i've tried is superior to Rdio's audio quality.
You guys are losing customers because of so low quality of sound. You should offer paid option to stream on higher bitrates. I would pay.
Interesting this one shall be keeping a watchfull eye out, until you guys sort out the audio issues.
Stick with spotify for now me thinks?
I'd also like to say that I'll be sticking with Spotify until Rdio sort out their codec.
Really like the interface, mobile app, discovery and the fact that I can log in with a browser, however you have to get the basics right before all that is worth paying for. A music streaming service has to get the audio quality right before anything else.
Rdio needs to be way more transparent about this.
No way am I sending you 5 or $10/month for some undisclosed music quality. So good luck with that.
wanted: Better sound quality.
Yes, I add my opinion too. I like Rdio very much, especially the new web version. It is awesome and the social features too. EXCEPT one thing - and this is sound quality. I have Creative XFi sound and BOSE 2.1 speakers and made a comparative in sound quality. Yes, Rdio is better than Rhapsody (which streams 128kb/s), but worst than others. Best sound has MOG, than Deezer (web), Zune Music Pass and Spofity (but Spotify has very awkward bass and tiny sound space...). So, I canceled my subcription and will wait till some big changes are made. If Rdio offeres 256kb/s or 320kb/s quality, I test this quality and if it is equal with MOG or Deezer, I immediately activate my subcription. But until then, the sound quality is not acceptable for me. Thank you for understanding...
Glad I sampled the sound over the Roku before paying for a subscription for streaming. The sound quality is terrible.
I don't think I would switch just because the other services don't offer a competent mobile app, Rdio still offers the highest audio quality in a mobile app, and that's what I'll be using the most. MOG also doesn't offer a normal catalog/collection system, which is unacceptable. It's still very inconvenient to have to download my favorite albums in 320k.
After a few days of using Rdio, I have fallen in love with this service! However, I can't abide the low quality sound. It's such a shame as it makes all the other great features moot. I'll be paying for Spotify for now, and regularly checking back to see if anything changes on the sound quality front.
I've stuck with Rdio even though I've checked out MOG. MOG doesn't have a catalog I would be interested in actually paying money for. It's a fine service if all you listen to is the latest pop sensation. And as far as the sound quality of Rdio? I pipe my stream through a Yamaha Natural Sound receiver with vintage Boston Acoustic A70 tower speakers and I don't notice a problem with sound quality.
The only complaint I have on Rdio is the website itself. It needs some shading here and there for contrast. If you could offer an option where a member can actually change backgrounds, that would be golden. And the album art needs to show a larger picture when you click to expand.
I will take back some of what I wrote earlier. I do notice on some tracks too much compression. But MOG doesn't have the catalog to compare to Rdio, that much is true.
I will pile on here also - I have been an unlimited subscriber for several months now, and the music discover is so far ahead of the other sites I have stayed, but I am very close to canceling due to poor sound quality.
I'm an Irish Spotify user, hate the Spotify interface, love the Rdio one, but lack of 320 kbps is a serious dealbreaker. I'd love to change to paid Rdio, please up to 320kbps :)
I don't like the Spotify UX and I love the collection-feature of rdio. And the new interface of the iphone app is gorgeous! But I will not pay for a service that refuses to be transparent about its quality.
I much prefer Rdio's interface over Spotify's. If they fixed this ridiculous quality problem (as well as the linking of tracks across regional availability issues), I'd switch over *instantly*.
I agree, I am currently on the fence between Spotify and Rdio. I *want* to pick Rdio because I like their interface a lot better (love the clean design) and I also like how it shows what other people are listening to the same songs as me so I can compare music taste and discover new music. However, the one thing that will probably lead me to settle on Spotify is their sound quality. On my computer, which has an extremely high bandwidth connection to the internet, I just listened to the song "Comeback Kid" by Sleigh Bells on both services, just as an example. I noticed in the higher frequencies, the Rdio version sounded very tinny and thin. On Spotify, it sounded fine to me. Is there anyway to hand some quality control over to the user, say, allowing them a higher level by choice, esp when connected to the internet via a computer. Either that, or adjust your library compression settings. Thank you! Otherwise, a great service!
For those of you audio-neophites: 320kbps constant bitrate is a fraud. You don´t get any better sound quality than a V0 encode, it will just add more filesize.
V0 is the encoding setting were the actual bitrate is set to the maximum quality *needed*. It gives a quality around 250kbps (it varies, of course) and I want to thinks (but don´t know for sure) that´s the setting rdio uses.
That said some songs sound more around 190 kbps or even lower sometimes when I stream them from this service. The actual bitrate quality should be always known by the customers.
I would never pay for a service that obfuscates the quality of the sound they deliver and you shouldn´t neither.
I suspect that the poor quality sound cards in the devices we're using to convert from digital to analogue sound is the main quality limiter. Has anybody tried using a decent Digital to Analogue Converter (DAC) to upgrade the sound quality?