2. digital
  3. 131794-103946

Is using streaming services worthy of an audiophile?

I read that a lot of people on this forum use Tidal etc. Is this ok from audiophile perspective? I mean, do people who use such services actually know what quality is streamed? Don’t you lose all control over your music when you surrender to streaming services?
defiantboomerang

Showing 3 responses by cycles2

cycles2
210 posts
 
I have yet to find a Redbook track on Tidal that's not as good or better sounding than the CD version I play locally on a high-end Ayre CD player.  Then there's MQA on Tidal which generally sounds better than their Redbook versions.  Not to mention that Tidal is mobile so I use it while in the car or travelling.  We recently used Tidal in rental cars driving through Italy & Spain with very little streaming interruption even in small villages. Pretty hard to beat at almost any price.
cycles2
210 posts
 
I still don't understand questions like 'is streaming services (namely Tidal) worthy for audiophiles'. Here's what I don't get. Streaming services like Tidal HiFi offer the same Redbook CD sample rate (44.1kHz, 16-bit) as the CDs you spin. If you believe your CD player sounds better or worse than Tidal HiFi, it's not because of the source of music.  It's usually due to the quality of your internal or external DAC chip set implementation and quality of the clock (oscillator) used to reduce jitter,

Tidal Redbook tracks and CD tracks sound the same to me when I compare using my Ayre CD player to Tidal Redbook tracks played via a Lumin S1.  The SQ difference tips in the direction of Tidal when playing MQA tracks. I already know the MQA haters will respond to this, but please only respond if you've ever listened to MQA tracks on Tidal via a decent Streamer/DAC and not a Bluesound Node 2 DAC.

If your definition of audiophile is vinyl, then I will concede that digital hasn't closed this gap, but the gap is narrowing and the convenience of digital must be considered. Pretty hard to listen to vinyl when you're driving or not in front of your 2-channel rig.
cycles2
210 posts
 
@willemj, I mainly listen to digital, but I must admit there's something pretty special about listening to a clean well recorded vinyl album. I have yet to find any digital versions of Genesis' Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or The Who's Quadrophenia albums that sound as good as the vinyl versions.  And that includes a hi-rez (96kHz, 24-bit) version of Quadrophenia. 
More to discover