Is Pretty Good Good Enough? Listening Habits In The World Of Streaming Services.

bigtwin

No offence at all. Perhaps you misunderstood. I have audio equipment because I like to listen to music and I like really good sound. If others buy it because they like the Macintosh dials and coloured lights, fine, their business, but not to my tastes.

If your streaming only good enough, you have a ways to go. Streaming need not be any kind of compromise, except for digital haters. I prefer my streaming setup by quite a margin, and my analog setup is not merely an afterthought.

there have been lively, well discussed threads in the past couple years with folks noting the comparative quality and cost of analog, digital-cdp/local files, digital-streamed front ends

those interested should use the search bar above to locate them, its easy peasy

i would say, regarding this

-- if your streamed digital isn’t as good as your local, cdp-derived digital, you haven’t done streaming right

-- if you’re used to analog and it sounds right to you in a way that no digital can, then that’s great, stick with analog - why suffer in a pursuit that should bring only joy?

-- to get an analog front end to be comparable to well done digital, the analog rig would be 3-4x the cost... including phono stage, cart, all the rest of it --- then, there is the obligatory record collection...

Bought a subscription to Quobuz back in February and I have nothing but good things to say about streaming. I don't think I have the critical listening skills that most on this forum has so I wan't speak to the quality of the sound. What I can say is having that kind of a library at your fingertips can significantly change your listening habits. I spend way more time listening now compared to when I was streaming my iTunes library, Pandora or listening to CDs. In fact, I've become a bit of a music whore. I'll literally give anyone a half hour of my time. I find myself listening to genres I never would have considered in the days of physical media. 

One of my favorite ways to spend time now is to settle down with an issue of Sterophile or The Absolute Sound and playing every song mentioned in the issue as I'm reading it. I've discovered so many artists doing this. It's made me realize how little I really knew about music before I started streaming.

I think there are many different reasons why people use streaming. The one that comes to my mind is it’s pretty universal and easily sourced through a lot of digital devices. The accessibility to such a large music data base is now open to even the normal Joe or Jane. There are so many views as to why streaming is good for that individual. I am an audiophile but I still have to drive my car to work and listen to what came with it. My car stereo does not beat what’s in my home audio 2 channel system. So driving with the enjoyment of Tidal HiFi. It helps the fact that new cars don’t come with CD players anymore. So it wasn’t easy to have an simple way to listen to high quality files until Tidal was on the market. In addition to that AppleCar Play and Android Auto have come into play on newer cars and aftermarket head units. So for me both of these technologies have been a blessing for me in the vehicle. To have acceptable sound quality sources on the road for my car audio system. This puts me back in my seat while cruising. I forget about the bad years of MP3 players replacing cd quality and technology is finally started to catch up with superior sound quality! I think this can only help to bring the Joes and Janes of the world. To possibly explore better electronics because the sound quality is already available to them with their Tidal subscription. They just have to be exposed to better electronics and speakers with a streaming service they already have.

When talking “critical listening”, any extra effort to seek the best source shouldn’t be an issue really.  If <critical then yeah stream to your heart’s content. When working I stream Pandora via WiFi and at times I even pause to listen to some pretty incredible sounding stuff.  When critical listening, I always reach for the CDs.