Our current streaming quality is 96 kbps AAC. In the future we intend to offer 128 bits AAC for all users. 256 bits AAC will be available on demand.
Is this only for the web player or all clients? The current bitrate is a deal breaker for me.
When should I check back if this is done? Is there a roadmap with estimated deadlines or something? (Obsidian has this public Trello board for example.)
Also, 128 would still be a deal breaker, I hope you reconsider 256 for streaming too, not on demand only.
Whatās wrong with āon demandā ? Going to 256 by default would mean storing + serving 2.5x amount of data. I donāt believe this is viable for us or most of our listeners.
The best we could do in the short term is increase the bitrate to 128k to better align with other services.
Thereās currently no roadmap for building the infrastructure to support higher quality streams.
My bad, on demand is fine, I corrected my post to make it clearer.
I really hope youāll be able to stream more than 128kbps eventually, even if not for default. Until then I canāt switch. Iād rather donate to artists I like than make my experience this much worse.
128 for free services is expected anywhere else. 96 is noticeably low quality, and the kind of people that listen to a lot of music (Iād guess kind of an overlap with your target audience) can tell the difference between 128 and 256.
@NomarCub, I suspect an eventual long term goal could even be to provide lossless streaming once Resonate has the necessary resources. Itās certainly something I hope for. There are a lot of things that will need to happen before that can be realized though.
One thing I didnāt realize until it was pointed out to me is that since the audio files on Resonate are AAC, current bit-rates tend to still hold up compared to current streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music which use MP3 encoding.
@NomarCub would this be something that could make this less of a deal breaker, or have you listened to music on Resonate already and noticed a sizeable difference in quality compared to what youāre used to?
I havenāt noticed as big of a difference while listening on Resonate as I thought I would, but this isnāt necessarily my expertise, so Iād be interested to hear your thoughts and learn more about this myself.
Either way, I am in total agreement with you that a better bit-rate is definitely something that needs to be on the roadmap, but hopefully we can find a bit of a middle ground in the meantime that can satisfy your needs and make you interested in some of the other things weāre working toward at Resonate.
Really appreciate your feedback regardless, so thank you!
I havenāt noticed the difference on Resonate, in part because I havenāt found music here that I know enough for testing.
I did do local ABX tests in the past however, and I know I can tell 96kbps and even 128 from lossless if I listen carefully, but I canāt for 256.
The difference is definitely extremely noticeable thereās no doubt about that donāt worry itās not you. I know my music and other music I know well here sound really terrible and itās a big reason why I do not advertize the service for my listeners more, I just canāt ask them to commit to that kind of listening experience, whatever reason Iād have to do it. I think itās especially critical in the sense that when someone commits time and energy to music to the point they end up on a platform like Resonate, quality of the listening experience is usually a big thing to them, itās not like the people Resonate is trying to attract are the kind of casual ālisten on their phone in the transportā kind of audience.
I think 128kbps would be a bottomline minimum, 160kbps or 192kbps would start to be basically inaudible and yeah, at 256kbps thereās virtually no difference for 99% of human beings in 99,9% of listening contexts.
Hey all, you can now stream tracks in 192 bits AAC from your library collection (owned tracks)
Note that only tracks uploaded before 2020 are available (track id below 20202). I have only processed tracks that are currently owned (about 900 tracks) Also, we donāt have high res audio available for tracks uploaded in the early days.
