YouTube provides its users the ability to listen to a large number of songs and music videos, but experts advise against listening to your favorite songs on this popular platform. While YouTube is one of the most visited websites in the world, its focus is on video, and when it comes to audio, it is not the ideal place. If you want to listen to songs and music in excellent quality, YouTube is not the right choice.
Like any website, when video and audio are uploaded to YouTube, everything is compressed. The reason sites like YouTube do this is to make these video and audio files as small as possible, resulting in the loss of (typically) some noticeable details.
This is not the only problem with YouTube. Since 2015, the site has begun applying a filter to all audio in order to combat what is known as the "loudness war" in modern music. When artists started trying to produce louder music, YouTube decided to level everything out, ensuring that every video on the site has a reasonable volume level, regardless of the results.
The reason artists want louder music is simple: for many listeners, a louder and clearer sound makes them feel the song sounds better, and therefore they are more likely to like it and purchase it. YouTube's response wasn't just to compress the files but also to reduce the intensity of any sound uploaded to the site. Unfortunately, the results are not just quieter songs than intended; they are also muffled and less vibrant than what the artists wanted.
If you're a music lover, even if you've never noticed it, your favorite songs do not sound as alive and vibrant on YouTube as they do on Spotify or SoundCloud, for example. If you don't believe it, put on headphones and listen to your favorite song at the same volume on both YouTube and Spotify, and you will likely notice the difference, according to PhoneArena.
