My Long List of Amplifiers and My Personal Review of Each!

I see what you mean @cleeds .

I didn't go looking for YouTube videos. A member here, on a discussion forum, encouraged me to listen to them. I found his conclusion flawed. I wrote about those flaws.  That is what you do in a discussion forum. You discuss.

I have no responsibility to search out other YouTube videos or interest to do so. Due to the commercial nature I feel the op does have a responsibility to comment on why the sound did not change at all when someone walked right in front of a speaker during recording .

Does anyone consider the irrationality that an stupendously expensive amplifier (and associated other electronics) requires a stupendously expensive amplifier to deliver good results?   From their literature,

Until electrical energy reaches your system it has travel hundreds of meters from the generating station. There is certainly no high-quality power cable on this route, so the energy will encounter a whole kaleidoscope of interferences on its way – from a multitude of radio signals to the feedback of thoudands of electrical devices connected to the electrical grid.

When engineers remind philes about this when discussing cables they are pilloried, yet when someone is trying to selling you an inverter it is okay?

The Stromtank is a pure sine wave output. Do those same people who pillory engineers understand that for most equipment, almost without exception in audio today, that a pure sine wave is not an advantageous waveform. Perhaps you have noted that PS audio has a feature to output something other than a sine wave on their units? Yes Virginia there is life after a sine wave.

The Stromtank with 5KWh of storage is $30,000. The Tesla Powerwall installed and with 13.5KWh is about $10-11K installed ($8.5K on its own). I believe the LG Resu is even cheaper on a KHh basis.

I do quite enjoy Ricevs and Jay arguing about things of which they both, to me at least, seem greatly under qualified to be arguing about or characterizing. If those amps are as good as Jay claims, excuse my skepticism about any claim of reliably hearing that the Stromtank improves it,

FCC does not "approve" inverters. An inverter can be certified to meet FCC standards. That they use such language makes me question the validity of the claim. Their FCC marking is also not correct. They also states this only for the 5000W unit. Perhaps it was a requirement for a specific end customer (i.e. RV). The size is pretty typical (total volume) to other 5000W units.

When you start talking about the footers on the inverter changing the sound I know we are not going to have a useful conversation. Enjoy whatever part of the day it is where you are.

I could not find the same song at 0:00 and 3:00 approximately on any two Stromtank videos, so not sure what I was supposed to be comparing, however, some general comments:

• Lady in Red: There was no spatiality, there was simply excessive upper-mid/low high echo/reverberation. I know it is a youtube video, but it was pretty awful.
• Way Down in the Hole: Only slightly better. Strangely bright and reverberating.
• Suspicious Minds, La Isla Bonita -- more of the same.

Frankly, you can't discern anything from these videos. They sound like they were recorded in a bathroom, or with added electronics reverb. What I don't understand is why in some videos, whoever has the camera appear to be standing directly in front of one speaker, but it does not change the sound. Riddle me that.

No ricevs, all inverters do not sound different unless you have poor equipment. Some people believe that everything sounds different and are more open to suggestion. Other people are more skeptical and realistic. Actually I do know how a Powerwall Inverter sounds. It sounds just like the AC line, which sounds like exactly nothing in my system. No noise, no hum, no distortion, nothing from the AC line. On a digital source, my system is dead silent. When I run turntable, I can hear the faint hint of noise as expected from the natural noise of a turntable stage due to the high gain. No 60Hz, no 120Hz. Why would I want a Powerwall in my listening room? It lives comfortable in the garage out of the way. I wouldn't put a bunch of things that look like car batteries in my listening room either.

I have little use for Enjoythemusic or Tom Lyle. Anyone who can make a claim about a review in 2019 sounding exactly like one they did in 2017 is writing fiction, not audio reviews and I note that I could find no review of the Yeti 3000 even though he promised one would be in his system and reviewed --- 3 years ago. Maybe I missed it.  There are a ton of pure sine wave inverters out of Asia, all using the same topology, Giandel is no different complete with no safety certification and no EMI certifications or compliance. For all you know it puts out wicked EMI on the battery cables.

