CD v Streamed

@thyname,
Wrote, "I don’t know why. I don’t know what to measure, don’t have the measuring gear. That is what ears tell me."

"Streaming has long ways to go IMO."

Maybe not as long a way to go as you think. If your streaming service is using the more compressed version of recordings, that's a significant bottleneck.  If they made the commitment to stream only  the least compressed versions of available recordings it would be a big step forward. 

You do not  need to measure anything.  You can inquiry and request information from your streaming service company  as explained earlier by the OP. He's right concerning the deleterious effect of compressing recordings. 
Charles 

The all important measured proof...

Just curious, what kind of wires is your friend using in his set up?

George,
I've done some experiments with this.  I've compared CDs from my collection that I've ripped to Tidal's version of the same recording.  I've figured out a way to download from Tidal, then I look at the DRs calculated when I import the Tidal rip into JRiver.   In most cases, you're right that Tidal tends to have a recent remaster, or lately, an MQA version only....if you search by artist.   But if you search by album name, I've found as many as 6 versions of the same recording, and these are mostly all different.  This is a laborious process, but if I find this, I download all 6, listen to each, then compare the DR values.   Usually I wind up marking the version with the highest DR and I stream that one from now on.  I also look at the files in Audacity to see which have clipped peaks, and which don't.  I haven't found a faster way yet to do this.   Some of the DR results are wildly different.
Dave

Wow that's what I call being persistent, but as you now also find the vary different DR's of the same album.
And when you look at the Dynamic Range data base site https://dr.loudness-war.info/, it's mostly the older recordings with the better DR, and this is what I do to get the CD with the best DR use it's cat no and go search for a cheap used one on one of the used CD sites, ebay etc etc

As for the compression of the streamed ones, it would still be great if someone can measure the 1min size of the streamed version vs the 10.6mb size of a 1min CD being played
   
Cheers George

"I am not sure why the need to choose.  I prefer CDs, or CDs burned to a HD, to streaming content from the likes of Qobuz.  The only measurements I have are my ears.  It doesn’t require much imagination to see why the content provider or the ISP have incentives to compress sources and throttle bandwidth.  I think that Qobuz sounds inferior, but it isn’t a night and day, it’s a subtle difference.
   However, do we need to argue it?  We can have it all.  Play CDs, burn them to a HD, or stream them.  A streaming subscription costs the price of a decent download.  Don’t want a dedicated streamer?  Use a PC.   We live in a time of fantastic sonic replay.  Live and let live"
I guess I agree with mahler1234. I see the point in what numbers and data can provide but what would one do if the measurements point to better sound with "source A" but when one listens..... "source B" sounds better? Compressed, not compressed.... I guess it's not too important to me unless there is a big difference in sound quality. I have a friend that has a great turntable and luvs the analog sound over digital. But even when playing clean records the occasional pops clicks or hiss is hard on my ears..... we all have our own tastes?

I would think some people would then convince themselves to like what sounds inferior?!?