In the middle and late April, a news was exposed that could easily be ignored. Netease cloud music was about to launch the hi res sound quality option, and the gray scale test was conducted at that time. Then on May 12, Netease cloud music officially launched the hi res audio quality option. As long as you are a VIP or above member, you can see this red special "hi res" logo in the sound quality options of some music.
Not only that, Netease cloud music also specially set up a hi res zone, which allows you to enjoy high-quality music in a million level music pool as long as you pay.
I have to doubt whether Netease cloud music has recruited a "brain amplifier expert", or perhaps a 5g enthusiast who may not use up all his traffic for a lifetime, and wants to find a reasonable occasion to consume your 5g traffic.
The hi res sound quality option is added to Netease cloud music, a popular software that can no longer be used by the public. This is the same as when I saw Ruixing promoting his own Arabica coffee beans. It is a funny thing.
Hi res sound quality? I'm sorry I heard for the first time
However, there is no one size fits all. Without any re payment, users can get better sound quality by selecting the "hi res" option on the tall. It's true that Netease cloud music is a great philanthropist. It's just that I don't know how many classical music can be subdivided in this million level music library. Anyway, only one classical music in my more than 100 songs list is hi res sound quality. Maybe the music I listen to is relatively small, This is understandable.
After reading the million level hi res music library, it is not difficult to find that the music in the recommendation column is indeed popular enough. There are thousands of comments on any one song, and everyone has a great discussion.
I can't be too sensitive. After all, it's better for most users to provide hi res sound quality on the basis of basic members.
But the problem is, when you open Netease cloud music, you will find that in addition to the regular music content, there are FM radio, live broadcast, blog and audio book. It obviously targets a wider range of users than Apple Music and tidal, who listen to music only. When you go out, you may want to listen to Netease cloud music for convenience. You may not pay attention to the sound quality options. For users who pursue sound quality, Can you really distinguish between "lossless" sound quality and "hi res" sound quality options?
This is the picture source of Netease cloud music status: PinWan lzh photo
First of all, we must correct the concept that hi res is not any sound quality format. Netease cloud music uses hi res sound quality, which seems too ambiguous to me.
It is a high-quality audio design standard proposed by Sony and formulated by Japan audio Association and Japan Consumer Electronics Association. This "little gold label" which is very common on the earphone packaging at present is because Sony specially made a logo to distinguish its high standard equipment from the public equipment in the market in order to meet the needs of the market.
Hi res is not any sound quality grid source: Network
Later, Sony did open source certification to avoid being told that this was a foolhardy and expensive practice. Generally speaking, it refers to sound sources that exceed the CD's 16 bit depth and 44.1KHz sampling frequency, such as 24bit/48khz, 88.2khz, 96KHz, 176.4khz, 192Khz FLAC and WAV files, which can be regarded as hi res sound quality. In addition, certification is another thing. In short, as long as they meet the hi res standard, You can get the certification by paying money every year. Don't think it's difficult. Even the xiaomiquan iron earphones have passed the hi res certification.
Hi res product side certification requirements figure source: Network
In the final analysis, hi res is a quantitative embodiment standard of reaction reduction degree.
Since Netease cloud music has provided lossless sound quality options, it is necessary to add hi res sound quality. What is the difference between the two? Originally, I wanted to download it and put it into professional audio software for reading, but the hi res sound quality is the same as the lossless sound quality, which has been encrypted by NCM.
This is the size image of hi res audio file I downloaded. Source: PinWan lzh photo
The lossless size of the same song is 15 megabytes, and the size of hi res file is 28 megabytes. Although from the size point of view, the higher the definition, the larger the file size, but this is not the same as the frequently used 400. 500 megabytes of DSD files to compare, there is an order of magnitude gap between this. I can only guess that there is a difference between the frequency used and the sampling accuracy. I dare not say anything about the others, nor dare I ask.
Netease cloud music +hi res= Twist Bar
Many people in the comment area said: the larger the audio file is, the better the music is.
This is the most bullshit conclusion I have ever heard. With high adoption rate and high accuracy, more details in the source file can be preserved, so that the amount of information can be preserved when using the equipment for playback. However, it is still necessary to see the playback equipment. Listening to the hotel California with the original channel 9.9 mailed headset and Senhai Orpheus, although they can cry, the listening feeling is absolutely different.
Even if the hi res file in Netease cloud music has a size of 200MB, users may not only not cry, but also be silent.
The problem lies in positioning: users who are still using Netease cloud music or listening to music on their mobile phones are basically listening to music wirelessly.
For mass users, the perception is not strong; For professional users, they scoff.
I believe that few mobile phones do not install Netease cloud music as a necessary software, and I also believe that paying to become a member is also the first choice for most users (I still want to like Taobao 88vip). After becoming a member, it is also the first thing to switch the sound quality from normal to lossless. After switching to hi res audio quality, these mass users may have to swear because they may not recognize the difference at all.