Why is a pure sine wave not an advantageous waveform? Fourier analysis shows that any complex waveform is a mathematical combination of various sine waves at different frequencies. You could reduce this complex waveform to a combination of other waves such as triangle waves, but then the triangle wave is also a combination of simpler sine waves. The same could be said about a "prettified" modified sine wave that PS Audio is producing as an option. That modified sine wave can still be reduced to a combination of pure sine waves. Ultimately the sine wave is the most natural, simple waveform. Mathematically, the 1st derivative of sine x is cosine x, which is actually sine x 90 degrees out of phase. The 2nd derivative of sine x, or the 1st derivative of cosine x is minus sine x. We never left the perfect home--the sine wave. So the sine wave is the most natural, universal component wave from which all waves are derived. As far as I know, the only other function whose derivative is the same as the function, is "e to the x power" but this is not an audio wave.

This is gobbledygook. It is pointless for me to say anything in retort. We aren’t working from the same skill set. Frankly I don’t know what you are working from, but this is just a bunch of words thrown together while carrying no meaning. Please don’t do that.

Is this DC perfect, free of ultrasonic artifacts? I doubt it, and I believe a reconstructed AC from these battery/inverters does a better job.

You betcha it is. It is not even difficult to get rid of. You know what these inverters have by the way? Big honking huge switch mode power supplies.

@ricevs after I didn’t see it on the first 3 or 4 I looked at including the one you were referencing(2200) I stopped looking for FCC. Given the lack of proper marking even when stated it makes me suspect though I expect they had a specific customer with a requirement for the 5K model.

Are you Jay or someone writing for Jay? Now I am confused.

Jay isn’t the type to lay down and take a beating by the internet trolls that come in and out of this thread. Jay is a dealer for 3 lines and these lines don’t put Ferrari keys in my hands.

@viber6   "Integrative Doctor". If I am not mistaken, that does not mean you are an MD, but an alternate medicine doctor, perhaps Naturopath?  

@viber6 ,

Respond to your technical insights? Those were not technical insights, they were word salad tossed with sine wave dressing. It spoke nothing to the suitability of a pure sine wave (in this case low impedance) as an AC source for audio equipment. You seem to know just enough to think you know a lot more than you really do.  IMHO, posting what you did was an insult to all the audiophiles who are reading this thread.

You are listening to a Youtube video, of someone else's system, playing back on your system ... and you claim you are hearing subtle changes caused by an AC source connected to what looks like close to a 1/4 Mill of electronics, and, from what I can tell, you are not even using the same song for comparison.  If I had that level of creativity I would be writing books, not in medicine.

Voltage changes can only induce noise in that they can induce currents. It is ultimately changes in current that one wishes to reduce to reduce noise. Every audio power supply has in the power path a diode (or equivalent) to rectify the incoming AC. The current only conducts for a short period of the sine wave, so the actual currents end up being harmonics of the line frequency as well as high frequency ringing due to component parasitics and inductance in the AC line and transformer.  For the line frequency harmonics, the shorter the conduction angle for a give power draw, the higher the level of the harmonics. It is not unusual for tube amplifiers to have line noise harmonics show up in the output.

PS Audio's power plants have the option to output a modified sine wave (not pure), that has the benefit of extending the conduction angle with typical audio equipment power supplies. That will reduce the harmonics on the DC side of the supply, which can translate into reduces line harmonics reaching the output, and will generally allow components in the end equipment power supply to run cooler.  It is absolutely NOT to color the sound. It is to remove color from the sound.  Stromtank is not the premier manufacturer. You are Jay are claiming that. Show me some measurements that prove that. They don't have a modified sine wave, and their THD is about 10 times higher than the PS Audio units. You also have absolutely no idea what the output noise spectrum is of these units. @ricevs and his friend are convinced his Giandel inverters are better. Enjoy the Music proclaimed that the low cost Yeti 400, for powering front end equipment, was every bit as good as the Stromtank (and a small fraction of the price).

Your personal evidence?  A recording, made of someone else's stereo, played back on your stereo, with that recording being done in 192kbps AAC at best. That is like diagnosing someone's cancer by looking at a picture of his cousin taken with a Kodak Brownie. Comparing to the playing the songs directly, there is high levels of noise pumping (AGC on the recording?), some added distortion, and as noted, fairly high levels of reverb at upper mid/high frequencies. If you think you are picking up what are likely to be differences not revealable by measurements in that total signal chain I am not sure what the point of this discussion is.

p.s. Jay appears to have 5 or so Stromtank videos. None that I viewed had the exact same song at the 0:00 mark and 3:00 mark. If they exist, feel free to repost links.

