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Sound Quality of red book CDs vs.streaming

I’ve found that the SQ of my red book CDs exceeds that of streaming using the identical recordings for comparison. (I’m not including hi res technology here.)
I would like to stop buying CDs, save money, and just stream, but I really find I enjoy the CDs more because of the better overall sonic performance.
 I stream with Chromecast Audio using  the same DAC (Schiit Gumby) as I play CDs through.
I’m wondering if others have had the same experience
128x128rvpiano
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
My question is do the streaming companies buy the tracks from the record companies directly, and if they do is it via hard drive transfer or software?
Or is there a distributor (middle man?)

It probably depends on the company, but I would bet that 99% of them just get the same tracks that we can buy by downloading them.  These are generally not masters because masters are 24/96 or 24/192, almost never 44.1.  These are down-sampled for the streaming track.

This is why I almost never stream.  I have my library of tracks on a RAID 1 and these are specifically selected for good SQ and tracks that I like.  All are .wav files, uncompressed.  This delivers the best SQ.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

rvpiano's avatar
rvpiano OP
2,654 posts
 
Thanks!
bo1972's avatar
bo1972
2,789 posts
 
Your thread is where many people are interested in. There is still too much what is unknown.

The thing I love most about now is that there are options of which we only could dream of in the past.

On the other hand is that still most audio products will never make people happy for over a longer period of time. Because our emotion cannot be fooled.

So when products cannot reveal all the different apects/properties of sound it is impossible to become and stay happy with it.

Streaming can be stunning and really great. But you are still independent of too many different aspects.

When I judge the quality of recordings of the biggest music stars in the world, often these recordings are limited. I am even sure that these artists have no idea how limited their recordings are.

I found and bought music of artists who only have a few thousand hits on Youtube. But their recordings are really stunning. It proofs that it is not about money what the issue is when a recording is limited.

In the 20 years that I work in this business I have tried many times to bring people together. But the world in audio is sick like the fact that the whole world is sick. I was dissapointed when people reacted very hard and where not interested in working together.

At the end we humans are the ones who limit us self over and over again. Because we think that we can do it all by ourselves. In those 20 years I work in this busienss I made big steps thanks to all those different specialists in many areas. Together you will always be so much stronger.

I wish you all a great and happy 2019.






artargyle's avatar
artargyle
6 posts
 
Happy new year: I have been using a Berkeley Audio Alpha 2 Reference w/ MQA, spinning CD's on an Esoteric PO3 Transport w/ Shunyata Alpha digital AES/EBU. Jeff Rowland Chorus/PSU to twin Rowland 625's/Revel Salon 2 speakers. I love the system and prefer it sonically to Digital (borrowed a DCS Vivaldi to listen.) I think a very good system is as good as a digital file of equal quality. Certainly no reason to ditch a transport or  such.
foxyrjd
2 posts
 

Streaming is fine for casual listening.  In my opinion critical listening still requires cd/sacd dedicated drive/software.  This may change in the future or everyone possibly will revert to vinyl.  ;)



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