The problem with streaming

The original post, on its face, appears to be a reasonable cause of doubt. However when you consider the time and energy that goes into the process of professionally converting A to D, it involves a lot of time and money.

A couple of years ago  a very famous producer was in her New York studio with the family of deceased jazz artist. She commented how are after they had remastered at the 192/24 resolution, she said “he was in the room”.
 

So I think IF a company or individual or insert the blank, takes the time and energy to remaster A masterpiece, wouldn’t they have the wherewithal to know that there are varying qualities of source material? It may be an assumption, but anyone that is serious about their trade and reputation in that field, you would think that they would want to source the best.
 

If we humble (sic) audiophiles recognize that there is better media, why wouldn’t these professionals?

BTW my Roon somehow switch the stream to Airplay, dumbing down the rez to 44/16. My wife commented “what happened to the quality of the music?“ It had been going into my preamp on HDMI. Gotta figure out how to get rid of an airplay…

re: remastering engineers botching a job/using an inferior source, asking whether they "know" what they're handed is "the good one" seems kind of obtuse. some certainly do a great job, but with material outside of niche markets many engineers are probably just given something and they do their best with it. and their best might not be what an audiophile thinks is best. some go crazy with the compression and (an audiophile might say) wreck the dynamics because that's a sound that the artist or a label person wants/expects. others master for airpods, car systems, bluetooth speakers etc because that's what almost everyone on earth uses for playback these days. and a lot engineers are probably just regular people with a job to do, and some days may just phone it in 

61 yrs old. Audiophile for 40yrs. Went from turntables - last was HK/RABCO ST-8 with mid range Grado cartridges. Then switched to Philips CD player then a series of NAD players and never used the LPs and Ebayed them - then the turntable was Ebayed (before I knew about Audiogon). Loved CDs until I witched to Bluesound Node 2i and love it. I do miss "owning" music (still have 600-odd CDs) but the Node sounds at least as good as my Yamaha Aventage CD player (which I hardly ever use - thank goodness it plays DVD's/BluRays) and the convenience more than compensates. Long live streaming. 

@clearthinker I have 28,500 LPs (7,000 78s/7,000 CDs and RR&Cassettes). I agree with every comment you made. Friends and relatives cannot tell whether I am playing an LP or a CD 75% of the time. I have many 1,000s of less perfect LPs in mastering, quality and condition. Most would not make Tom Port’s list (he said so).

I like digital as well for convenience, playing time and just as my other formats, for which an abundance of music us NOT AVAILABLE and NEVER WILL BE AVAILABLE for streaming. About 40% of my collection falls into these parameters. Now include the lack of detailed booklets and easily accessible librettos on most streamed music. Next, one day the streamed music is there, the next it maybe removed or altered (different mastering).

I stream music which I don’t have and want to hear on occasion, generally jazz, often from lower quality YouTubes. My 3,500 ethnic music recordings are 95% unavailable on streaming. About 85% of 78 rpm recordings are unavailable on streaming. I would like to stream my 78s if they were properly remastered (especially if they have adequate notes).

@mijostyn Absolutely! Recording & Mastering of a recording is the first step in achieving an accurate copy of a performance. I hate saying that I’m an audiophile because I am most interested in the music first and foremost. @sgreg1 I even listen to cassettes and R2R on occasion to rehear a great performance.

Unless one is listening to music being reproduced at a similar level as the original recorded sound, there is a loss of musical information. I say this because listening to modern pop on inexpensive earbuds or cheap computer speakers does not compute as great musical experiences for me. Unfortunately, most youth (up to Millennials) do not know music’s history, it’s variety of conception (types of music) or much concerning what music can do. Streaming is not teaching music if the listener only chooses similar style of music (and if it is usually modern pop). I know some of the posters here experiment if various musical genres-good for them, that’s the positive aspect of streaming. But note my prior problems with modern streaming.

The problem with streaming:

I had a hankering the other day to listen to some Beethoven, so I search Qobuz
and find a likely candidate (a German recording).  So I start it playing and I'm hearing this very low level rhythmic noise.  At first I thought it was something outside and far away.  I pause the music and it stops.  WTH is this I say out loud,
But let it play as it was very very low level.  

Well it comes to the final notes and what do I hear...the stylus in the run-out groove.  Really couldn't believe it.  Just goes to show ya never know.

Regards,

barts