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What am I missing?

When discussing streaming we often hear the quality achieved by streaming compared to "cd quality". "Cd quality" seems often to be the standard by which streaming is favorably compared while cds have at the same widely fallen into disfavor as a medium. If "cd quality" continues to be a quality standard by which we judge streaming services -which it appears to be- why exactly do we hold cds in such disfavor? More sophisticated dacs can always be employed with cd transports as they are with streaming. I understand the convenience and storage issues with cds but I also understand that with streaming you will never own the music which you do with cds. This becomes even more unclear to me when considering the resurgence of vinyl and the storage and convenience issues involved with this medium. I don't believe the music industry ever wanted us to own the music we listen to but rather preferred we only rent and pay for that music each time.

128x128pmiller115
deadhead1000's avatar
deadhead1000
714 posts
 

"CD quality" is heading toward being the 'base quality' for digital. You can already get higher quality then CD. Spotify and others are well below CD quality. 

I agree with you, the Music industry doesn't want us to own music, why would they? They can either sell you music once, or charge you forever, basically. They use to do it by going from 78's, to LP's and 45's, then 8-track/cassettes, then CD's and now  'higher quality' 180 gram LP's for old recordings. 

Notice I left out digital in that list, and it's because of MP3's and Napster (Free music!) that they needed to figure out a way to make money. They tried various coding/decoding methods, but that failed (Sony had a real bad time with it). They finally figured out they could make good money on subscriptions (renting as you put it). 

Personally, I like owning my own music and buy used CD's or buy Hi-Res when available for my Aurrender, but I bet they eventually kill both, and most people will never own any music. Records will probably still be made, people pay big money for new recordings. And they don't make the best digital copies, so it's really not worth it make 'illegal' copies. 

This is my take on it. If someone has a different take, I'm fine with that. I just look back at history and this to me is how we got here and where it's going.

edcyn
1,876 posts
 

At least with my rig, I often get my finest fidelity via Qobuz’s’ Hi-Rez streams. A good half the time it beats out what I get from my LPs.

 

Though their streams aren’t officially Hi-Rez, Idagio’s streams can deliver me excellent sound, as well. I also have to say that my Sony CD/SACD player sometimes beats my record player, too, at least by a nose. What can I say? My analog rig ain’t bad, either -- updated SOTA Sapphire turntable with Alphason arm, Hana cartridge and Moon phono stage. To be sure, none of my components truly explore the frontier of what is the best of the best, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the heck out of the sound my components provide.

 

Also, oddly, I just don’t care enough that, when I stream, I’m only renting the material, not owning it.

lordmelton's avatar
lordmelton
877 posts
 

A huge part of my youth was spent hunting for LPs in record shops and in magazines and later for CDs and SACDs in shops and online.

Anyone coming into Hi-End Audio now is blessed that they have millions of albums to choose from for a small monthly fee.

With the exception of bootlegs everything is available and then some. Owning music really doesn't make any sense anymore, unless you already own it.

Barring some dystopian future where the internet goes down we'll be scraping through the remnants of humanity for CDs or even better SSD drives.

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