This document discusses hi-fi streaming services and whether they are worth paying more for compared to standard streaming services. It summarizes the views of an audio expert who argues that hi-fi streaming can restore the high quality of music that was lost with MP3s and compression. However, the document also describes an experiment that found most people could not distinguish between hi-fi and standard streaming services. Ultimately, the document concludes that hi-fi streaming is not necessarily worth paying more for given that many listeners cannot tell the difference in quality.

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Hannah (Nova) Granite
December 22, 2019
Professor Carly Hess
ENC 1101
Hi-Fi Streaming:
Worth it or Not?
As an avid music lover, I’m constantly listening to music! In the car, at home, at the
gym, you name it. Depending on what I’m doing or what my mood is, I’ll listen to just about
anything, from classical instrumental pieces to the newest hit pop song, I’d have to say my
favorite genre is rock music. With the volume cranked-up loud, and the bass beating through my
chest, nothing compares. I love stomping to the beat or beating on the dash and let’s not forget
singing into the hairbrush. Music fills more than our ears, it fills our hearts, and our souls. Over
the years the way we’ve listened to music has revolutionized dramatically, I mean in less than a
decade we revolutionized from a CD player to an MP3 player. However, while we’ve advanced
in the way we listen to music, audio experts believe we’ve lost the great sound quality that CD’s
carried.
In fact, Olufsen Lunny (2019) says Hi-Fi streaming is ultimately better than todays ways
of streaming and the revolution of MP3’s and downloads ruined quality music “the MP3
revolution came at a cost, namely a degradation in audio quality” and this is because the audio
quality was lost in order to make room for data storage. “For a time, streaming services, in
general, made quality worse.” (para.4). Lunny, continues to exclaim how HI-FI streaming will
return that great quality we once had while continuing to stream like normal. Streaming services
like Tidal, Deezer, and Qobuz have become quite the buzz in the streaming service competition.
Lunny talks up Hi-Fi streaming and exclaims that our ears will “thank us.”

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Personally, despite of the hype that Hi-Fi is talked up to be, most of the streaming I do
sounds just fine to me. However, I took Lunny’s words into consideration and decided to try
Deezer Hi-Fi for myself. To my findings, it wasn’t all the hype it talked up to be… Let me
shine some light on as to why. You see, these HI-FI streaming services will only sound as well
as you headset quality is worth. Say you have a cheap $10 pair of headphones, you aren’t going
to get the same great quality as a $100 pair. Chemi and Wells, (2016) ran a great unbiased
experiment with colleges to test HI-FI for themselves. They bought high quality equipment,
computers, headphones, soundboard, the whole Kabang! And yet this is what they concluded.
“The conclusion from our tests suggests that above a certain level of compression, people cannot
distinguish between services” (Para. 10).
Ultimently, my conclusion is, why pay more for a streaming service that 9 times out of 10
the listener can not tell the difference? While HI-Fi streaming might become the new way we
listen to music in the near future, I believe there is still much more room for improvement if
these companies wish to capture the hearts of consumers.
References
Chemi,E.,& Wells,N.(2016, August5).We testedhi-fi musicstreamingservices - andpeople
couldn'ttell the difference.cnbc.RetrievedNovember29,2019, from
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/05/hifi-music-streaming-services-people-cant-tell-it-when-they-hear-
it.html
Lunny,O. (2019, January18). Why High-FidelityStreamingIsThe AudioRevolutionYourEars
Have BeenWaitingFor.Forbes.RetrievedDecember4,2019, from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/oisinlunny/2019/01/18/why-high-fidelity-streaming-is-the-audio-
revolution-your-ears-have-been-waiting-for/#7036c37f73ff