Why Do ~You~ Still Play CDs?

Soix how many songs you can play in one day be realistic . Thru it’s nice to have millions of choices but you can even play 10% of those millions in your life time. Is this like Imelda Marcos having thousands of shoes? That she did not wear?I respect your opinion don’t get me wrong.

@jayctoy Well that’s just silly reasoning by someone who is obviously streaming ignorant and is just making up silly reasons why it’s not good. I just explore music I either hear about or am interested in and continually find awesome new songs/albums — no need to hear all of it. Ok don’t stream — it’s your sad loss and you’ve no idea what you’re missing. You can lead a horse to water…

Oftentimes, when I witness people listening to music via streaming, they just bounce from one song to another.

@no_regrets On the contrary, when I find a song I like I tend to not only explore the rest of the songs on that album but also other albums from that artist because they’re all right there. In addition, similar artists in the genre also pop up, which gives me even more music to explore. You might not be in a rush to try streaming, but I will tell you my only regret about streaming is that I didn’t start sooner. By all means be in a rush to start streaming — you have no idea what you’re missing until you start, and it’s nothing short of a reawakening.

I own thousands of CD, seems a little ridiculous to get rid of them and spend a boat load of money on the same material.

@roadwhorerecords You’re not streaming for the music you already have, but more for the access to millions of songs, and a lot in hi res you can’t get with CD, that you don’t already have. New music discovery through streaming Qobuz has expanded my enjoyment of audio far more than anything else in my 40+ years as an audiophile. Playing all familiar stuff now seems antiquated and boring by comparison, so deny streaming if you must but you’re really missing out on an amazing musical experience.

@brianlucey  Thank you for sharing your thoughts/experience here.  Are you saying the original master, if it’s in 16/44.1, sounds better than an upsampled version?  Just wanted to clarify as that’s interesting.  Also, on Qobuz I have no problem hearing the difference between 16/44.1 and hi res versions of the same songs and the differences are not subtle (at least in audiophile terms), and I suspect many others here would say the same.  Would you then say we are the 1%.  Thanks again for your thoughts. 

I mention these pieces of hardware because they are good solid equipment which lift the level of my vinyl albums far above digital. Analogue on my system is more immediate and detailed.
 

audio-b-dog  What streamer were you using before the 280D?  How much total do you have invested in your vinyl rig versus your streaming setup?  Fair comparison?

Assuming a certain percentage of streamed music would appeal to me, I would need to have a way to select, organize and categorize an online library for future listening as I do not always remember the artist, album, music by name and would want to minimize searching of music I already selected that I like,

@agwca  You might consider an Innuos Zen streamer.  It’s a very good streamer but you can also load your CDs directly into it so all your music will be at your fingertips and thus will greatly help you declutter.  Also their excellent Sense app will allow you to easily organize playlists and find new music, and I think it’s a great value used.  Just one idea FWIW.

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/650163113-innuos-zen-mk3-2tb/

I don’t need unlimited access to all music.

@condosound Yes you do, you just don’t know it yet. Once you get to explore limitless amounts of awesome new music (and much of it in hi res BTW), playing familiar stuff over and over again becomes an antiquated and ridiculous notion. I discover wonderful new music almost daily and as a result am having more fun as an audiophile and music lover than I ever have in my life, and it’s so interesting and exciting I rarely spin a CD anymore. Once you start streaming you’ll never go back. My only regret about streaming is that I didn’t start sooner. Continue to ignore streaming at your own peril. There are worlds of incredible new music out there just waiting for you to explore, enjoy, and to greatly expand your horizons.

With a high quality CD Transport and DAC, CDs sound better.

That’s absolutely not true at all.  A well-constructed streaming setup will match and potentially surpass CD, and streaming offers thousands of hi res recordings you can’t get with CD  

I have a friend who told me the same thing cd sounds better than streaming. I ask him why ? He said too much upsampling on the streaming because of that the music no longer sound natural. I don’t know if this true?

@jayctoy  That’s just bogus and your friend has no idea what he’s talking about.  If your streaming doesn’t sound as good as CDs it’s because there’s something in your streaming setup holding you back.  It’s well worth the effort to find out what that is and fix it. 

However, I still find CD’s to have a bit more depth, detail, and just a tiny bit extra level of air

@kingbr  If you add an Iris or Hermes DDC before your Pontus and take advantage of the i2S connection it will up your streaming performance significantly and may surpass CDs.  That’s what it did for me anyway — it’s not a small improvement and on the level of a significant DAC upgrade.  Just my experience FWIW. 
 

I personally find that my CD's sound better than the exact album on Tidal streamed directly through a high-end computer into the same DAC as the CD player.

@upstateaudiophile  Of course CDs will sound better than streaming through a computer, which is the noisiest and worst source for streaming.   Even a cheap streamer like a Node or iFi Zen Stream will put your streaming much closer in performance to CDs.

It’s not practical to spend more money to buy streamer and pay monthly subscriptions. 

@jayctoy  For the price of about one CD per month I have access to hundreds of thousands of songs via Qobuz — many of them in hi res BTW — and discover awesome new music I would’ve never heard otherwise almost every day.  It’s the most fun I’ve had as an audiophile and music lover ever, and every month it’s the best 11 bucks I spend.  Or I could just spin CDs and listen to the same stuff over and over and over again.  No thank you, but to each his own.  

Since I’ve gotten my streaming setup to sound as good or better than CDs the only time I bother to spin a CD is if it’s not available on Qobuz, which isn’t very often.