"Audiophiles are Snobs" features an idiot! He states, with no equivocation, that $5,000 and $10,000 speakers sound equally good and a $500 and $5,000 integrated amp sound equally good. He is either deaf or a liar or both! There is a site filled with posters like him called Audio Science Review. If a reasonable person posts, they immediately tear him down, using selected words and/or sentences as 100% proof that the audiophile is dumb and stupid with his money and that the high end audio equipment/cable/tweak sellers are criminals who commit fraud on the public.
Showing 4 responses by fleschler
@audioman58 Too much work to get streaming to sound as good as my CD playback.Also, unless one downloads the music, one is at the mercy of TIdal or Qobuz from deleting music one may want to hear.Next, only about 15% of streamed files are truly hi-rez. The rest are CD quality or worse, of unknown mastering providence. One of my friends keep their CDs but only play them ripped via EAC to thumbdrives into computers/Berkeley/Meridian Ultradac in a $500,000 system. I use a high end DAC and transport. After acquiring the Synergistic Research Atmosphere X Eurphoria digital cable, I enjoy my 7,000 CDs as much as my 28,000 LPs. I find 50's & 60's jazz CDs often sound as good or better than the LPs. Classical also can sound great. Unfortunately, rock and pop from the 70's on generally don't (bad digital mastering/compression/noise filtering, etc). The latter is the case for most streamed files as well. Occasionally, an entire series of CDs sound dreadful for those reasons (RCA/BMG remastered mono opera recordings from 10 years ago are compressed, bass shy, shrill, etc). They are no better streamed, only the early versions from the 80s sound like the LPs. |
Ha, ha. I have tried four low end Marantz CD players (as transports) in my high end system. As CD players, they were warm and slow, lacking in resolution and openness. For $600-$1000, they were okay but old Denon 1500 and Kyocera 310 kills them. I went with separate high end DAC/transport with a Synergistic Research Atmosphere X Euphoria digital cable and now my digital competes with my analog (VPI TNT VI/moded SME IV/Zesto Allesso SUT/Dynavector 20X2 L). Again, streaming is great to find new music but is abysmal for listening to 40% of my collection of 78s/LPs/CDs, most will never be available in another format (especially ethnic music). Then there is the problem of availability one day and gone the next (at least download good stuff to keep on an HD server or thumbdrive) and the 15% which is actually available in high rez, not compressed, poorly remastered or just CD quality (as if that were not sufficient). |
I completely agree. Mastering must be the same if the same results from streamers and CDs are to be similar or even the same. Perhaps a streamer can reproduce sound/music equivalent to a CD playback. I am unfamiliar with streamers capabilities generally (except at audio shows). Why streamers often use inferior remastered/altered recordings which are compressed and louder is the question. Why not just use a good CD as the streamer basis (or is it a financial reason)? |