@carey1110 would a few thousand dollar DAC and equalized quality headphones be acceptable? That is what I did. Sorry, but there is nothing that can be gleamed in those videos that can be attributed to the AC source (or really anything for that matter). Just someone changing their position in the room will have more effect and I don't perceive a lot of controls in these videos. In some there is someone walking right in front of the speaker (which curiously does not change the recording at all).

Got it. Not an actual M.D.   You know you stepped over a legal line when you said Integrative medical doctor. You are not a medical doctor. That is misrepresentation and the licensing bodies for medical doctors don't take kindly to that.

Oh, the S1000 video was content normalized to a level 1db lower than the S2500 video. Youtube did that automatically. If the songs were recorded at the same volume, the higher volume on the S2500 will make it sound "bigger". Even 1db is enough to do that when you compare .... but you knew that, technical expert and all.

Listening only compliments objective tests when the listening is also objective. I will leave it up to you to figure out what that means. Technical people only distrust flawed listening reports ..... you didn't know the 2 videos are at a different volume level by the way .... I did. You know, the technical guy. That rendered your listening report invalid.

Oh, and @viber6 , in addition to the 1 db level change implemented by Youtube, the uploaded S1000 video is entering clipping, at least on Youtube audio. Looking at the L/R waveforms for both, it looks like someone is standing in a position on the S2500 where one channel is slightly affected in the recording. There is some attenuation of the high frequencies on one channel in the S2500 recording.

So you see @viber6, there is a big difference between listening in an ah-hoc method and calling your methods and results expertise, and having some level of expertise, not to mention useful objective listening and flawed adhoc reporting.

FYI, @cleeds 

@viber6 

1. There is a fixed gain difference between the S1000 and S2500. Unless you used the exact correct gain compensation of 1db, your comparison is flawed.
2. As previous noted, there is gain pumping, easiest seen on the noise floor, but confirmed to be cyclic at about 6 seconds cycle. I can detect that when doing an S1000 vs. S2500 comparison.
3. The S1000 version is clipping. Whether at recording or Youtube I don't know, I just know it is clipping.
4. There is a flaw in the S2500 version, one channel is off, likely due the position of a human in the room. This results in an identifiable change in the response of the S2500 and easly seen change in the frequency response on that channel.
5. You are listening to a recording with a non-torso setup, played over Youtube at 192kbps AAC, with all the flaws, listening to it on your system, where you have admitted playing with the volume.
6. Both recordings have unnatural amounts of reverb/echo at mid-high frequencies.

Any one of these things renders any critical evaluation of the performance or any aspects of the performance null and void, but to think that YOU, you of all people, can somehow negate all 6 significant issues to reveal a characteristic, that any 250K audio chain should and likely is completely immune to.

There is a word for someone who believe that about themselves. It is not competence.

I did critical listening and quickly picked up the noise pumping, suspected the level difference, noted the excessive echo, and suspected a softening but could not place my finger on it. Critical analysis confirmed some of my expectations, put hard facts around others, and revealed something I did not expect but know will impact any critical listening.

I love my kids @ricevs , and you need to let them make their own mistakes and learn from them. However, love is also providing them guidance and using a stronger hand (not violence of course) when needed.

Respect is allowing someone to make their own mistakes and learn from them. It is not respectful to allow that person to convince others that their mistake was not mistake. It also does not show love for others when you allow them to do that, especially when you possess the "gifts" to use a term, to know factually right and wrong in that particular case.  If you knew an investment was highly flawed and worse, based on false premises, is the high road to allow someone to convince others to also invest when you have the knowledge to know the investment and its premise is flawed?

When you fully love yourself, is that real self esteem, or is that an inflated ego that does not either recognize or accept your flaws and seeks to improve on them?

@viber6

Whatever technical flaws there are in the 2 recordings, somehow several people here easily heard the differences. The California Dreaming recording I found problematic, and led me to prefer the inferior S1000 on that song

Of course there are differences. I listed them for you, and none of them have anything to do with the Stromtank. They all have to do with the flawed capture and playback. You are assigning the differences to the Stromtank, when you have absolutely no way of knowing that and of the available options, it is by far the least viable especially because in the framework of those videos there are too many other things that will mask that difference.

Now that others know all the flaws in the videos, I wonder if those others feel as strong as you do about the reasons for the two videos sounding different (which is not in question, of course they sound different there are so many flaws). The only logical and realistic conclusion in light of the flaws I have pointed out is to admit there is now no way to be confident of your conclusion. There is nothing wrong with admitting that. Not admitting it is just hubris at this point.

