CD v Streamed

"I am not sure why the need to choose.  I prefer CDs, or CDs burned to a HD, to streaming content from the likes of Qobuz.  The only measurements I have are my ears.  It doesn’t require much imagination to see why the content provider or the ISP have incentives to compress sources and throttle bandwidth.  I think that Qobuz sounds inferior, but it isn’t a night and day, it’s a subtle difference.
   However, do we need to argue it?  We can have it all.  Play CDs, burn them to a HD, or stream them.  A streaming subscription costs the price of a decent download.  Don’t want a dedicated streamer?  Use a PC.   We live in a time of fantastic sonic replay.  Live and let live"
I guess I agree with mahler1234. I see the point in what numbers and data can provide but what would one do if the measurements point to better sound with "source A" but when one listens..... "source B" sounds better? Compressed, not compressed.... I guess it's not too important to me unless there is a big difference in sound quality. I have a friend that has a great turntable and luvs the analog sound over digital. But even when playing clean records the occasional pops clicks or hiss is hard on my ears..... we all have our own tastes?

I would think some people would then convince themselves to like what sounds inferior?!?

A streaming service streams the file you request. (As an aside note that compression of a file and compression of music in the mastering stage are two completely different things).On Qobuz you may have an option of a CD quality file or a higher quality file. The resulting file is streamed at the bit-rate of the file. There is no ’downgrading’ in Qobuz, there is no point as the streaming costs are so small.  If you are experiencing different dynamics that is down to the master used, not the streaming rate of the file. Compression of a file will not compress the music.  These compressions, as noted, are completely different things.   Here’s the explanation from Qobuz re bit rate. 


“The Bitrate, the flow of binary data, expresses the speed of information per second. It is measured in bits per second and is calculated fairly easily. For CDs: 44,100 samples per second, each one sampled over 16 bits, everything over two channels (left-right stereo). We therefore get a bitrate equal to 44,100 x 16 x 2 = 1,411,200 bits per second: the bitrate of a CD is equal to 1.411 Mb/s.
In the case of streaming, the size and therefore the quality of the files should be chosen depending on the bitrate of internet available. With a theoretical maximum bitrate of 13 Mb/s, an ADSL is adequate for CD quality streaming (at 1.411 Mb/s). For Hi-Res sound streaming at a bitrate of 9.2 Mb/s, it is clear that you can quickly reach the ADSL limit. A fiber connection would therefore be preferable. For smartphone streaming, most platforms offer an MP3 format with a maximum bitrate of 320 Kb/s.”

If you are experiencing different dynamics that is down to the master used

We've been saying that all along also, as they usually use the later versions/re-issues of albums which are normally more compressed than the originals.

But what we want from different streaming companies, is a 1min live streaming size in mb, to see how it compares to CD's 10.6mb for 1min

Cheers George 

@duckworp, 
I appreciate your comments.  In fairness, George has been quite consistent in pointing out that the fundamental issue is streaming providers opting to stream the more compressed "mastered"  versions of recordings. 

Simply correcting this pattern and offering instead the lower compression (Usually the earlier versions)  recordings would result in a noticeable improvement of the streamed sound quality. This could be implemented easily. 
Charles 

Psyop

 so, do you feel a need to “re-educate” people that they shouldn’t be enjoying playback that you subjectively view as inferior?  Let’s keep in mind that we are not talking about something like the difference between mp3 and lossless here. We are essentially comparing relatively small variances in lossless playback