Lossless audio - hear the difference or get your money back!

2014-04-21 16:33:40

In case anyone wants to know, or wants to rant:


So this is a streaming service available in Scandinavia, Poland and Germany, and it is now launching lossless streaming audio. Apparently, anyone should be able to hear the difference by comparing, especially when reading bars that tell you how much more data is transferred using lossless than 320. Well then. The lossless ad can be found in the respective languages:
German: http://wimp.de/wweb/specials/hifi_lossless/
Polish: http://wimp.pl/wweb/specials/hifi_lossless/
Danish: http://wimp.dk/wweb/specials/hifi_lossless/
... hifi is back after years in the valley of the shadows of the mp3, we learn. So is also the case for the Norwegian one:
http://wimp.no/wweb/specials/hifi_lossless/

Now that one is ... "interesting": this is where lossless streaming is marketed as (notice the question mark):
_320 KBPS - The best sound?_  vs _____1411 KBPS - The best sound._____
and, my translation (*dramatic drum sound here*):
Hear the difference. Or money back.


Wonder when we will get hi-rez streaming ... Oh, BTW: This Vimeo video: http://vimeo.com/76862619 has comments disabled. No comment on that choice ...


(The Swedish ad is different - it is in English, not in Swedish, and it does not offer you the "listen and compare video": http://wimpmusic.se/wweb/specials/lossless/ )

Lossless audio - hear the difference or get your money back!

Reply #1 – 2014-04-21 20:22:34

<<Oh cool, pity it won't come to my country anytime soon. I'm tired of Spotify's pityful q5 vorbis streaming default, and they are offering MERELY 320kbps as "premium"?!? Gimme a break fellas...>>

Of course, you'll actually find that default quite satisfactory for most - if not all - listening contexts, and the offer of higher bitrate as a premium for supposedly "better quality" and at the expense of bandwith quite pointless...

Thanks for the info Porcus, I'm afraid there will be more and more of these lossless streaming services popping out in the near future. Whether they will be successful or even survive is left to be seen. Now, if they offer lossless downloads as well...

Lossless audio - hear the difference or get your money back!

Reply #2 – 2014-04-21 22:48:34

So, wait, if expectation bias and whatnot mean people hear what they want/are told to hear… will their desire to feel special thanks to large numbers in audio, be overriden by their desire to maximise the numbers of money in their pockets?

Lossless audio - hear the difference or get your money back!

Reply #3 – 2014-04-22 10:28:34

Quote from: TomasPin on 2014-04-21 20:22:34

or even survive

I wonder, given that one has already paid the fixed cost of establishing the service, how much can it cost to maintain it - on the margin, on top of maintaining your "ordinary" lossy streaming service? Very little, I assume. The higher price tag will of course cover the per-customer higher cost (bandwidth), so would there be much chance of running losses that give incentives to close down such a service once established?