Why Does Music Sound Different On Soundcloud?

[Borrowdale Barron]

What's the underlying reason music sounds different when uploaded to Soundcloud online music streaming platform?

 

[Black Panther]

One of the methods Soundcloud can maintain stable online streaming quality for different listeners is to transcode uploaded music to a lossy format such as an MP3 at a bit-rate of 128 kbps.

 

[Numero Uno]

Music sounds different different on Soundcloud because it is converted to an MP3 format when you upload it. This is why even Soundcloud recommends people to upload lossless WAV files.

 

[Borrowdale Barron]

Is there any serious technical downside to be encountered during audio conversion from WAV files to MP3 files which can be solved beforehand.

 

[Numero Uno]

Is there any serious technical downside to be encountered during audio conversion from WAV files to MP3 files which can be solved beforehand.

The downside to transcoding audio is noticeable distortion especially with high end frequencies worse still if the uploaded version of the song has inter-sample peaks.

So you have to make sure your music peaks at -1 dBFS to avoid inter-sample distortion. You can use a true-peak brickwall limiter to do that.