What do you specifically hear with Qobuz that’s better than Amazon Hd and Tidal?
CD or Streaming... am I missing out?
I listen to CD in my headphone office system. Use a Theta Compli transport and a very nice and pricey tube 16/44 DAC. Have thought about a streaming capability and all its benefits but am both limited by SPDF and by 16/44 only. I also love the analog sound of my tube DAC. Does streaming sound far surpass CD? Am I missing out?
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My listening notes: My subjective impressions of the musicality and sound quality of the major HD streaming services:
Round 2, Qobuz vs Tidal: So far Qobuz is clearly better than Tidal even listening through pretty cheap desktop passive speakers. Tidal sounds very two dimensional and flat in its sound quality but with some harshness in the high frequencies. I'll listen a bit more to Tidal, but so far I'm not impressed at all. Spotify Premium even seems to sound better than Tidal. Some additional thoughts about Tidal after listening on higher quality equipment. I think they have applied some equalization to boost the bass and treble. In the process, I think side effects of doing this is to take out some of the presence of voices and instruments and add an artificial quality to voices and instruments.. Qobuz sounds a LOT better. Spotify Premium also sounds better. To my ears at least. (Disclaimer: Your results may vary). I'm currently listening to a track that is a MQA file on Tidal vs a CD quality file on Qobuz. The CD quality file on Qobuz sounds a LOT fuller and more natural. Not a big fan of hip hop, but decided to listen to something that is squarely in Tidal's area of focus. I listened to 'The Box' by Roddy Ricch which is a MQA file on Tidal and CD quality on Qobuz. Same results. The Qobuz file sounds fuller and has more presence. Almost sounds like two different recordings when listening on Qobuz vs Tidal. Round 3, Qobuz vs Amazon HD: Winner for me is Qobuz for the following reasons.Amazon: Sounds more flat. Less drive than Qobuz so that some music sounds like it is plodding along. Sound is less full. Amazon HD doesn't necessarily do anything wrong (as does Tidal), but also clearly not as good as Qobuz to my ears. Qobuz: Much more presence than Amazon HD. More 3-dimensional. Better pace and drive. Better low-frequency response & definition. More range to conveying the emotion in music: (i.e., calmer for calmer music & more drive & pace for more upbeat music) |
I just started a Qobuz trial. Too early to tell if there is much (any) difference between Amazon HD. I can play the same songs right after each other and plan to do a comparison soon. I have listened exclusively to Qobuz for the past 2 days along with cd rips on a thumb drive. I thought the thumb drive sounded noticeably better than Amazon HD and I'm not getting that sense with Qobuz thus far. Noticeably is still a minor difference and I could live with either. My system is fairly revealing so if there is a difference I should be able to hear it. |
In my experiences from a long upgrade path with cd players and streaming, hi-res streaming beats the cd for sq. All the other reasons to go to streaming suggest to me that the cd is on the way out and unlike vinyl, will disappear in time as a choice. Streaming looks both forward into new music discovery and back into the history of music. Cd's are all about looking backward into music you already discovered. |
Are you comparing Spotify Premium and Amazon HD with Tidal Standard? I have both Spotify Premium and Tidal Hifi/Master and the latter is clearly much better. I have not tried Tidal Standard so I can't say how it compares. Regarding the original question if you are missing out I think you are missing a lot of good music if you stick to cd. The sq is probably the same or very close (when you use 16/44 or better). |
Two guys have two different audio systems. One is not better that the other since they have been individually selected for personal preferences. Both these guys have high quality CD players and have also invested in a high quality external DAC. Both like to explore music and have several hundred plus CDs. One guy Gus, decides to buy a streaming device. He buys a Bluesound Vault. He starts to rip his CDs to the HD in the vault because he wants to back up his CD collection. Now he has a near perfect FLAC file of each of his cherished CDs. He decides to listen to Tidal, Spotify and various other music service platforms that his Vault allows him to access. Now he hears albums he would like to own. Some of these CD albums he buys and some he finds at his local library and he can keep listening to these new CDs on his CD player but now can also get a bit perfect copy by placing them in the Vault. If he sells his cherished CD player and buys an updated DAC, he can connnect that DAC to his Vault to take advantage of the new DAC while listening to both streamed music and his Vault copies. The other guy, Glen keeps things simple and continues to enjoy his CDs. No problem with either situation at all. But music and technology allows us to explore and that can be fun. |
I recently replaced my Theta Miles CD player with a Bluesound Vault 2i and have loaded all of my CDs onto it (over 1000.) Note that I demoed the Vault against my CD player (attached to a Krell KAV 300i integrated amp and Thiel CS2.2 speakers) for several weeks before I purchased it, in addition to having many friends and family do blind testing between the Vault and the Miles CD player. The bottom line was that there was no discernible difference in sound quality. The vault sounded every bit as fantastic as the CD player did. The advantage of having all types of access to all of my own music as well as the all the music available on streaming services, at the touch of a finger, is simply superb! |
