Those huge numbers are reflected in the choices available to music streamers with dozens of music streaming services including big-hitters like Apple, Amazon, Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, Tidal and Deezer.
But which music streaming service has the best quality for audiophiles? And which is the best music streaming service in the UK? We’ll answer those questions and more in this blog.
Apple Music
While specialist high-quality streamers Tidal and Qobuz are relatively niche players in the music streaming market, Apple Music is one of the giants of the industry with nearly 90 million subscribers. Responding to the demand for high-quality audio, Apple Music launched their AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) streaming quality in 2021 and also introduced Apple Digital Masters to deliver the highest-quality recordings at 24-bit/192kHz resolution.
Impressively, they’ve now opened up their entire back catalogue using lossless audio compression – at no extra cost to Apple Music subscribers. Simply choose your preference through your iPhone’s Settings > Music > Audio Quality section of Apple Music.
Apple Music not only offers continuity for previous Apple/Mac users, but it also has a huge digital library spanning 100 million tracks and thousands of playlists, guest content and radio stations.
Spotify
With 210 million paid subscribers and 515 million monthly active users worldwide, Spotify is the biggest music streaming service in the world. Its main advantages are its size, simplicity and legacy. It was the first big streaming platform to go global and it has a huge library spanning 100 million tracks, 5 million podcast titles, and 350,000 audiobooks a la carte on Spotify.
The platform announced in February 2021 that it was going to upgrade their sound quality to ‘CD quality, lossless audio format.’ But as of right now, that hasn’t happened. Meaning Spotify continues to stream audio at 320Kbps in the “lossy” Ogg Vorbis format, which compresses the audio stream, thus losing a fair amount of detail in favour of higher bandwidth.
So if lossless audio is your main driver, Spotify is not the platform for you until they finally confirm their HiFi option.
Tidal
When Tidal launched in 2014 with an endorsement from then-part-owner Jay Z, it did so with one clear mission – to deliver the best quality streaming service. Its HiFi subscription tier delivers lossless, high-fidelity audio at a bitrate of 1411 kbps (CD quality) through its FLAC-based streaming, making it the best quality music streaming service in the world. It also has a decent library of music, with over 100 million audio and video files available online.
But, that HiFi quality comes at a price which is roughly twice as expensive as other streaming services. Plus, the best way to get the most from Tidal’s top-end audio is to pair it with high-end playback equipment including speakers, headphones and more. This makes Tidal better suited to home listening than streaming through 4G on your daily commute, as streaming HiFi quality audio will use a huge amount of data.
Qobuz
Tidal wasn’t the first streaming platform to focus on high-quality audio – French service Qobuz beat them to launch by a year. But whereas Tidal now has 5 million users, Qobuz has a much smaller audience of 200,000.
Their focus is on delivering high-resolution audio – and they deliver, with two different options. HiFi lets you stream music at CD quality (that’s 16-bit/44.1kHz or 24-bit/96kHz for audiophiles) while their Hi-Res subscription comes in even higher at 24-bit/192kHz).
As with Tidal, you’ll need a high-end home set-up to truly appreciate the sonic difference, making a Qobuz subscription part of a wider investment in music streaming. Musically, they boast 100 million songs which can all be played at lossless audio quality.
Tidal and Qobuz both come in at around the same price point, making the real points of difference between them the extent of the digital library and your preference on user interface.
Deezer
With just under 10 million subscribers, Deezer is one of the mid-level music streaming services. It was also one of the earlier adopters of CD-quality music as it’s been offering 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC files since 2017.
Impressively, all of its 90 million back catalogue is available in their high-quality format – and those high-quality 1411 kbp files are on a cheaper monthly subscription than both Tidal and Qobuz.
Deezer was also the first music streaming service to offer 360 Reality Audio, Sony’s object-based spatial audio technology that offers a full 360-degree audio experience. It’s now been joined by Tidal and Amazon Music HD, but it’s a good point of differentiation if you’re choosing between music streaming services.
Amazon HD
Amazon joined the lossless music quality race in 2017 with Amazon Music HD. It offers new lossless access to more than 50 million songs in High Definition (16bit/44.1 kHz), and millions of songs in Ultra High Definition (24(bit)/44(kHz), 24/48, 24/96, 24/192), the highest-quality streaming audio available.
Like Apple, Amazon has a huge digital collection of music. And like Apple, its Music HD option is available at no extra cost to streamers, making this a very tempting option.
Conclusion
There are many different considerations when it comes to the best music streaming service in the UK. As well as the cost, compatibility, music discovery options and library size, it’s important to ask what music streaming service has the best quality?
Nearly all the main streaming services offer lossless audio – the outlier being Spotify, which clearly hasn’t affected their business as it’s by far the largest streaming platform in the world.
For those that do offer lossless streaming, Apple and Amazon provide the best value for money as those options come as included with their subscription. Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz also offer high-fidelity streaming and a wide range of different price options and library sizes.
Happy streaming!
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