SPOTIFY: Pros and cons

If there’s one constant in the vast, ongoing, streaming music war, it’s this fact: Spotify is the big dog. Despite competition from the feature-rich Apple Music and the audiophile-friendly Tidal, Spotify remains the king of the hill due to its large catalog, collaborative playlists, podcasts, and numerous other attractive features. For these reasons and more, […]

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SPOTIFY: News 01

Spotify’s Equalizer Sessions in Germany Help Women Build Lasting Connections What do you get when you bring an impressive collection of women artists, podcasters, and influencers together for dinner? Magic—and an environment that inspires meaningful connections.  Spotify has hosted Equalizer events in Europe to combat gender inequality in music for some time. The latest event, […]

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HIFI PODCAST OF THE DAY

PS Audio’s Senior Analog Design Engineer Darren Myers and The Music Room Testing Technician Duncan Taylor discuss all things hifi audio, covering such audiophile topics as speakers, amplifiers, DACs, preamplifiers, vinyl, cables, music, stereo soundstages, tweaks, adjustments and much more. https://the-hifi-podcast-with-darren-and-duncan.simplecast.com/

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Q&A

Q&A: Can you hear a difference in quality between Spotify’s 320 kbps stream and TIDAL’s HiFi lossless audio stream?

DANIEL FALLMAN: Yes, absolutely. If you can’t hear the difference between say Spotify and Tidal’s FLAC streaming you might have either or all of these three problems — all of which have to do with the dynamics of the music: 1. Your equipment isn’t good enough. If you’re listening to your music through your iphone […]

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BOWERS and WILKINS: News 05

The new year is upon us – a time when many reflect on the past and set goals for the 12 months ahead. New Year’s resolutions come in all shapes and sizes; it could be fitting more exercise into your busy schedule, saving for a well-deserved getaway, learning a new skill or hobby, or spending […]

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SPOTIFY: Revenue and usage statistics

Spotify is the world’s biggest music streaming platform by number of subscribers. Users of the service simply need to register to have access to one of the largest collections of music in history, plus podcasts and other audio content. It operates on a freemium model. Free Spotify access comes with lower sound quality, advertisements and […]

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BOWERS and WILKINS: News 06

Px8 007 Edition The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 007 Edition headphones unite two icons of British style and performance. As elegant and timeless as the world-famous secret agent himself, these special-edition headphones deliver the high-performance wireless sound synonymous with Bowers & Wilkins’ flagship headphones. SEE ALL OUR B&W posts at https://www.hifianswers.com/tag/bw/  

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BOWERS and WILKINS: News 07

Px8 McLaren Edition Celebrating the long-standing, award-winning partnership between Bowers & Wilkins and McLaren Automotive and the McLaren supercars and hypercars in which Bowers & Wilkins has been integrated, the Px8 McLaren Edition headphones fuse McLaren-inspired styling with high-performance wireless sound synonymous with Bowers & Wilkins’ flagship headphones. SEE ALL OUR B&W posts at https://www.hifianswers.com/tag/bw/ […]

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PODCAST: Kate Bush

In November 2005, Kate Bush broke a 12 year silence with the release of her double album ‘Aerial’, In this programme she gives a very rare interview to John Wilson in a special edition of Front Row, where she talks about why the album took so long to appear and tells some of the stories […]

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BOWERS and WILKINS: News 08

WIRELESS LISTENING: There has never been a better time to get into wireless listening. Technological advances coupled with Bowers & Wilkins unique engineering offer great performance and innovate usability across a wide range of products. Gone are the days when wireless was a dirty word in Hi-Fi circles. Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay and other wireless technologies […]

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SPOTIFY: Acquisitions

In May 2013, Spotify acquired music discovery app Tunigo.[58] In March 2014, they acquired The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company.[59][60] In June 2015, Spotify announced they had acquired Seed Scientific, a data science consulting firm and analytics company. In a comment to TechCrunch, Spotify said that Seed Scientific’s team would lead an Advanced Analytics […]

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SPOTIFY: A bit of background

Spotify (/ˈspɒtɪfaɪ/; Swedish: [ˈspɔ̂tːɪfaj]) is a Swedish audio streaming and media services provider, launched in October 2008. The platform is owned by Spotify AB, a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange since 2018 through its holding company Spotify Technology S.A. based in Luxembourg. Spotify’s global headquarters are in Stockholm, Sweden and corporate Headquarters […]

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SPOTIFY: What is ‘Loudness Normalisation’ and how and why is it used?

Audio files are delivered to Spotify from distributors all over the world and are often mixed/mastered at different volume levels. We want to ensure the best listening experience for users, so we apply Loudness Normalization to create a balance. It also levels the playing field between soft and loud masters. Louder tracks have often been […]

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