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?
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.
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
44.1 kHz - Stereo
and go to
24-Bit
192 kHz - Stereo (lossless files)
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.
... 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?
Qobuz doesn’t rip files, it receives digital files directly from the record companies. When comparing a streamed file to a CD, it’s often difficult (if not impossible) to determine whether they actually came from the same digital master. So many recordings have been remastered that making comparisons such as yours is a tricky business.
A lot depends on the quality of the streamer, too, and the rest of your digital connection.
The pros and cons with Streaming and Pc/Computer music is that you can mix and choose various artists and playlists, but a Big Con is that you loose the Album feeling from Cd and LP.
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?
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!
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.
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).
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.
Although I do stream with Qobuz, and the sound is very good, on my system, streaming sonically comes in last place to (in order): LP’s, SACDs and red book CDs. The difference in SQ amazes me every time I play a record. Of course streaming is much easier, and it has a limitless variety of selections.
Streaming all the way, the sq is of course dependent of your source...I went throughout the upgrade path from lumin D1, T1, and finally X1. There is no turning back for me, especially with tidal choices vs my cd library which I now rarely use.
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.
My subjective impressions of the musicality and sound quality of the major HD streaming services:
Qobuz
Primephonic
Spotify Premium (320 kbps Ogg Vorbis which is not lossless)
IDAGIO
Amazon HD
Tidal
Round 1, Spotify Premium vs Qobuz: I have Spotify Premium with a Family subscription. From a value standpoint, Spotify was my default choice that has the best search as well as working well for my family. From a critical listening perspective in my auditioning sessions, Spotify actually is not bad at conveying detail, pace and presence from music. It sounds musical. Any shortcomings that it has are errors of omission rather than errors of commission. I can listen to Spotify especially in mobile settings and be engaged and immersed in the music. After listening for a longer period of time, Qobuz is clearly better at conveying detail, transparency/clarity, pace and presence, but Spotify doesn't do anything noticeably wrong.
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)
Streaming can sound quite enjoyable, it's just not quite as good as playing back local files and definitely not as good as vinyl. However, I find that in this year of COVID and working from home that I'm streaming most of the time, because it allows me to listen to music while doing other things more easily.
See if you like the idea of listening through Pandora. Just know that if you like the idea of streaming, you can get FAR better sound quality via Qobuz. Even Spotify Premium sounds pretty decent. (Amazon HiFi & Tidal do not).
Think I will spend some daily time listening to Pandora through the app on my smart TV. A good idea to discover new artists and music. Have that as a handy guide to buy new CDs or LPs.
Good way to look at it, use the internet services as a sampler library, then look for the "least compressed" version CD/LP of it using the "dynamic range data website" http://dr.loudness-war.info/ (usually the earliest/first one) Get the label/cat no. buy used one for a couple of dollars on ebay, like I do.
I will always be oriented toward listening, my precious hours, to the best SQ I can muster. However, it seems very attractive to check out something like Pandora and how when selecting a favorite artist they mix in related content from others. Think I will spend some daily time listening to Pandora through the app on my smart TV. A good idea to discover new artists and music. Have that as a handy guide to buy new CDs or LPs.
Local files sound better to me than streaming, but streaming can sound enjoyable. The real benefit of streaming is the ability to switch music really easily and to have 100s of thousands of music tracks accessible whenever you want them. It's been a huge change in how I discover new music.
I love my Tidal, but also really love listening to my physical CDs and SACDs.
-Tidal, Spotify, Qobuz, are not comprehensive catalogues. I have plenty of physical discs that just aren’t on them. Every time we undergo a format conversion, it’s never all transcribed. (Famously, De La Soul, is not on streaming... these kids are missing out on history!)
-Lots of artists have ’special edition’ albums on streaming services. They just include another hour of unreleased B-sides and mixes. It’s to run up their score and make a few extra cents if you just leave it playing in the background. It’s almost like spam, or those recipe articles with Dickensian intros for SEO. I find it disingenuous.
-Likewise, A helpful thing with streaming was to turn auto-play, or repeat, off. I want silence when my albums are done, give the mind some time to digest.
-If I’m winding down at night, there’s a psychological merit to listening to something that has zero connection to the internet. Or if I’m coding, I want the music playing to come from a place that’s separate from the machine I’m working on. Having a disc play though is just one less distraction.
