Spotify on a UQ2 - awful!

Andy, yes Spotify is not great... there are far better sound quality streaming services out there, even other lossy ones appear better at the same data rates, and the lossless ones simply are in another league all together. It's funny Spotify was one of the first to market, and was exciting and innovative, but as Streaming services have developed and moved into the next generation and matured it now appears to have become a laggard and is being left behind by others in terms of SQ and innovation.... Definitely feels lower left quadrant now.

Perhaps it's original engineers and music lovers have left it, and it is simply being run now by accountants and businessmen sweating its currently large customer base..

Simon

I think you can just use it to explore something you might want to consider buying. I normally do this via the of when I am working to check out how things sound. I have no appetite on spotify via my Naim system.

Oh absolutely. It's never my primary source, more something I throw on when I really want to find something new. I just wasn't expecting it to sound quite so awful. 

I had previously used Spotify via an iPad connected to an ARCAM dac, fed into an old 62/90 combo - and it actually sounded better to my ears than the unitiqute. 

As others have said, Spotify is not high quality streaming yet and I doubt for the foreseeable future. Use it to explore new music. There is  nothing wrong with your system. 

+1 It's pretty poor. When I run out of free trials, I might go back to it for music discovery - the interface is quite good for that. 

Hi, Andy.

There is possibly something amiss with your equipment or setup.  Listen to Spotify with your dealer present.  If you still feel it is awful, fair enough.  I find it sounds better than my own compressed local files, and occasionally better than lossless or even CD.  It defies logic, honestly.  I do use their Premium service, set to maximum quality, which perhaps you do, too.

That said, I cannot get lossless local files to sound OK at all on my Sonos Connect, which I always hasten to add, to show that I am not pleased with absolutely everything.  Not even a DC-1 into nDAC/555 can recover what my poor Sonos messes up.  A bad product sample can ruin one's opinion of a whole brand, of course; it really isn't fair for me to bash Sonos based on my own single sample, I know.  

On the other hand, my Sqeezebox Touch and Mac Mini are reliable stunners into the same system, with Spotify and local lossless AIFF files.  Hi-Fi is a great sport for those who cannot leave well-enough alone!

Best of luck.

Nick

On my Zone 2 Qute2, Spotify sounds good as ever, but it is better still playing Zone 1 sources, including Spotify, into CD-In.

I meant to say your dealer might identify and fix a problem with your Qute2, if it doesn't sound up to Par.

Nick

I have started looking at Tidal for music discovery, and their discovery playlists that get released every few days seem great. The lossy quality sounds quite a bit better than Spotify on my Sonos, iPad and PC, and also offers lossless, which if set up right for the same master can sound pretty close to the equivalent CD being played. I believe Tidal offers lossy in AAC, and lossless in FLAC. Spotify only offers lossy in Ogg Vorbis.

Tidal's selection of rarer Jazz and Classical has been rather poor but noticed has been recently improving.. or I have been more successful in my searching.... so if you are into music discovery it doesn't mean you now need to take a big compromise in SQ.. perhaps give  it a try.. 

Simon

I don't really have a dealer unfortunately, as I bought the UQ as an ex-demo on an auction site.

That said, maybe "awful" as per my description was melodramatic. I think it sounds as good as it might, but i just assumed that considering the UQ2 is the best equipment I've ever owned, I presumed I'm getting to the point where source misgivings are really showing up? 

Take into considuration that Spotify sample rate is up to 320k and cannot really tell the actual one during playback.

Benny

Andy FWIW "Racing  in the streets" by Bruce Springsteen sounds very good via spotify on my Superuniti based system. There is an awful lot of poor quality dross on spotify but the Springsteen track shows what a good 320 track can sound like. Listen to the bass, which should have a good kick. it sounds crap on your Uniti 2 something must be wrong.

Ha ha - not to my taste particularly, but i'll give it an objective go in the interest of bass  

My UQ2 is ex-demo and I quite enjoy listening to Spotify through it and although the quality may not be on par with the likes of Tidal for a tenner a month I am pretty satisfied. Likes others have said, if the original recording is poor then there isn't much you can do about that. 

If the likes of Tidal were to offer their premium package at a tenner a month, I would switch, but for now all is good 

I agree: spotify isn't on par with a mid or high fi setup. Qobuz sounds a lot better, I'm in my trail now using bubbleupnp. Unfortunately, bubbleupnp only runs on Android and the GUI isn't that practical... 

It's just a shame that Naim isn't doing anything with what's on offer these days (eg Qobuz, Tidal,...). If I was to consider a new streamer, naim would not be on my list frankly spoken.

I'd be a bit concerned if Spotify sounded that bad at low volumes.

You really need to play a few flac or wav files to check that there is not another issue.

SJB

How do you know that they are not doing anything?

OK, I stand corrected: they are not communicating anything and it's taking them quite a long time If you look at what the competition is doing for quite a while now...

Done this - and yes, it sounds good to these ears - so I wonder if I should put down my poor experience on Spotify down to poor recordings?

I have to agree; Spotify sounds awful to me as well. I gave it 3 months then ditched it although I really wanted to like it. I am very happy listening to Radio Paradise at 320k so I can only assume it's the way Spotify implement MP3 using Ogg Vorbis.

No, I think it more likely that you stumbled upon something that sounds OK despite the lossy data.  The non-hi fi aspects of lossy Spotify streaming cannot be attributed to the recordings.

Pev, Ogg Vorbis is a completely different codec to MP3 .. although at a high level there are many similarities. Ogg Vorbis can sound good, and is optimised to some extent for streaming, I don't know why Spotify sounds so poor however.. I feel it should sound better than it does...

Simon

It isn't possible for this track to sound anything less than 'very good'.   

I get shivers when I hear it through my Sony TV