Sound quality

Please post the Deezer link to the Peer Gynt album and/or track, it is possible that this is not available in HiFi quality, but only in HQ. This may happen if there are several versions of the same recording in the catalogue, e.g. from an old compilation. You can check the actual audio quality in the play queue of the Deezer desktop app or web player in the lower left corner of the album cover, don’t know if this also works with your setup.

Hi bluezzbastardzz,

Many thanks for your excellent reply.

On my set up, neither the web app nor the desktop app seem to offer any facility to check the streaming rate/audio quality. It is only in the Onkyo Controller that this is shown as 320 kbps. The page link is https://deezer.page.link/6EYFTUqVdzdTiEvt8. The disc was released in 2005. Played through Tidal, the quality is definitely better and the Onkyo Controller shows the rate as FLAC. The display on the network player itself also shows the difference between Deezer and Tidal streaming rates.

I see that it is possible to “report problem with track”. Would this be a good way of establishing that the streaming rate/audio quality is as Deezer intends?

Once again, many thanks for your very clear reply.

Best regards,
Crowsong

Have you set the deezer app streaming quality in the audio settings to HiFi? By default, Deezer limits the quality to what they call High Quality, which is 320 kbps, even if you have a HiFi account. 

Just checked in the web player, so it is indeed only available in HQ, not in HiFi which is rather rare in the current Deezer catalogue. You should make sure that you only compare HiFi albums to Tidal, also in Tidal, as they may offer several audio qualities for the same album as well, e.g. in FLAC or in MQA.

You could use the report option in Deezer to notify their catalogue team about it with the option “Other” where you can describe the audio problem further. But they can only ask their distributor if there is a better quality available and send it to Deezer.

Hi Rick,

Yes, I have it set to “High Fidelity Lossless Quality”. The “pop” tracks and other stuff I’ve played come through at the correct quality.

Thanks for checking.

Best regards,

Crowsong

Hi again bluezzbastardzz,

Many thanks for your definitive response. I see the HQ in your screenshot. It doesn’t show in my web player (will check again later in dark mode). Will check in the web app when I next log in. Will use the report option. I’m happy with Tidal’s FLAC and it will be good if Deezer usually matches this. Tidal’s MQA is good, but I can probably live without it. When I’ve found a recording I really like, I get the CD.

Best regards,

Crowsong

I guess you don’t look at the play queue in your web player, but at the album page where there is no indicator for audio quality on the album cover.

By the way, that recording is with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, not the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. 😉

Hi bluezzbastardz,

I looked everywhere for an indication of streaming quality, but did not see one. Will check again tonight. I think one of the problems with Deezer (and many other things) is a lack of consistency and/or clarity in terminology or explanations. For me, 320 kbps is not high quality and there is no reference to HQ or high quality in the setting for audio quality. Similarly, hunting around for other explanations, you can follow various trails before learning that, for example, “you can’t do this in the browser version”. Another example is offline playing. The only way I can get this to work is to log into the app, select what I want to play and then kill the internet connection. This is not a problem, but I do not think it is anywhere clearly explained (leastways, I faffed through various explanations before discovering the truth for myself).

Yes, it is the Bergen. Great version. The balance between actors and orchestra is “theatrical”, but works. I was doubtless trying to multitask at the time and my mind wandered. Should be working now, but this is more interesting (by many country miles).

BR,

Crowsong

The HQ abbreviation is a leftover from the time where Deezer did not offer HiFi streaming in all apps and on some hardware devices, so MP3 at 320kbps was “high quality” some years ago and in fact the highest quality you could get with a Premium account. Not so long ago it was still listed in the audio quality settings as well, but nowadays it says “Better - 320kbps” to avoid confusion. 😉 I’m not sure if this is also the same in all mobile apps though, but this related support article explains it:

https://support.deezer.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115003865685-Deezer-Audio-Quality

Concerning the Bergen Philharmonic recording, it was released by the Swedish label BIS, and I think this might be the reason why it is only available in HQ, as I remember some pipe organ albums from BIS in my related playlist which are also not available in HiFi.

To see the streaming quality click on the Queue icon (bottom right corner of the screen) after you start playing the song. The streaming quality will be shown in the lower left corner of the album cover picture. As @bluezzbastardzz noted above HQ means 320 kbps. HiFi is the lossless stream. I don’t believe there’s any way to identify what streams are available prior to playing a track. 

If there’s no option to change the default audio quality to HiFi (should be possible even if the track you want to listed to isn’t available in HiFi) that might be a result of ‘rolling your own’ solution by running the app in an emulator interfacing with the Onkyo app.