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

Bought a subscription to Quobuz back in February and I have nothing but good things to say about streaming. I don't think I have the critical listening skills that most on this forum has so I wan't speak to the quality of the sound. What I can say is having that kind of a library at your fingertips can significantly change your listening habits. I spend way more time listening now compared to when I was streaming my iTunes library, Pandora or listening to CDs. In fact, I've become a bit of a music whore. I'll literally give anyone a half hour of my time. I find myself listening to genres I never would have considered in the days of physical media. 

One of my favorite ways to spend time now is to settle down with an issue of Sterophile or The Absolute Sound and playing every song mentioned in the issue as I'm reading it. I've discovered so many artists doing this. It's made me realize how little I really knew about music before I started streaming.

I think there are many different reasons why people use streaming. The one that comes to my mind is it’s pretty universal and easily sourced through a lot of digital devices. The accessibility to such a large music data base is now open to even the normal Joe or Jane. There are so many views as to why streaming is good for that individual. I am an audiophile but I still have to drive my car to work and listen to what came with it. My car stereo does not beat what’s in my home audio 2 channel system. So driving with the enjoyment of Tidal HiFi. It helps the fact that new cars don’t come with CD players anymore. So it wasn’t easy to have an simple way to listen to high quality files until Tidal was on the market. In addition to that AppleCar Play and Android Auto have come into play on newer cars and aftermarket head units. So for me both of these technologies have been a blessing for me in the vehicle. To have acceptable sound quality sources on the road for my car audio system. This puts me back in my seat while cruising. I forget about the bad years of MP3 players replacing cd quality and technology is finally started to catch up with superior sound quality! I think this can only help to bring the Joes and Janes of the world. To possibly explore better electronics because the sound quality is already available to them with their Tidal subscription. They just have to be exposed to better electronics and speakers with a streaming service they already have.

When talking “critical listening”, any extra effort to seek the best source shouldn’t be an issue really.  If <critical then yeah stream to your heart’s content. When working I stream Pandora via WiFi and at times I even pause to listen to some pretty incredible sounding stuff.  When critical listening, I always reach for the CDs.

@bigtwin 

I get a lot of enjoyment from my stereo other than listening.  I love the look of it.  I love the beauty of P8 turntable.  I enjoy handling the cover of an LP, the artwork and liner notes. 

Honestly, I believe a lot of vinyl lovers are far more like you than they'd admit, with a large portion of their vinyl enjoyment being in the "care and feeding" of the vinyl experience. I've always considered it a chore myself, but to each their own. If you enjoy that part of the experience, then it's a bonus on top of the music.

I do miss the album covers and liner notes that disappeared (or minaturized into oblivion) with CDs. But I still have about a thousand I can dig out to look at if I get too nostalgic.  But it isn't the same as buying a new album and reading through it the first time as you listen to the new tunes.

I don't stream from hi-res services, but as @sj00884 described, I also stream from Pandora while working, or listen to ripped CDs, through headphones and laptop while working. Quality is fine for me since I'm concentrating on what I'm writing or reviewing. And I have found a great deal of music over the last decade that I otherwise wouldn't have, and now I own much of it on CD. I have to say that the whole concept of "critical listening" to *music* seems a bit bizarre.  I listen to enjoy the music, not to "critically evaluate" it. Those two concepts are mutually exclusive in my experience. YMMV of course.

I stream Qobuz and Tidal (I think hifi?) through the older PS Audio DAC with Bridge II and I find the sound quality to be excellent.  Way better than “good enough”.