llarry Correct me if I'm wrong but looking at what you said sounds like the same dac wasn’t used in this A/B so how can anything be establish? Cheers George |
So here's the weird thing... This thread got me comparing stuff. I run Qobuz hi-res through a Cambridge Audio Azure851N streamer/DAC. Today, I hooked up an old, but good CD player (Linn Classik CD, integrated CD/tuner/amp). Not a really upper-upper-high-end device, but not garbage either. I use it as redbook player only, feed SPDIF into the same streamer/DAC. Now for the weird bit: the CD player sounds substantially better than the Qobuz FLAC at the same sample rate. Beter soundstage, better definition. How? Why? If i assume that Qobuz doesn't f*ck up the ripping proces, why is there such a difference? </puzzling> |
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“No- streaming does not surpass the CD.” In some cases/setups this is/isn’t so. Lot’s of variables but with a high bit rate on a good/great system steaming has arrived equaling or surpassing CD’s. YMMV. To dial in steaming getting results of par with high end vinyl or redbook (44,100 kHz) requires a top DAC (internal in streamer or separate), ethernet and the usual goodies but so do all other formats to sound amazing. On Qobuz music files start out at 16-Bit CD Quality and go to 24-Bit Just had a hard core vinyl fiend over. He zinged all over the music universe. He quipped the CD day’s are numbered. Could be? I ripped all the ones I had and sold my CD player (Thanks A Gone). It’s just a matter of preferences and alas pocketbook girth. |
I am a vinyl guy, then I went to CD and never looked back. Yes, early CD sound was iffy, but then early LPs were also bad sounding fidelity wise, both improved over time. I tried streaming, burning CDs, and gone to audio stores to hear the latest and greatest streamers along with my CDs of the same title streamed, and every time CD wins and easy, having said that if I was starting new streaming is easy, like streaming movies on TV, BUT play a DVD Blu-Ray disc and compare it to the ultra HD stream the disc wins easy every time in the picture and sound quality. It’s the same CD vs. streaming. I know streaming is hip and the #1-way folks download tracks etc, so to each his own, it is cool I guess, new, and I guess convenient, but the physical Discs with a high-quality CD player are hard to beat this coming from a vinyl collector. Not dissing vinyl but superior? that is a myth but if you enjoy it and there is a lot to enjoy that is all that matters. Yes, some vinyl sounds better if they are 1st pressing and purchased back in the 1950-the 1980s, though by the 80s vinyl quality was the pits. Master tapes were still new and fresh without the loss of fidelity over the many years now, something CD had to deal with, even finding the master tape or backups was hard to find. Many titles had run their course in sales and were deleted from their catalogs. The one good thing when CD came along was the new interest and companies released titles long out of print again knowing there be sales due to the new format, so much so I own music from the 1930s onward, and many titles would never see the light of day again, and in fact, many never to be streamed or for sure on new vinyl. Another good thing with digital was companies took all their masters or best sources and master them into digital format to be saved due to tapes being so old, much like old films are being preserved and remastered for future generations to be able to see again. So most new vinyl comes from a digital master source and if DSD is used it is as close to the master sound as the quality of the old tape can produce. Even by the early 80’s the Beatle master tapes were showing a loss of fidelity and tape hiss. The new Beatles Boxsets sound flat compared to the "Blue" English Past Masters 14 LP Boxset from the early ’80s. That was excellent and how the Beatles sounded, I believe it was the Parlaphone label. Stones on the German Telefunken label back then were also the best ever. Then the great M & K, Sheffield Labs, Telarc, and a few others really did great vinyl, but the majors sound went downhill, to compression, bad pressings, etc. Compare recording quality from say the 1950s to the early 60s to the late 60s and onward. No compression to what sounds more natural and real on a whole, there were always exceptions. In the end, it is what you like and enjoy, magazines market trends, streaming sells in the billions in tracks, it is convenient and people like that. I still like the physical so my CD collection grows when something interesting comes out but with 1,500 CDs I have all the music I ever could have dreamed of owning. It’s a boomer hobby and it dies when we leave this earth and we boomers grew up collecting LPs and listening to whole LPs in full which is one reason vinyl came back, not just a track of it here and there as in streaming generally. Young folks think it is dull and a waste of time to sit in front of 2 speakers to listen to music, iPhone, and buds and they are out the door and good to go and they can take their music anywhere in the car, friends’ homes, etc. Another digital radio is good enough and XM/Sirus. I have 125 in my family and extended family and not ones as an audio system of any high quality, and many make good money, they just have no interest, what they have is good enough and music is a background to them or at parties as background music. We philes are a speck in consumer sales, and really not catered to. In the 1950s producers and masters were trying to make records sound as real as possible. today it is overprocessed electronically altered, autotuned, with not even needing musicians in the same room, and in my opinion, all you do need is a cell phone and earbuds to listen to that sound quality of recorded music and it sounds good that way. I just read where CD sales are going up again so maybe a new trend. |
