DCAudioDIY.com

When I made the decision to go for streaming music a couple of years ago, I signed up for the free month on both Tidal and Qobuz.
I did a comparison listening to what I hoped were the same tracks on both services. After a couple of weeks of listening, I felt that Qobuz sounded better, but not quite the same as music files off my NAS or CDs. I know there are all kinds of reasons why music sounds different from different sources, and all was quite good. I have put a lot of effort in my digital source (Still have more to do). I feel I have a good sound.
There has been quite a bit of audio press that claims that Qobuz is one of the better-sounding digital streaming services, so I felt encouraged in my choice to sign up for a paid subscription to Qobuz.
We now may have answers to why streaming sounds different than other sources.
Here is a white paper including sample files.
https://www.mattmontag.com/music/universals-audible-watermark

Interesting. Spotify sounds horrible--I was compelled to use my daughter's account while travelling once and classical music was unbearable. I use Qobuz and to me it sounds very good, even compared to the same albums on my NAS. I guess the watermarking is there but I'm not hearing it.

Huh, that's darned interesting! I wonder if HDTracks uses watermarks in their products as well?

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- Guy

digital being digital there is probably a lot going on we can ever know about.
Of course, analog recordings have all kinds of problems too.

I wonder what happens to the watermarking when it goes through HQPlayer...

Roscoe

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I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

Proabaly depends on both the source and the service. For example YouTube sounds good when the source is the Danish National Symphony -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1NJwEi6nw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efdswXXjnBA

Note I am listening with the Firefox browser on a system running Ubuntu 20.04, Asus Essence STX ii sound card, Emotiva amp and T2+ speakers.