Also noteworthy, my CDP (Denon DCD S10) has a digital input, so I'm listening to all sources through the same converter. SACD is converted to PCM 88.2khz before being piped in (fight me) and MQA is either 88.2khz or 96khz. Rather than sweat every iota of performance from each medium and have a jumble of boxes, my goal was to reduce the differences between the sources and simplify my connections. And I really just love the look of my S10 set.
I only recently began paying attention to the signal path from the modem to the music server and from the modem to the DAC. And linear power supplies. I did not take what people wrote seriously. It was my loss. The quality of streaming when set up properly in this way is magic. Keep tweaking your streaming process and you will find that you don’t have to trade off SQ for convenience. I’m so glad that digital technology has finally gotten to parity with vinyl. Different but equal. Keep tweaking your digital, it’s well worth it.
CD when i want to Focus, Streaming for backroundmusic, or to just relax and listen to a playlist, or discover new music, that I then buy on CD, SACD or BD.
Yes good way for it’s use. That’s why so many I know have dropped out of our "audiophile" club meetings and listening sessions after turning to streaming, they use it like the "house radio", and don’t seem to "focus" and listen anymore like they used to. They're not audiophiles anymore (good or bad)?
CD when i want to Focus, Streaming for backroundmusic, or to just relax and listen to a playlist, or discover new music, that I then buy on CD, SACD or BD.
And much to the horror, dismay or denial of some, that sound is probably a better replica of the master than either vinyl or CD can be - understandable
maybe what makes someone an audiophile is a desire to make something that really should not sound good (or even work at all) sound great. Vinyl, when you think about it, really should sound rubbish, even if it made a noise at all. How is it possible that a groove can be cut like that, and a needle run through it, and the music comes out just so alive? It should be impossible, let alone sound great. Getting great sound from vinyl is an achievement. A miracle. Ditto CD. You look at it and wonder ‘how can that even work?’ And again the triumph is not merely that it works at all, but that it can be made to sound so good. Good sound from CD is an achievement. But less of one than vinyl so some vinyl audiophiles don’t really let them in. But streaming? Of course it just works, like an iPhone or an Xbox just works. Bits stream from the digitised masters in the cloud service in perfect order to your dac, ready for exact unpacking. Where’s the achievement in that. Any 10 year old in their school lunch break can set up the Rasperry Pi they carry around in their pocket to be a streamer, and they can be playing hi res music from Qobuz into their headphones before they’ve finished their sandwich. And much to the horror, dismay or denial of some, that sound is probably a better replica of the master than either vinyl or CD can be - understandable, really, given the simplicity of the chain. Seems much to easy to be a hobby, let alone an obsession.
If you’re an audiophile and sound is the issue, you’ll probably like your physical media more!
Sound is the issue for me, that why I’ll stick with CD, even though not as convenient.
Just to go backwards to the vinyl days If convenience was the reason back then also I would have gone to 8 track/cassettes instead of staying with vinyl.
I’ve said it before, a few I know, have sold their huge 30+ years collection library of CD’s, gone over to to streaming, they now have given up on being audiophiles. Don’t come to the audio society meetings or members home gatherings for drinks and shoot outs between equipment, just gone MIA.
I began streaming two months ago. I am old school and enjoy opening a cd and putting it into a player. I am happy to say that I no longer have an interest in using a cd player. The fidelity of some hi-res recordings is to die for!
If your a music lover, streaming makes life simple, so much music readily ay hand! If you’re an audiophile and sound is the issue, you’ll probably like your physical media more!
I just got my first streamer (Node2i) and Tidal about 6 months ago. While I am enjoying the selection and music discovery, I cannot think of one time that I was simply blown away by the sound quality. It's fine.... no complaints.... but I've not been bowled over by anything, like I am with CD or Vinyl playback. I do know that streaming Tidal from my computer through my pro-audio interface sounds better than the Node2i. I'm still very happy with the Node2i overall though. Love the alarm feature. I wake up to an 80's new-wave station every morning.
