Netflix and other streaming services have worse than CD quality sound.
I guess most people have mediocre sound bar playback audio for home theater, and I understand they could care less, or are unaware of better sound quality.
Most Blu-ray audio is high rez ( better than CD quality).
And DVD audio quality can be CD quality.
When will steaming services realize that some home theater systems have expensive sound playback?
I feel that there is still a need for physical disc play back in home theater if you care about sound quality.
Some steaming sites like Tidal, Berlin Philharmonic, Met Opera, Radio Paradise,Vimeo, and others have at least CD quality playback.
“For users with Dolby Digital 5.1 systems, Netflix will now stream audio at up to 640 kbps, versus 192 kbps previously, and Dolby Atmos users will get bitrates up to 768 kbps. At these compression rates, Netflix says the sound quality is “indistinguishable” from a 24-bit studio master recording. (Some audiophiles may disagree, but presumably most people wouldn’t be able to perceive a difference.)”
Well, at least that’s a step in right direction. I hate to break it to you, the physical media (blu ray) is pretty much dead.
“I guess most people have mediocre sound bar playback audio for home theater, and I understand they could care less, or are unaware of better sound quality”
When you buy that soundbar with a sub in one box from LG, Sony or Samsung don’t expect miracles...you get what you pay for!
I have a Sangean WFT-1 Internet radio player and I'm not getting anything like CD quality playback on Radio Paradise or any other station. Not to derail the thread but how do I get CD quality? I'm old and don't follow all this new fangled digital stuff. Thanks for any suggestions.
Netflix typically uses Dolby Digital Plus as a streaming protocol, which is still old-school --COMPRESSED-- Dolby Digital. I don't think any streaming service will be able to provide the bluray audio codecs DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD. The Dolby Digital Plus from Netflix is also compromised (at least in my system) because I have to use this as "audio over HDMI" (instead of using digital COAX, which is superior eve on compressed DD/DTS).
I don't want to buy every DVD, only ones I know I will watch year after year. Unfortunately in my divorce I lost about 200 DVDs and about 400 music cds. And no they were not in the settlement, I came home and turned on my pioneer elite that holds 301 and realized no disc to be found. Its actually upsetting at first, then all I could do is laugh. I'm not wanting to collect again. Now I pretty much stream everything, I'm hoping for great quality in streaming. I do have Netflix send me cds and I choose the 4k package. I do have sound bar in bedroom but ht room is 5.1 and in 2 months should be 5.2.4. I think I get okay audio from Netflix, but DVD is definitely better. Not willing to pay comcast 250 a month for nothing. Netflix, Amazon, hulu and DirecTV now. And internet comes to 130 a month. DirecTV now has the worst audio for ht, but only really use for football season.
This thread highlights one of the major advantages that physical media have over streaming, namely high end sound quality. Streaming is driving all physical media except vinyl to extinction, but not because of quality
Convenience is key. To own and not store is great. Plus using it wherever you choose as long as you have a phone. I would be nice if the quality was there for streaming. I think the percentage of people out there that have ht systems from BB really dont have any clue what true ht is like. I've known many who buy a bb setup 5.1 put in family room and done. If they get sound out of all speakers they are happy. So I guess the question is, do the streamers need to step it up with audio quality? If it wasn't for football I would dump DirecTV now. I watched a movie from dtv now in my ht room and it was the worst.
@pcc67 How are you getting 4K disks from Netflix? I was getting Blu-ray disks but now that I have a 4K dvd player I want 4K disks. Netflix told me they do not have 4K disks to rent. I dropped the rentals because of this
Both audio & video qualities on those streaming movie services (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Hulu, Vudu) are compromised and cannot compare to that of bluray & 4K UHD bluray discs.
The only thing that is of equal qualities (audio & video) or possibly better depending on what kind of bluray/4K UHD bluray players you have will be the Kaleidescape Strato 4K movie server/player that allows you to download 4K UHD, bluray & DVD quality movies. But this is not streaming. It is a movie server / player and you can only purchase the downloaded movies (4K, bluray & DVD) from their own online store only. The Kaleidescape Strato 4K movie server/player are expensive but can store hundreds of movies of varying qualities (4K, bluray & DVD). You can also add their Terra movie server to your existing Strato and the Terra movie server can store up to 40TB and can be linked to multiple Strato movie servers.
The audio qualities of these Kaleidescape Strato 4K movie servers/players are bit to bit perfect to studio mastering qualities and are formatted in either Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby True HD on the bluray & 4K UHD quality movies and Dolby Digital & DTS on DVD quality movies. Video qualities are top notch as well. They use very advanced video processor. One reviewer from I believed Hometheaterreview.com did AB comparison to his Oppo UDP-203/205 player using HDMI to his AV processor and he said the picture and sound qualities of the Kaleidescape Strato 4K movie server/player is identical to that of his Oppo UDP-203/205 player for 4K UHD & bluray disc playbacks.
But again the Kaleidescape Strato 4K movie server is not streaming. It is a sophisticated advanced downloaded movie server / player. Kaleidescape collaborates together with major Hollywood studios and the newly released Hollywood features will be made available in Kaleidescape Strato before they become available in bluray/4K UHD/DVD discs. But they are expensive and you are limited to only major Hollywood studios movies. You don't have access to independent and foreign movies.
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