@viber6 , can you really ask me to describe the differences .... when I have several times. Do I need to repeat again the echos, the noise pumping, the volume difference, the softness of one of them, etc.

I would go and listen to @jays_audio_lab system and compare the two Stromtank on one condition. I get to switch which two back and forth, blind to Jay, i.e. he has no idea which one is connected, and he has to try to accurately determine which one is connected .... oh, and it has to be streamed live.  What say you @jays_audio_lab, are you in?    Oh, and we are going to do the same with some of those wickedly expensive cables and cheap ones too. Let's see if you can pick out a $20,000 cable against a $200 cable.  What say you Jay, are you in?    .... maybe I will even bring a <$1,000 amp and see if you can tell it from the Boulder when not clipping. What say you Jay, are you in?

@viber6 how often do you need to be wrong. I brought up noise pumping and echoes ages ago. I didn’t even know what two I was supposed to be comparing till yesterday and I immediately upon being told saw that volume levelling was used making comparisons pretty much worthless. You didn’t hear musical differences between the two, you simply heard all the flaws (differences) that existed between the two videos and assigned them as musical differences as you had to map it onto your limited knowledge. That is what many people do. They try to compress things into the framework of what they themselves know. Others realize their framework is insufficient.

Listen to someone like Floyd Toole talk. Do you hear him use flowery audiophile media language? No, he talks in clear, concise and most of all portable terms. Portable meaning anyone who uses those terms knows exactly what they mean.  You are forced to use non-concise language because you lack concise terms and in this case, are trying to map language onto something that is not there, hence creative terms.

@viber6 

I don't expect anyone to come to my defence, but frankly it is not necessary.  The issues I have raised are cold hard indisputable facts. There is volume levelling. There is clipping. There is noise pumping. There is a frequency response difference between the videos. There is a channel difference between the videos. There is high echo/reverb. Oh, and it is 192KHz AAC. Anyone with the appropriate skills can validate that. Hence I don't need supporting defence.

I will note again that no one has of yet come to your defence w.r.t. agreeing with the musical claims. Maybe someone will, but I expect in light of the hard facts I have presented on the videos, they to realize, as I have pointed out, that it is not possible to extract potential differences between the 1000 and 2500 (if they even exist) from the videos.

I don't doubt that Jay believes there is a difference. However, if all you are doing is repeating what he has told you effectively, then one must consider that you are not forming your own factual listening impression, certainly not in light of the flaws, but are being influenced strongly by suggestion.

Having now suggested a highly flawed cartridge matching scheme, I suspect others will be questioning the validity of your listening impressions.

When I was young and had great hearing, I always found that 47 kohm loading produced the most brilliance, detail and clarity. Even midrange material was clarified due to more HF overtones. Ignore the technical talk that this is wrong, just listen for yourself and see what you like. I forgot whether your Boulder phono stage gives you the 47 kohm option, but just use the maximum loading that is offered.

Ignore the technical talk that this is wrong? Do you have any more really bad advice to give? Well @jays_audio_lab if you follow @viber6 ’s suggestion, you will end up with a system that is wrong. Without the exact cartridge loading for that specific cartridge, the response will be anything but flat.

This is what happens when you improperly load a cartridge. You end up with a hot mess, or a warm mess, but a mess any way you look at it .... and ask yourself how many audiophile setups are not properly matched and how that may be influencing their views on vinyl.

@viber6 is obviously not going to be the one to teach you how to setup a turntable properly, and frankly, most dealers don't know either just passing down bad advice from generation to generation. Setting up a turntable in a neutral system (to match your DAC) is 100% science. There is no art in it. And being science, you need proper tools to do it right.

See @viber6 ,

I knew there was no way that @jays_audio_lab would have agreed to an in person listening session where his listening skills would be put to the test. I am sure you can reach that conclusion that if he could have easily picked out the better Stromtank, and the better cables, and the better amp, that it would be very very good for his business. I was willing to provide him the perfect platform prove his skills (and components) to the world.

@jays_audio_lab , I must say I appreciate your sense of humor. For instance calling into question who I am, based on the input of some random person on a forum, when you don't even use your real name for your audio channel. So funny. Please keep it up ..... but please do put a little more care in your videos. I would not want people to get the wrong audio impression.

@ricevs  please tell us with what you think is important other than frequency response, distortion, and how the room behaves in conjunction with the speakers. I will add in phase response as long as it is not too bad and we all understand certain sources have inherent limitations and add extra stuff to the music (that was not originally there) that colors the sound. I would enjoy hearing your explanation as I am sure many others would.

