Like it or not, we do lose hearing as we age. But even at 61, I can hear a diference between Spotify’s free tier and CDs. Which sound different than vinyl.

I agree most people don’t listen closely enough to hear the difference, or can’t hear a difference (many people can’t even focus on individual instruments in a song), or don’t even care. And after decades of listening to compressed music on their phones, they may even prefer the sound of squashed music?

I listened to Apple’s new Dolby Atmos processing recently and it sounded horrible to me. Every sounded dry, flat, and lifeless just so they could move things around in space. I didn’t like it.

I have switched to Apple’s lossless music (it is not the default) but have not done any comparisons. But it is definitely welcome.

This is an older article so you have to take that into consideration. I believe it was true at the time of its writing. Things have changed for the better (lossless music on Apple), except Dolby Atmos (yuck.) Thanks for responding.