The biggest problem is in the transmission link. For the general public, using wireless headphones is definitely the first choice for Netease cloud HD Audio users. However, most real wireless headphones do not have HD protocols, and very few can achieve hi res audio quality. Take the LDAC with the highest transmission efficiency at present. It can support up to 96khz/24bit format, and the transmission rate can reach about 990kbps. However, the types of wireless headphones equipped with this technology are few and expensive. The domestic lhdc technology can achieve high adoption rate and bit rate comparable to hi res sound quality, but it has high requirements for the front-end equipment system.
Transmission rate and specifications of mainstream wireless protocols source: Network
Not to mention ordinary people, the "golden ears" like professional audio users may not recognize the difference, because the limit of human ears is 20kHz. For mass users, they may have to see the hi res open their minds to indicate that they have changed.
In fact, most users listen to music with SBC wireless earphones that only support 44.1KHz sampling rate and 328kbps bit transmission rate. At present, a considerable number of earphones are equipped with aptx family buckets, but they are only close to the CD sound quality level. In addition, the transmission rate is only 600kbps bit rate.
And for Apple As far as users are concerned, the current airpods series only supports AAC, not even the lossless format of their own Apple Music, not to mention the third-party music platform. There is a rumor that Apple will release its own lossless Bluetooth transmission protocol on WWDC. We can look forward to it.
In my song list, only one special eccentric song supports "hi res" sound quality image source: PinWan lzh photo
For the captious users of professional audio, the "hi res" function of Netease cloud music is better than nothing.
In addition to some users who do buy high-end real wireless headphones to make it easier for them to go out and listen, most enthusiasts will choose the portable decoding earphone to solve the problem that the mobile phone does not have a 3.5 earphone port. Generally, these users are classical music lovers. Netease cloud provides few hi res classical symphonic tracks. For example, there is no hi res in classical music such as Bolero. It may be that this version will be released in a few days, and they are not even qualified to experience hi res.
Let's take a look at the hi res file size image source in Sony Music App: PinWan lzh photo
Moreover, there is already a Sony Music App in the market with excellent support for the quantity of classical music and audio quality. Why buy another member for Netease cloud music whose music library is not fully supported?
In addition, there is Haibei music app, which is well known by hifi users. It not only has Sony Music directly built in, but also can directly open the USB exclusive mode by using Haibei's own small tail. This one-stop solution is a professional function that Netease cloud music cannot provide.
Audio manufacturers have begun to provide a complete set of solutions from software to hardware figure source: PinWan lzh photo
Of course, it does not mean that for hifi users, the hi res of Netease cloud music is completely useless. For a very small number of enthusiasts (such as me), they are usually lazy and use the Android hifi player with global features that can bypass the Android SRC problem. This can make full use of the "lossless" and "hi res" HD file formats of Netease cloud music.
Source: Official Website of seashell
It can be said that the hi res format added by Netease cloud music can not be perceived by ordinary users, and it is difficult for hifi enthusiasts to "pay for it" because of listening habits and music library problems.
What is Netease cloud music playing? Traffic
On May 24, Netease cloud music released its financial performance report for the first quarter of 2022. The report showed that the sharp increase in its paying users, the increase in gross profit margin and the decrease in net loss really showed that its performance was really brilliant. In addition, member subscriptions were the largest source of revenue.
All kinds of "broken" member prices do have a strong attraction for new users. It is difficult to tell whether these customers are really listening to music because they are bought through profit sharing promotion, plus "bundling" sales, hi res and other selling points.
The following problems are obvious. It is very likely that such users will not become frequent customers of Netease cloud music. According to the financial report, the monthly live users of Netease cloud music online music service in the first quarter decreased from 183.1 million in the same period of the previous year to 181.7 million in the current quarter, with a net loss of 1.4 million.
This is also a loss after everyone is at home and has more online leisure time. It shows that Netease cloud music alone cannot attract more users by listening to music. In addition, it is reported that the vast majority of users browse the comment area while listening to songs.
The comment area is still the gold lettered signboard of Netease cloud applications, which can bring a steady stream of traffic to Netease cloud music; The hi res sound quality may not give ordinary users a strong sense of sound quality, but if you look at the traffic that runs in the background every time you open this sound quality level outdoors, and then discuss it in the comment area, the traffic perception is too strong.
Netease cloud music users' feedback on hi res image source: PinWan lzh photo
Finally, I would like to persuade Netease cloud music to have fewer useless "innovative" functions such as seamless playback and double speed playback, and less "Ruixing Arabica" like publicity, and more ideas and actions to solve the copyright problem of music library and improve the number of music.
Since the domestic music streaming media industry has nothing to lose, it should be rotten. In the end, you may be very comfortable, but you can't "lie flat", right.