I think most audiophiles are not broken at all, but some of the most vocal have rather unusual ideas about audio equipment works and how we, as people work to the point of recommending very bad cartridge matching and ignoring significant flaws in videos to justify sound perception.

Please share your wisdom on what is important other the items described so that we can all benefit.

@juanmanuelfangioii - You really need to worry more about whether you get respect here or not as you seem to care. Some of your posts are not going to get the respect you think they may.

As an audio customer, I would be more worried about the dealer who as Cleeds noted, equated a listening test to a "pissing match". I am more than willing to go to Jay's house, be on video, under the condition it is live streamed and I get to switch the equipment without him knowing what is playing.  If any Youtuber who says they will invite anyone over has an issue with that, I am not sure what to say at that point. I was looking forward to a Florida trip, visit some friends and family and stuff.   It can't be any hotter than where I am already.

The dog-piling while avoiding the topic is not surprising. Disappointing, expected, but not surprising.

Here, try a new tact instead of victimizing the messenger. Address the issues. The videos are faulty. Period. Cannot be disputed.

$250K of equipment needs further AC conditioning (with no idea what the AC looks like to start with)? Seems hard to believe. Some would say unbelievable. I don’t believe it. However, I was willing to go to Jay’s house on my expense and listen. All I ask is he listen too. Just listen. That is all.

I am quite willing to go on video. You have determined I am someone else, or 10 someone elses. Well if this is true, here is your chance to see me in person .... all you need is for Jay to agree to a live video and not being able to see what equipment is running. Come on Jay, take one for the team. NO? Thought so.

All inverters put out noise and distortion.....that is why they will all sound different from each other and will benefit from further (pure filtering) . The Stromtank and the Exeltech inverters are rated at less than 2% distortion....most of the others like the Giandel are rated at less than 3% distortion. This is not .0001 percent distortion like a Benchmark amp or Purifi amp measures. Distortion.....means noise.....I would think a larger inverter would sound better......probably lower output impedance and bigger power supply.

No, distortion means voltage frequencies other than 60Hz. It does not mean noise. You are already starting from the assumption that supplying only 60Hz is a good thing and there is nothing technically accurate about that. A lot of our equipment would be a lot happier with 120Hz or 400Hz.

High frequency noise on the AC lines can be bad as it can bypass poorly designed power supplies. Good supplies, like I would expect in expensive equipment will filter high frequencies out relatively easily. For AC low frequency voltage harmonic distortion is relatively benign. In fact, it can be beneficial. It is why PS Audio implements it. The picture below is the current waveform of a typical audio amplifier. Not that it does not look anything like a sine wave. Very high sharp peaks with lots of harmonics. That is with a nice 60Hz voltage input. Those high currents mean higher radiated EMI, more potential for noise to couple to ground, etc. By allowing benign AC Voltage harmonics, the PS Audio units can reduce the size of those current peaks and reduce the higher frequency current harmonics which are in most cases more damaging than any Voltage harmonics. I have no skin in the game. Companies will tell you what they want you to know. I am telling you what you need to know.

@ricevs , with regards to a post filter, something like the Giandel, even though it has a necessary filter to eliminate the PWM, may still pass some high frequency noise. Your post filter could get rid of that. At the price of the Stromtank, I would hope sufficient filtering is built it.

Here is the full link: https://audioxpress.com/article/r-d-stories-future-shock-powersoft-audio-s-amplifier-technologies Look at the section on Power Factor correction. Outside Audio, most switching power supplies now incorporate power factor correction if they are above about 25W. In some product categories, all power supplies at almost any power will. All desktop computers supplies will, but laptop "chargers" still lag. I expect some consumer level audio equipment has power factor corrected power supplies. I have not seen it in high end, hence the high current harmonics.

@ricevs 

As @cleeds has clearly pointed out, everyone's situation is different. Hence one person's listening report will be, in most cases, totally useless for someone else.  What I have attempted to do, and will do for those who take the time to read and understand my posts, is provide enough information for them to think about what the best solutions may be for them.  I am also in agreement with Cleeds that dedicated lines are a good idea. There is very simple and sound engineering for this. It reduces the potential for noise on the AC supply lines, and it also reduces the potential for noise transfer into the ground.  What I also said about the Stromtank not being in a position to eliminate the advantages of power cords (if there are), is also true. I don't need to listen to every system on the planet to know that no more than I need to diet myself to prove that eating less will help with weight loss. With the right knowledge, some things are self evident.

