You told us: Most of you are already paying for lossless music streaming

Lossless music streaming has been a fixture on major streaming services in the last couple of years, coming a long way from TIDAL being the only major service to offer the feature.

Nowadays, the likes of Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Deezer all offer lossless music streaming. You have to pay extra for this feature in some cases, so are Android Authority readers open to splashing out for this option? That’s what we asked a few days ago, and here’s how you responded.

Would you pay for lossless music streaming?

Results

The poll was published on September 4, accruing almost 2,000 votes as of writing. The most popular pick? Well, ~55% of respondents say they’re already paying for lossless music streaming. Oddly enough, only a few comments point to a specific paid streaming platform (TIDAL and Qobuz).

Meanwhile, ~26% of polled readers dismiss the idea of paying for lossless streaming, saying that it simply isn’t worth it. This is an understandable approach, especially when the difference between lossy and lossless music is hard to discern for many people (especially via Bluetooth).

More reading: The best music streaming apps and services for Android

Finally, 18.5% of respondents say they’re on the wall about paying for lossless streaming services. This perhaps suggests that people are indeed intrigued by higher quality music but aren’t sure if it’s worth the money or if they’ll actually notice a difference.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that these types of polls often attract enthusiasts rather than the average consumer. Nevertheless, it does suggest that lossless music streaming has plenty of fans already.

Comments

• Owen: Personally, even with my Hifiman Sundaras, I took an online ab test of lossless VS 320kbps (the link escapes me atm), and only got a handful of right guesses. I don’t deny that lossless technically sounds better, it’s just I couldnt really tell a difference on a pair of nice wired headphones. Once you throw Bluetooth into the mix I think that lossless streaming would be kind of pointless, imo.
• Magic Carpet: No, it’s not worth it for 99% of people, but it has a nice placebo effect and many people like to claim that they are audiophiles and they can tell a difference. In reality, it only makes sense for professionals and serious audiophiles.
• Albin: Not an “audiophile”, years ago I ripped my CDs, first about half to the old WMA and then the rest to a higher quality MP3, and frankly don’t hear much qualitative difference playing them in any format on home equipment, or for that matter listening to some of them on the Naxos services or other streaming services. While it’s nice to have the same music on mobile, the ‘weakest link” in play performance out of the house is ambient noise. I’d question the claims for a lossless audio experience at any price walking down a city street, on transit or even in most passenger cars.
• colinashley: I love the move to streaming music (and books and movies). Less clutter in the home; I can try out pretty much any artist on the fly without having to first consider the purchase; I never spend money on an album I find out that I don’t like; and I can immediately listen to my collection anywhere I have an internet collection (or no connection if saved locally). My collection now only consists of albums not available via streaming…plus some LP covers I love.
• Daniel Mccarthy: I use qobuz..thru a high quality.yamaha, Kef set up. Side by side with Spotify using the same track..there is a difference..but it’s slight..the position of the instruments in the mix…but the point is I can’t say it’s better..just different..but I just feel better using qobuz..as for streaming platforms..amazing value the amount of artists I discover is unbelievable…if I had to buy everything I listen to now I would be broke.
• Drone9: Improve your Bluetooth connection stability first.

Thanks for voting in this poll and for dropping a comment. What do you make of these results? Let us know via the comments section.