This is why I continue to buy CD’s and only use streaming for auditioning new music. Although I love the ability to have access to hundreds of thousands of artist titles ultimately it’s the quality of the streamed music that “To Me” is still lacking when compared to the physical media.
Qobuz Hi-Rez Not Necessarily the Best Sound
Hello:
I stream Qobuz using Roon into a Bricasti M1SE DAC/Streamer into a Benchmark HPA4 headphone amp and then into various Kennerton or RAAL headphones.
Lately I have been comparing different versions of recordings on Qobuz. For instance, lately it has been Depeche Mode but also Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, and Supertramp. Oftentimes there are several versions of titles, usually Hi-rez files of 24/192 or similar, versus the standard 16/44.1 resolution versions. Sometimes there are remastered versions in various resolutions.
Quite by accident I have found that the highest resolution versions are not necessarily the best-sounding versions, often preferring the remastered and/or standard resolution recordings. Today, for instance, I was listening to DM's A Broken Frame. The 24/192 sounded a little sharper with perhaps a little more detail and spaciousness but was amazingly dynamically compressed. The difference was not subtle. Going from the 24/192 to the 16/44.1 remastered version was going from a bland recording to one that came alive. I guess it goes to show that higher rez files are not necessarily superior sonically.
Anyone else found this to be the case in their streaming? Thanks.
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- 49 posts total
It was prov n over a decade ago that ripped music sounded better than the cd. IMO, digital doesn’t have the drawbacks that analog does, and hires digital can sound better than vinyl or redbook cd. |
I’ve ripped all my CDs to cd res files using dbpoweramp. Thousands in my music library now. Nothing to fear sound wise as long as the rip and playback is done right. Cd quality in and cd quality out. I use mostly Plex and Plexamp app to stream. Plexamp in particular provides a greatly enriched environment for streaming including ability to suggest similar sounding artists, albums, and tracks. So many ways to find and enjoy all that music.
It’s all good but much less problematic to stream from a file than to play a cd. Cd physical media quality varies widely. Try ripping with dbpoweramp and you can directly see how it can take much much longer to accurately rip a poor quality cd than a good quality one and the poor quality ones are way more common than one might expect. Hint: you can’t tell the good quality CDs from the poor quality ones just by looking at them. However a good quality ripping software like dbpoweramp rereads the disk as many times as needed to get the data off the disk accurately which is why poor quality CDs may take 10 minutes or more to rip whereas comparable length good quality CDs can rip in less than 5 minutes. |
I guess I didn’t clearly describe my setup and use. I audition music via streaming services before making the decision on what to buy. Once the disks arrive they sit in the listening queue. All disks are ripped via my Naim Uniti Core and stored for playback on SS drives. The disk is put away afterwards. I haven’t spun a disk in so long I can’t remember! |
@designsfx yup me too. I buy CDs, rip them to disk then store them away. Have not played a cd in years. I use a small desktop pc to rip and store and use Plex and Plexamp to stream. Good stuff! I also do same with vinyl ie play once, convert to digital and store on pc, then use audacity to do some basic processing and separate tracks, then Picard to auto tag the files. Also dbpoweramp tag editor if manual tagging needed. |
- 49 posts total