@ricevs

Most people here probably don’t have a good handle on how AC interacts with their equipment, what the benefit of, or lack of, pure 60Hz is, or even how a power cord could fulfill the benefits claimed for them. In two posts, I provided useful information to help guide audiophiles in their purchasing decisions because as @cleeds mentioned, not everyone’s situation is the same, not everyone’s AC is the same, not everyone has access to the same financial resources, and not everyone is in a position due to time, or logistics to try out multiple power solutions.

Can you please tell me what value your last post had for anyone reading this thread?

Bottom line is most dedicated lines only provide a direct path of electricity to your gear from the breaker box. They don't really do sh!t else folks. Let's keep it real. 

You still need money for great power conditioners and the hustle of top end Powercords. I'm determined to eventually not rely on expensive crazy powercords. This doesn't mean I'll be using crappy PCs on power amps but I'm done spending 30gs on PCs. The stromtank, for me, leaves me happy and not changing stupid powercord. Yes i still have powercords laying around and collecting dust but I'm gonna list a lot of them soon. 

I don't think it would be a big secret that I am not a big believer in expensive power cords. Well designed equipment should not need them.

However, putting on my "Expensive power cord" hat, and using the arguments that suppliers of power cords use, the Stromtank will not provide any of the benefit of what a power cord is supposed to do. In theory, or at least in marketing speak, an expensive power cord will shield EMI from being emitted or received from the cords (note my comments about PW audio above), and they will provide a low impedance ground connection between different pieces of equipment (the smart ones at least claim the latter). The Stromtank does nothing to help with either of those advertised benefits. 

@viber6 you are trying to equate performance of harmonics in an AC source with harmonics in and audio amplifer as somehow they are related wrt sound. There is no correlation. All sources whether the PS, Stromtank or ricevs Giandel are amplifiers. It should be obvious that your DAC, amp, preamp, turntable, etc. is not a speaker though. The only similarities is just like different speakers can be effected by different amps, the way one piece of equipment behaves with a particular noise, distortion and impedance profile of a particular source will be completely different from another piece of equipment. What improves one setup may have no benefit in another setup or even make another setup worse.

P.s. Floyd has a very good system within the confines of his lifestyle and preferences that makes use of a lot of effective but relatively invisible acoustic features. There are articles on it.  My experience is most musicians do not have very good systems. I have heard that from many others.

There really is no debate in professional audio or in the engineering world of audio. Every scientist and engineer working in the field does far far more critical listening than audiophiles could ever imagine and wrt scientists they multiply themselves by doing studies with 10's of people or more in situations that isolate just their hearing. Making claims based on listening to single systems in uncertain conditions without isolating just the thing being evaluated is the exclusive realms of audio forums.

If your dedicated lines don't terminate in the same box all sharing the same close ground at your equipment than your dedicated lines are making it worse, not better. Multiple dedicated lines to physically separated outlets with equipment connected to them, and then that equipment connected with interconnects etc. Is the antithesis of proper wiring to lower noise and no viper I don't need to listen to know that.

Yes, do what @viber6 suggests. Everyone wants a poorly tracking, channel mismatched, cartridge/amp mismatched, distorting, record destroying vinyl setup. Or you could set it up properly, so you can compare properly to digital and use an equalizer if you want a different sound.

File this under, "things that audiophiles believe that are not true".  Video is never sent uncompressed. It is easy to adjust compressed data up and down. They purposely use variable bit rate formats.  Uncompressed audio is not like that. You can't strip data from FLAC like you can from a compressed video stream. And no, the Internet H/W and providers can't do that on their own either. That's conspiracy level bull.

Streaming quality is inferior to playing files from a HD, and it is always changing based on your current bandwidth. You just never know what kind of compression you are actually listening to (it does not matter what Qobuz telling you about the quality, it is passed their control - think about the times you see Netflix/amazon and the quality changes) . A lot of the comments you get about “sterility” is due to that. You spend a fortune, not to mention precious time, assembling an incredible system, why would you compromise the sound right at the source?"

@henry201, how are you streaming? What is your streaming receiver?

@henry201 , the reason why I asked is w.r.t. software. If you are say running a Windows or Mac as your streamer, then there is the issue of the app and whether you are running bit perfect.   I have found it can be difficult to even be 100% you are comparing the same recording. They don't always make it easy.