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CD v Streamed



Uncompressed CD audio will take about 10.6mb per minute to play, to stream that takes big space and dollars to stream an album, see what your streaming company’s takes mb per minute to stream, find out and post up here.

I hear CD’s are better, I get better dynamic range from CD every time it’s A/B to me, now that could be that the streaming companies are using the "later compressed re-issues" of the same albums, you can find that out here https://dr.loudness-war.info/
Or that the streaming process itself compresses the music to save "streaming size" to save big dollars even if in small amounts.

Here’s a video from the CEO of Disc Makers Pty Ltd, yes he probably also biased because he manufacturers CD’s and vinyl, and is a very bad dancer.
https://youtu.be/YHMCTUl2FQo?t=1

Cheers George
128x128georgehifi
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi OP
10,312 posts
 


They have magic electricity over there that turns compression and brickwalling into stunning detail and clarity unavailable elsewhere


Jersey City, I heard that also, maybe the "Dynamic Range Data Base" site should only accept comparisons of the same CD/Albums regardless of version vintage be listed/downloaded from there only.😉

Cheers George
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ejr1953
917 posts
 
I’d say the answer to "which sounds better" is "depends".

Let’s assume that the "chains" in your system sound equally good:

CD player/DAC = Streaming source/DAC

I find that often the hi-res master that’s available for streaming from Qobuz is oftentimes more-recently mastered and oftentimes does sound a bit better than the mastered version on my CD.

I also find that some of my SACDs do sound a bit better then the FLAC files from Qobuz, but that’s atypical.

More times than not, I will select the Qobuz version over my CD/SACD version.
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riaa_award_collectors_on_facebook
981 posts
 
More recently mastered = Brickwalled/Compressed in most cases. CD’s of older titles from the 60’s thru 80’s sound best in their 1st generation masterings most of the time. Newer doesnt = better unless its been remixed by the likes of Steve Wilson/Keven Gray for a new special product launch. Just compare the DR’s. Again...you have to compare the ORIGINAL (Not Remastered) Discs to make a fair comparison. Go to DISCOGS to find what MATRIX # for each title is the 1st pressing...if its worth your bother that is.
Of course if your Spinner/Dac Combo is subpar that will also influence the quality of what you hear and might not be worth the bother of A/B-ing. Pugsley in Jersey City said his comparison of streaming vs CD was based on a 10 Year Old CD/Dac Player (K01).   Talk about a "fixed" fight!! LOL 
tonywinga's avatar
tonywinga
844 posts
 
I tried out an Optical Media Converter today. After reading threads about this being an effective improvement I thought I would try it. Some months ago I put a network switch between my ROON server and the router which improved the sound. Still, 44.1kHz/16bit streaming was not quite as good as CD or the Ripped CD FLAC files on my server. The Optical Media Converter consists of two boxes with an Ethernet cable going in box A and fiber cable going out to Box B and then an ethernet cable going out of box B and into my server. The sound was noticeably better right away. Wow! This is an effective tweak. I did an A/B comparison with a couple of CDs to streaming 44.1/16 and I could no longer discern a difference. I was rocking for a few hours until the music stopped suddenly. Box B appears to be defective. The TX indicator light went out on both boxes indicating fiber failure. I did some troubleshooting and using my cellphone camera I can see a red light in the port of box A but no red light in box B. My fiber cable appears to be fine. I noticed after repacking these items that the seals were already broken on the ESD bags. I didn’t catch that when I took them out of the box. What’s up with Amazon these days?
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