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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 8 responses by sns

sns
3,003 posts
 
Maximizing streaming sound quality requires optimizing every single link in chain, not a simple undertaking. And then, as others have mentioned, the provenance of recording extremely important. My preference for cd rips or streams is extremely variable.
sns
3,003 posts
 
If you think streaming sounds bad, you're listening to poor streaming solution. Every single little thing matters in streaming, the network extremely important. All network equipment should have linear power supplies, quality ethernet cable, optical conversion, switches with OXCO clock. USB renderer, high quality usb cable, oxco clock in dac. And of course high quality server powered by high quality lps. Evolution of clocks is major upgrade in streaming.

Steaming sounds every bit as good as 2500 cd rips on Synology NAS powered by high quality lps.
sns
3,003 posts
 
Totally agree on provenance of recording. First of all,I don't listen to a lot of commercial music, there are many contemporary recordings that aren't compressed within an inch of their life. The 2500+ cd rips I have are from 80's through today, and they sound better than playing with any cd transport I owned, the last being a Mark Levinson  No.37 which used Phillips CDM 12 industrial transport mechanism with quality proprietary mounting system . When I say streams sound every bit as good as rips I'm comparing best of both.
Sure, there are a lot of compressed recordings on streaming services, just as there is cd's and vinyl. Quality streaming requires clean network, using generic grade equipment won't do. And I do have quality analog setup with well over 3000 albums from 1950's-today. Streaming can be a quality listening choice, one need not suffer inferior sound quality.
sns
3,003 posts
 
Well, the advantage of streaming is at least you didn't have to purchase the cd or vinyl only to find poorer sound quality than expected.  Download service providers should provide provenance, entire history. I thought HD Tracks did that, haven't purchased download in a couple years.
sns
3,003 posts
 
For the haters of streaming. I predict you'll all be listening and likely loving streaming at some point. CD's will continue to decline, vinyl limited releases. No wonder a lot of used streamers available, people upgrading streaming equipment, not giving up on it. We are in relatively early days of streaming, innovation will come fast and furious.

Now, obviously we can't control quality of any particular streaming recording, but then we could never control the recording quality of vinyl or cds. I've heard complaints of poor quality vinyl, cds for years, continues into today. Most of streaming quality complaints I see on this thread are of relatively low sound quality commercial recordings, Bruce Springsteen and Genesis are not what I'd call audiophile recordings. I have original vinyl, various cd versions and streaming versions of many Genesis albums, sure they sound somewhat different, none are miracles of sound quality. Streaming is extremely viable as quality sound source for audiophiles, not accepting it is akin to the analog purist never accepting digital sound. I just know my system lets me get into the music, cd rips, vinyl, streaming, I'm agnostic as to source, all are capable of fully immersing me into music. Sure, sound quality variable, correlates to recording quality far more than whether cd rip, vinyl or stream. Very few recordings unlistenable, only the most extreme compressed. Having said that, I mostly listen to music on my main system that doesn't suffer the usual over production of more commercial releases, I've long been bothered by those victims of loudness wars, over compression. That music saved for car or work system listening.
sns
3,003 posts
 
Fm stations purposely compress signal so they don't overmodulate and interfere with adjoining stations. All likely do it to some extent. I know some college and classical stations are at lower end of fm frequency spectrum, sometimes they can compress less as fewer stations at those fm freq. I believe commercial stations battle to get middle fm freq so you hit them as you go up and down dial. Then you need to consider the equipment they use to play the music. But why would anyone use fm for serious listening sessions, generally I want to control the music, although I let Roon radio take over sometimes.

sns
3,003 posts
 
Again, one needs to optimize streaming setup. In my early days of streaming, the two transports I was using in that period of time, PS Audio Perfectwave and/or Mark Levinson ML37, both top grade transports, bested streaming. Over time, as upgraded streaming setup, beat cd transport, this on cd rips over NAS. Over time and even more streaming upgrades, streaming now sounds extremely close to cd rips. I prefer Qobuz to Tidal by slight margin, use Roon with no digital processing.
sns
3,003 posts
 
You're experiencing the value of network optimization. Streaming should sound as good as cd rips or cd's over transport if one has network in order.
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