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"Hotel California" by the Eagles in the new recording on the "Hell Freezes Over" album from 1994 is perhaps the most played song at every audio trade fair, in every listening room at a hi-fi dealer.
The piece is particularly suitable for highlighting the weaknesses and strengths of speakers, amplifiers and headphones.
But if you play the song on your mobile phone via a streaming service such as Spotify or YouTube Music, you will probably not hear the fine nuances of the Eagles live version - regardless of the quality of the headphones.
Streaming services optimize their music streams so that they work in cellular networks with low data rates and limited data volumes.
The music is transmitted encoded with lossy compression algorithms; Spotify uses 96 kilobits per second in the normal setting on mobile phones.
This means that one second of streaming music only takes up about seven percent of the storage space that one second of data stream requires on a normal CD with 1411 kilobits - with corresponding loss of sound.
Details are lost, the music is less dynamic.
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For cheap headphones on the train or while jogging, 96 or 160 kilobits are completely sufficient.
But as soon as high-end hardware comes into play, even laypeople can hear a difference in blind tests - how clear depends not least on the music genre and recording quality.
It is precisely this high-end hardware that is currently more in demand than ever.
Like no other electronics company, Apple succeeds in discovering and reinforcing trends.
The Californians have just released their new Airpods Max.
They go in this country for 612 euros over Apple's virtual counter and are still sold out for weeks.
Other manufacturers are also benefiting from the hi-fi followers' willingness to upgrade during the pandemic, reveals Dave Rogers, head of the lifestyle division at Samsung's audio electronics subsidiary Harman WELT: "In autumn we saw double-digit growth rates for consumer audio products, which was October our strongest month ever. "
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In particular, hi-fi luxury products such as high-end headphones were in greater demand than ever: "Consumers sat at home and upgraded their audio systems for the living room."
But all the expensive electronics for sound reproduction are of no use if the source material is streamed at less than a tenth of the bit rate of a CD.
If you want to listen to music in at least CD quality, you have to optimize settings and coordinate devices.
"With the start of high-speed 5G mobile communications, high bit rates can also be used sensibly in mobile communications networks," comments Dave Rogers.
Set quality in the settings
So the source comes first: the streaming services even allow the bit rate to be increased.
With Spotify, for example, in the app under the menu item Settings and Music Quality.
With Apple Music, this runs on the iPhone and iPad via the settings and the menu item Music and mobile data.
Here streaming in high quality can be forced.
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But none of this is lossless.
Hi-Fi fans have to take out a separate streaming subscription for this.
Amazon offers this, for example, with an Amazon Music HD subscription, at a price that is 12.99 euros above the standard subscription.
In return, users get their music streamed in the lossless FLAC codec, with a data rate of up to 3.730 kilobits.
This should allow even more sound details than with an audio CD.
"This is currently no longer just something for the relatively small audiophile target group, we can see that it is well received," explains Henning Rümenapp, Head of Content for Amazon Music in Germany.
He believes: "That changes the listening experience and is not only interesting for jazz and classical music, but for all music scenes."
Rümenapp should know, he is the guitarist of the German hard rock band Guano Apes.
"We are currently actively asking the labels whether they can deliver the content to us again in high quality." Sometimes there is also remastering, for example for 3D sound.
Amazon is currently delivering the 3D sound experience for its new Echo Studio surround speaker.
Rümenapp is convinced: "Our Ultra HD format sounds even better than the classic CD: It has more dynamic range thanks to 24-bit resolution."
Wireless connection as a bottleneck
Another alternative for hi-fi fans is the Tidal Hifi streaming service, which also uses FLAC and costs 19.99 euros in the hi-fi version.
Music that has been specially mixed in quality is marked here with the addition “Master”.
Now it is important to correctly adjust the smartphone and headphones to each other, in particular the wireless radio transmission between the two can directly muddle the music quality that has just been achieved through its own compression.
Android smartphones and headphones should be able to use the APTX HD or APTX Adaptive wireless audio standards.
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Apple's mobile devices require headphones that are compatible with Apple's own AAC standard.
However, the best quality is still provided by the connection via a cable adapter.
Apple's Lightning adapter costs ten euros and supports high bit rates.
In the living room setting, high-resolution music often comes into its own on the classic stereo system, because it was originally designed for CD quality anyway.
Amplifiers and speakers reproduce particularly high and low frequencies without any problems.
New hi-fi amplifiers now often have built-in streaming functions, such as Google's Chromecast and Apple's Airplay.
Alternatively, streaming devices such as Amazon's Echo Link can send high quality audio to the stereo system.
But for which kind of music is the effort and the additional monthly costs for HD streaming worthwhile?
WELT has tested extensively, the author has tried, among other things, in a blind test to detect HD streaming.
The bottom line: If you use cheap headphones or simple Bluetooth boxes, you can save yourself money, the difference is not audible.
Quality only audible with a high-quality set-up
It is different with a higher-quality set-up: For the preview, we used a Sennheiser Momentum II on the cable to an external sound card on the PC with 192 kHz / 32-bit digital-to-analog converter and a Sony HD receiver on speakers from the British Hi-Fi -Manufacturer KEF.
Now it depends on the music: Currently at the top of the German media control charts is “Jerusalema” by the South African DJ Master KG - and in the blind test it was impossible to hear any difference.
Even for other pop chart hits like “Angst” by Apache 207 or “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd, HD streaming is a wasted effort.
So let's go to “Hotel California”: With the live recording, the difference becomes clearer, for example when the audience claps in the background, in the echo of the guitar or in the separation of bass and vocals.
It works even better with the song "Jack of Speed" by Steely Dan.
When the horns kick in, the Spotify version immediately loses against the HD version of Amazon Music in the blind test.
Other modern jazz classics also benefit from HD streaming - no surprise, since this genre is often obsessed with high quality recording and mastering.
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Classical music, however, is perhaps the genre that will benefit most from the move to the lossless FLAC codec.
New or newly mastered recordings in particular gain significantly and in the “Ultra HD” version can even surpass a classic CD.
Amazon Music has other weaknesses
Gluck's “Reigen blessed spirits” in the recording by cellist Camille Thomas is such an example.
The cello can put all its warmth into the loudspeaker without losing details of the rest of the instruments.
Amazon Music is usually not particularly suitable for listening to classical music, the search algorithm does not cope with the distinction between composer, solo artist and conductor, which makes the search for specific recordings much more difficult.
But the Deutsche Grammophon catalog is well sorted and often available in the ultra version.
For example the new recording of the Andante from Bach's Organ Sonata No. 4 by the Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson.
The strict bass chords of the right hand lose their power and precision in the compressed version, for example on YouTube, while they show their full effect in the FLAC codec.