I can say this about comparing music from CDs vs SSD files. On my system, which I feel is very resolving now, they sound very close to the same. I am a bit chagrined about that considering I ripped all of my CDs using a $40 DVD/CD Reader/writer attached to my MacBook Pro using DBPowerAmp's CD ripper. I got me a CD Transport that uses vacuum tubes on the output. This transport has several output options: BNC, Coaxial, optical and it also can upsample CDs to 128kHz DSD with output through either I2S or 3 BNC connectors (I think this output is SS). My DAC also uses vacuum tubes on the output plus it has a vacuum tube regulated power supply. It sounds very nice. The 3 BNC output/input sounds the best and the I2S is very nearly identical. I was blown away with the sound of CDs on my new system. I hear details in my CDs now that I had never heard before. It dispelled all of my notions about the limitations of CDs. Plus I can listen to my CDs all day long. Not like before where after one disc or so I either switched to vinyl or walked away. So after getting the music server I listened back and forth and I cannot really tell much difference between spinning the CD and playing the FLAC. Still, I enjoy spinning the CDs but sitting in my chair with my iPad and getting the same and even better sound with hi res is going to make me lazy I think.
I'll share something not digital related to put into context my previous entry. Since retiring recently, I have revamped my stereo system. I replaced my preamp of 22 years, my CD player of 15 years with a DAC and CD Transport, and my amp of 21 years. I replaced my turntable of 27 years last year. I also replaced all of my cabling from my tonearm to my power cords. After all that I put on my 40 year old vinyl copy of Mobile Fidelity Labs, Dark Side of the Moon. Near the end of the 2nd side the "voice" was actually laughing inside my head. It was like I had on headphones. I nearly jumped out of my chair. That was the first time the imaging extended all of the way to my listening chair. I don't know how they did that but that type of experience makes it all worth it.
I am relatively new to streaming. I tried a few different paths before settling on my music server running Roon with an internal 2TB SSD. I ripped my CD collection to FLAC files. I found adding a $20 network switch between my Router and Music Server improved the sound of CD quality (44.1kHz, 16 bit) streaming music (Everything else in the house uses WiFi). I added an LPS to the network switch mostly to feel better but I think it helped a little too. Streaming CD quality is still a little less than playing FLAC files on the SSD. The bass is better with the SSD files. Hi res music (anything 24 bit) didn't seem to change much with the network switch. Hi res streaming and playing SSD hi res files seem pretty close. They sound great either way. Hi res audio creates a nice large soundstage. The big step up is downloaded MQA files stored on the SSD. MQA files create a holographic soundstage that fills the front half of the room rivaling the best vinyl that I have.
Were that true, analog would have infinite resolution which, of course, it doesn't. You probably hold the mistaken notion that digital "chops" the sound into discontinuous bits, but that's not how digital works. You might want to watch this.
This is how I relate using streaming (either reading from a hard drive or from the internet): ‘Some people still think that using pen and paper is better than using computers.’ It was proven over a dozen years ago that reading music from a hard drive sounded better than reading it from a cd. Also with hi-res source material: SACD, dsd, and MQA, these formats exceed vinyl.
Def CD. My wife, occasionally, actually pays attention to what I’m playing. I was listening to my newly received Japanese recorded CD of Days of Future Passed when, from the bedroom around the corner, I heard “wow, that was so clear . . it sounded great.” She did have a basis of comparison as every morning for about 3 weeks before it was DOFP on Spotify streamed through a Mac MB50 to a Mac MA252 to SF Olympica llls. And for me sitting in the sweet spot, the richness and timbre of voices were definitely clearer and fuller on the CD. But, Spotify has given me a universe of music for 10/month. Best of both worlds. And my CD player is a Sony 300 disc changer. Makes me sad to think how much better the CD might sound with a “real” CD player.
Both CDs and streaming sound very good on my system with CDs having a definite edge. But ever since I acquired the GeerFab Sound extractor, SACDs have been my go-to for sound quality. SACDs come very close to analog with this device. Red book CDs are enhanced sonically as well with it. Records still sound the best though.
Streaming is for babies!!! Real men spin vinyl. Put a turntable in your office.
Whatever the sample and bit rate, analog is infinite. My main listening is done through a TT rig. The one CD a day in my office system-“wow, that’s interesting”. The several LPs a day in my main rig-“wow, I am speechless”.
If the bits are the same, and the compression is lossless, the sound is the same. It doesn't matter what differences people think they hear. They don't exist. And the bits of a high quality streaming service, like Amazon Music HD, are the same as CD. Actually, Amazon Music UHD has more bitrate depth than CDs.
I've sold most of my CDs, except the nearly impossible to replace, the very few that aren't on my streaming service and the remasters. Streaming saves a lot of physical storage space, obviously the selection is almost limitless and the convenience is ridiculous. Everything about my streaming, even turning on my system, is voice-controlled. Plus, I can wirelessly cast my ripped CDs from my laptop. CDs are going extinct.
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