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Grimm findings on streaming audio

I just wanted people here to know that Eelco Gimm, who makes Grimm streamers, spoke to a reviewer where he addressed the reason why most streaming from the likes of iTunes, Tidal and Qobuz sounds different from CD playback.  It's that the music is watermarked before you get it. It accounts for what he deems to be a fluttering around the edges of music. Everyone thought it was compression.

Also, when music is streamed, the first block you get is lossy, followed by blocks of lossless, so if the content is too much for the carrier, the lossy will get through without the listener's knowledge of the switch, unless you're monitoring it on a regular basis.

I understand why some streamers charge for the product, but to go further and mess with the content in the name of licensing, permanently degrading the content, is beyond me. This was from a very short article and more is said to follow.

I also want to add that all of this is over my head but I thought it would be of interest to those who stream and for those who wonder which is the best way to listen.

All the best,
Nonoise
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Showing 1 response by tomcy6

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tomcy6
2,540 posts
 

Hi nonoise, Watermarking does sound bad, but while I hear a difference between streamed music and cds, I don't hear the fluttering.  Would you post a link to that interview?  I'd like to read it although it's probably over my head too.

Here is an article from Nov. 2017 where Tidal has agreed to implement Album Loudness Normalization proposed by Eelco, which  seems to preserve dynamic range:

https://audioxpress.com/news/tidal-implements-album-loudness-normalization-and-activates-it-by-default-for-mobile-players

"Tidal adopted album normalization at -14 LUFS and followed my recommendation to turn loudness normalization on by default. This is not only convenient for the listener, but it also helps to end the Loudness War since there is no advantage anymore in squashing the life out of a master. Such a track will just be attenuated more in the Music Streamer’s app and make less impact than a dynamically mastered track. I am very excited about this development. The majority of music consumers world wide now listens to loudness normalized music. I hope that the few remaining streaming companies that do not offer loudness normalization by default will follow soon.”

 
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