CD v Streamed

It does not take 'big space and dollars' for a company to stream individual FLAC files.   Even streaming video, which requires much faster streaming rates, costs very little.  

A streaming service streams the file you request. (As an aside note that compression of a file and compression of music in the mastering stage are two completely different things).On Qobuz you may have an option of a CD quality file or a higher quality file. The resulting file is streamed at the bit-rate of the file. There is no ’downgrading’ in Qobuz, there is no point as the streaming costs are so small.  If you are experiencing different dynamics that is down to the master used, not the streaming rate of the file. Compression of a file will not compress the music.  These compressions, as noted, are completely different things.   Here’s the explanation from Qobuz re bit rate. 


“The Bitrate, the flow of binary data, expresses the speed of information per second. It is measured in bits per second and is calculated fairly easily. For CDs: 44,100 samples per second, each one sampled over 16 bits, everything over two channels (left-right stereo). We therefore get a bitrate equal to 44,100 x 16 x 2 = 1,411,200 bits per second: the bitrate of a CD is equal to 1.411 Mb/s.
In the case of streaming, the size and therefore the quality of the files should be chosen depending on the bitrate of internet available. With a theoretical maximum bitrate of 13 Mb/s, an ADSL is adequate for CD quality streaming (at 1.411 Mb/s). For Hi-Res sound streaming at a bitrate of 9.2 Mb/s, it is clear that you can quickly reach the ADSL limit. A fiber connection would therefore be preferable. For smartphone streaming, most platforms offer an MP3 format with a maximum bitrate of 320 Kb/s.”