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CD Quality Versus Streaming Quality

I realize this will be a contentious subject, and far be it from me to challenge any of the many expert opinions on this forum, but if I may offer my feedback vis-a-vis what I am hearing, and gain some knowledge in the process.

i will begin saying that my digital front end setup is not state of the art, but i have had the good fortune to listen to a number of really high-end systems. I guess the number one deficit in my digital front end is a streamer server, and no question about it that will improve the sound.

My CD player is a universal player; Pioneer BDP-09fd. It uses Wolfson DACs. It has been modified to a degree. I have bought and sold other players, but kept this one, because it has a beautiful sound that serves the music well.

Recently, i ventured over to my son’s place and we hooked up my player (he doesn’t have one and rely’s on streaming only) We compared tracks / albums of CD quality and master quality streamed on Tidal with ‘redbook’ CDs I have. For example, some Lee Ritenaur CDs and some Indian classical and the wonderful Mozart and Chopin.
His system is highly resolving.

we were both very surprised to find the CDs played on the player to be the better sound. And not just by a little. The sound was clearly superior, with higher resolution and definition, spatial ques, much better and clearer imaging. Very surprising indeed. Shouldn’t there be no difference? This would suggest the streaming service is throttling the bandwidth or compressing the signal?

i am most interested to hear others’ observations, and suggestions as to why this might be? I do love the convenience aspect of streaming, but it IS expensive for a chap like me of fairly modest means. The Tidal HiFi topline service is $30 per month I believe, something the good lady is not too thrilled about. God forbid I should suggest Roon on top of that I may likely get my walking papers. I jest, but only partially LoL. My point is, if I pay this sort of money, isn’t it fair to expect sound to equal the digital stream from the CD player and silver disc?
Thoughts?

AK





4afsanakhan

Showing 1 response by p05129

p05129
525 posts
 

I sold my reference quality cd player 15 years ago because ripped music sounded better using 3rd party software like Pure Music. I still have a Sony $1500 SACD/cd player that I have used maybe 5 times in the last 10 years. With high res files and mqa, I sold my $15k turntable and all my vinyl and have never regretted it. 
Looking at some of these posts, they are using cheap stuff like blue jean cables or $100 audioquest cables, like those are high quality. My old usb cable when I used to own that flawed interface was close to $1000. 
The reader software you use makes all the difference for playback quality. If you use Apple’s iTunes/music software, anything will sound better. But if you use Audirvana or Roon, your playback quality goes way up.

Also, when you use a cd player, are you using toslink or coax outputs into an external dac? If so, those are the worst out[uts to use but not as bad as usb, so you already compromised your sound. Or if you use the single ended or balanced outputs, then you are really compromising the sound quality because you are using the internal dac inside the cd player. I have never heard a cd players internal dac sound any good (same goes for dacs built into integrated amps) compared to a standalone quality dac, like the Briscati, DCS, or PS Audio standalone dacs.

 

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