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Is Pretty Good Good Enough? Listening Habits In The World Of Streaming Services.

I'm a recent subscriber to Tidal and Amazon Unlimited.  The sound quality of the cd quality music is surprisingly good.  I find myself listening to more music because of it.

I've also found myself in a situation when I come across a very familiar recording that I find it missing some of the inner details of the recording that I'm very familiar with....overall, the recording is good, but I noticed the missing elements.  Though I found it not as good as it sounds on my cd player, it was good enough that I didn't stop the song and went and got my cd and played it.  In other words, I settled for pretty good.  Interestingly, as I moved up the chain in the world of audio, it was always in pursuit of better equipment to extract better sound from the recording.  I was always looking for better than 'good enough'.  Well, 'good enough' has gotten a lot better than it used to be...and much more convenient.

Sadly, my critical listening time with my cd player and turntable is a lot less these days because of the streaming services.  I've just started to fiddle around with burning wav files of my cd's to a hard drive to make copies of those recordings where nothing but the original file will do. 

How have your listening habits changed since the higher resolution services have arrived?

128x128mitch4t
billzame
69 posts
 

I stream from several sources and listen to my own CD's.  I have several times compared the same music across the 3 formats.  I have heard big differences across different performances/recordings (a recent attempt from a stream was so bad I stopped after 30 seconds and went to a different performance from a different stream) and (sometimes) small differences of the same performance/recording across streams vs CD's.  But the difference between performances/recordings is *much* greater than the differences in SQ across streams or CD.  Frequently, the artists record the same piece more than once, and the differences are noticeable.  I have Yo Yo Ma's 1st and 3rd recordings of the Bach Solo Cello pieces; they are both wonderful but they are quite different.  I have Hilary Hahn's early and later recordings of Vaughn Williams' "The Lark Ascending"; the 1st is not very good, the 2nd is almost transcendent.  (Hahn had obviously grown a lot.)  

daledeee1's avatar
daledeee1
516 posts
 

I have only used Amazon HD.  I think it sounds fine.  But I thought my system sounded good before isolation.  I want to try Qobuz one of these days.

dogfish
15 posts
 

Long time vinyl to cd back to vinyl listener.   I now subscribe to Qobuz and Tidal streaming via Roon + HQ Player.  The streaming sq is excellent and I’ve slowed down once again on my vinyl purchases.  With my current streaming and dac setup I prefer streaming to cd’s.  Vinyl is still my holy grail..also, another shout out for Radio Paradise, excellent programming and sq.

fatdaddy2
368 posts
 

Too much enjoyment remains from several thousand LPs and CDs to worry about the screaming service of the moment.  Didn't bother with Facebook either.

itsjustme
681 posts
 

Just some advice. If Tidal at FLAC, or better yet, kinda-sorta-HD (MQA sans 2nd unfold) is not better than the same CD, you don't have something set up right.

 

Long ago i concluded that ripped to my laptop and played back bitpperfect >> he same CD, and then that streaming was  identical to he ripped CD.  With a better server and the isolation of a bridge - its better.  Now factor in the remasters and MQA that are so often available through Tidal and its regularly much better, if only because the master is better.  Spend some more time.

 

'later

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