Sound Quality of red book CDs vs.streaming

@lowrider57,

Streaming files are no different than CD or Vinyl pressings. We have great sounding albums on CD’s or Vinyl’s and bad one’s too. I am not saying there is no truth here, there are plenty of rock albums that don’t sound good on Streaming but they also suck on other formats too. Some of us are fortunate enough to own good copies that sourced from original master tapes. IME, there are plenty of great sounding files on Qobuz / Tidal that sound as good as CD or better.

Some people loves to make unnecessary ‘noise’ about compression...funny thing is they don’t even have a streaming setup. They are just too stubborn to get out of their comfort zone and adapt to present or future.

jafant,

Thanks for asking!
I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but I bought a Benchmark DAC3, and a GeerFab digital extractor.  Both units made a big difference.
How about you?

Lalitk,
Maybe you should try a Top of the Line Spinner/Dac like Esoteric with a Clock and compare it to your streamer. Dealers that carry both streamers and Esoteric/MSB/Gryphon etc will tell you there is no comparison. Me thinks some people arent stubborn to change...they simply can afford the best and not compromise. Streamers are great for experimentation but not for sound quality. I think people are just too lazy to get off their butt and put a new disc in every 45 minutes.

“Streamers are great for experimentation but not for sound quality”

@riaa_award_collectors_on_facebook,

Comment like above tells me you have no experience with streamers or you’re too cheap / lazy to invest in a SOTA streamer setup. It appears you have yet to hear a good streaming setup.

My streamer / DAC setup smokes any $20K Esoteric CD/SACD player. I know so cause I have done the A/B comparison in my home.

Dealers are not making the profit margin on the few new "good cd only transports", that they can make on the multitude of streamers out there.

Whenever a streamer (doesn’t matter what) comes to my place for an a/b shootout, it can’t match the CD transports dynamic range, using the same MSB discrete dac level matched, this is as I’ve mostly stated, different compressed releases being streamed, as my cd’s are the best DR ones released (usually the first), http://dr.loudness-war.info/ or it "maybe" that the streaming company compresses to stream.

But if the CD with transport is recorded to a streamers H/D then replayed that’s another story, it’s a lot closer, almost undetectable.

Cheers George