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Sound quality

C
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Hi,

I’m trying to decide whether to go for Deezer or Tidal. I have “top level” trial subscriptions with both these. Settings for both are made via desktop apps. Playback is via an Onkyo network player in my hi-fi system. To operate the player, I have had to install the Onkyo Controller. As I do not own (or want) a smartphone, this has had to be done via installing an emulator (BlueStacks) on my laptop. This allows me to operate the Onkyo Controller via my laptop. In this Controller, there is no control to adjust audio quality in the Deezer/Tidal interfaces.

When playing Peer Gynt by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, I was disappointed with Deezer’s sound quality. The Controller showed this to be 320 kbps. Switching immediately to Tidal and playing the same album at exactly the same level, the quality was far superior (shown as FLAC and not MQA). Playing two “pop” tracks (Another Love by Tom Odell and Ruby Tuesday by Melanie), playback via Deezer is shown as FLAC and I find the quality acceptable. What is happening? I would prefer to go with Deezer (not only because it’s cheaper), but I can’t accept the 320 kbps quality for classical music. The Deezer app shows that the quality for the Peer Gynt should be the same as for the “pop” tracks.

I’ve looked through the “knowledge bases” for answers to this, but have just been taken round in circles.

Any answers and/or explanations gratefully received.

Best regards,
Crowsong

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16 replies

bluezzbastardzz
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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.

ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen (Bluezz Bastardzz and Indigo Rocks, available on Deezer)
C
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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

R
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Userlevel 6
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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. 

bluezzbastardzz
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The page link is https://deezer.page.link/6EYFTUqVdzdTiEvt8

​

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.

ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen (Bluezz Bastardzz and Indigo Rocks, available on Deezer)
C
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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

C
Rank

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

bluezzbastardzz
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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. 😉

ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen (Bluezz Bastardzz and Indigo Rocks, available on Deezer)
C
Rank

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

bluezzbastardzz
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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.

ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen (Bluezz Bastardzz and Indigo Rocks, available on Deezer)
R
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Userlevel 6
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Hi bluezzbastardz,

I looked everywhere for an indication of streaming quality, but did not see one. Will check again tonight.

 

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.

C
Rank

Hi bluezzbastardz,

I don’t know if this will work, but here’s the “link” for the Grieg on Tidal https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/f8314783-9cae-4a30-90fc-d1a15d081095. The difference in sound quality was immediately noticeable when I switched from Deezer on first comparing reproduction via my Hi-Fi system. If you don’t have Tidal and the subject interests you, it is still possible to get a month’s free trial. However, Deezer FLAC seems good to me and you may not want to bother. (Blow, the link won’t work – you have to log in, no 30 seconds for free!)

Maybe Tidal also has higher quality versions of other BIS stuff. Will try to insert/attach a screenshot of what the Tidal browser version shows. The screenshot says that TIDAL Desktop can’t play “Master” but, if I remember correctly (happens once in a blue moon), MQA wasn’t/isn’t available. Tidal uses “Normal”, “High” and “HiFi” in its quality nomenclature (if the English version uses direct translations).

Tidal browser version info

Best regards,

Crowsong

C
Rank

Hi Rick,

Thanks, I didn’t realise that clicking the Queue icon showed the results on the album cover. I was looking for something on or around where I pressed. There is no problem setting the quality to “maximum”. As bluezzbastardz has explained, it seems Deezer only has this in HQ = 320 kbps. Will see if using the “report” facility can change this. I know Deezer has a good reputation for acting on things, but many other factors come into play here and I certainly don’t expect action.

Best regards,

Crowsong

bluezzbastardzz
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Meanwhile I have found a shorter “Best of” version of the same Peer Gynt recording by BIS on Deezer with 11 tracks, it’s also only available in HQ:

 

Here is the screenshot of the play queue view in the web player:

It may be intentional of BIS to not offer their highest available quality to streaming services, as they are known for their quality, e.g. these albums also have the Super Audio CD label on it (behind the HQ one). They do not officially offer their albums on YouTube either, don’t know for other sites, maybe not even on Spotify. OK, checked it, that album is available on Spotify, probably because they do not offer lossless streaming anyhow:

So now you can compare Spotify at 160kbps Ogg Vorbis (for free users) to Deezer at MP3 with 320kbps if you are bored.

Thanks for the Tidal link, by the way, but I think I will not test them, too much to do and listen to good music with HiFi sound in the meantime. 😉 But it’s good that you could identify the worse MP3 at 320kbps sound immediately, there are many people who cannot or do not care.

ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen (Bluezz Bastardzz and Indigo Rocks, available on Deezer)
R
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It’s admittedly not the most intuitive thing but helpful once you know it’s there - I usually go to the Queue screen as soon as I start listening since this stuff interests me. In an equally odd way if you Chromecast to a supported device from a phone app, the app doesn’t report what quality is playing but the device being cast to does…

 

Deezer need to add a Stats for nerds option like Netflix has!

C
Rank

Hi bluezzbastardz and Rick,

Thank you both for all the very useful information. I’ve learnt a lot. Will need to do more testing before picking D or T. I’m guessing that D will have FLAC/Hi-Fi quality for most of the stuff that interests me. Will most probably be buying the Peer Gynt on CD (if I can find a copy).

BR,

Crowsong

bluezzbastardzz
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There is still a chance that the Deezer catalogue team requests a HiFi version of the album, and BIS will send one, perhaps it was a long time ago when they (or their distributor) have sent their catalogue to Deezer which they usually do in one big data dump, I think, not only a few albums. Why should Tidal have a lossless version and not Deezer? By the way, ad-supported Tidal Free is only available in the U.S., as far as I know, and it only offers AAC at 160kbps.

ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen (Bluezz Bastardzz and Indigo Rocks, available on Deezer)
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