Low, or lower-end audio. Or middle. But not high.

[Rare White Ape]

I don't know. To answer that I would have to Google it.

[Tom Servo]

If I compare the audio between Spotify and my uploaded YT Music tracks, I have to believe that it's still lossy. Very lossy. Honestly, over headphones, Spotify sounds like ass compared to YT Music.

[FaultyMario]

My understanding is that YT has the infrastructure in place to beam out HD video and, because of that, they recommend a minimum encoding of 384 kbps, which is in the upper ranges of lossy.

Reason I asked is because I recently saw some ads for reissues of classic 90s albums with the "R3MASTER'DD" buzzword attached to them, and I thought, why bother if it's gonna sound like shit over Spotify?

[Tom Servo]

No doubt, and then you usually stream it over Bluetooth, which adds even more garbage to it.

It's not the greatest album, but Prodigy's "Fat of the Land" was an album that was big when I was in college and I still use it to test out bass. The difference in audio quality between Spotify and YT on that is astonishing.

That said, Spotify is built into my new car and it's like "well, the music will sound like shit, but I also have access to basically everything, so I guess six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other." On the other hand, the car advertised this stupidly fancy 14 speaker setup that's supposed to sound great (and shockingly, even podcasts sound like the people are sitting in the car with you), so...yeah. We're progressing really hard in one direction and regressing really hard in the other.

[Yw-slayer]

This thread has caused me to re-experiment with Tidal.

I wish there were a way to sync my folder structure so that I don't need to go into all of the Rockabye playlist and delete them, or delete all of my playlists, or select only a few to sync.

[CudaMan]

Spotify *should* be of fairly similar quality to YT Music given equal settings, most of the time. Often these non-HiFi streaming services default to a low quality stream, particularly on a mobile connection, and changing that can take audio quality from garbage to acceptable.

One exception I know of is Spotify feeds Chromecast Audio 256kbps files max, for some reason.

[CudaMan]

It's time for a new garage stereo. My 1992 Panasonic boombox is finally letting go. A few years ago I had a roommate with a Bose Wave radio which sounded much better in the garage and didn't take up much space. Finding a used one might be an option, though not quite everything I'm after.

As usual, after a bit of searching, I haven't quite found what I'm looking for.

- Decent enough sound quality (time to upgrade this aspect!)
- Bluetooth
- FM tuner, with a strong preference for dedicated preset buttons like you'd find in a car
- Space utilization is a factor in my overcrowded garage

I did find this KEiiD unitwhich is interesting right off the bat. Whaddya know, a Volkswagen car stereo adapted to be an all in one home system. They do have a Corolla-based radio that comes with separate bookshelf speakers, which would be more space efficient, but for some reason that radio (with KEiiD's own front panel buttons) doesn't appeal to me. Additional KEiiD questions in my mind:
- Completely unknown brand (quality, sound quality, warranty etc)
- Relatively small drivers, though that can still provide OK bass with the right cabinet porting (see Bose Wave Radio), but have they done that?
- It's wiiiide. Might as well be a big receiver.

... Which leads me to the option of a 2ch receiver and bookshelf speakers mounted to the wall(s). The enticing part about this option is I can choose my own speakers. The well-regarded Elac Debut 2.0 B6.2 (mouthful!) is currently on a big discount, so I'm tempted to scoop them up and figure out the rest later. A used receiver might be an option but finding a 2-channel with Bluetooth is limiting for sure.

Also receivers don't have proper buttons for radio presets and source selection, which makes changes take longer (I need to make changes as I walk by, not have to stand in front of it). The $150 Yamaha and Sony 2-channel receivers both make you cycle through sources to get to the one you want. Maybe not a big deal if FM and Bluetooth are right next to each other in the menu. And the remotes can solve this issue, if I can find a good spot for a remote that's also line of sight to the receiver.

[FaultyMario]

Get the Sonos that better fits your budget. That solves 3 out of your 4 needs.

Or maybe a WX-series if you're a Yamaha kind of guy.

[CudaMan]

I really want FM, my local area has some solid stations and they don't all stream on iHeart.

I'm halfway to a solution though. I bought those Elac bookshelves and got my vintage Yamaha receiver out of the closet. Cleaned off my tool chest and made room for it all. I've only had a short time playing with it but it sounds so much better already! I am going to enjoy wrenching that much more now.

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The old Yamaha is too nice/collectible to leave out in the garage long term. It's serving temporary duty. It's also gigantic and heavy. What I may end up with is an 80s/90s receiver because I've seen some of those on eBay with dedicated preset and source buttons. And then just hook up a BT receiver, or a Chromecast, or even just live with the RCA->3.5mm->USB-C chain to my phone.

It's all going to take up a bit too much space so I may have to get creative with a rack/shelf for the receiver, and wall mounts for the speakers. I have a high shelf I can put a receiver on, but only if it has a remote and it'll still work well in that location because it's out of reach.

[FaultyMario]

Noice!

If you're an itunes guy, get your hands on an old Apple tv to add wifi audio to an analog receiver.