Qobuz Hi-Rez Not Necessarily the Best Sound

Provenance is far more important than bit rate IME. Having Tidal, Qobuz and thousands of cd rips there is far more variability than consistency between services and bit rates. I've often compared hi rez rips and streams to 16/44 streams and rips and preference all over the place. Far more important is quality of original master and/or remasters, generally something I can only determine by listening. In the end I pay very little attention to bit rates, sound quality is what it is, if not to my liking I search for another stream version of same album, sometimes I find superior sound quality, other times not.

@sns 

x10 on Provenance 

CD is far better than what Qobuz or other streaming stuff offers by FAR. 

It's an audiophile masturbation to compare at least 20...30 versions of the same album, but no matter whatcha do, streaming is inferior to the hard media formats.

While I’m not on Qobuz, I have found that a lot of times there is little or no difference between CD and high Res. It’s as if they re-recorded it without making any other changes. Having said that, I’m listening to Tommy in 24/96 and it sounds great!

Great thread, all!... and timely, for me. First, I concur with so many here: the ability to have so much music available in Hi-Res these days is just wonderful. I'm a Qobuz subscriber myself, and generally find that the 192 kHz stuff (especially the more recent re-releases, e.g., The Beatles albums, Steely Dan's "Can't Buy a Thrill") sound way better, though, as with most things, there can be exceptions. Also as with most things, if you start with quality in the raw ingredients, the odds will be better that you'll get a great product out the other side. Cooking, wine-making and music are great examples (and for music, I'm thinking picky recording artists like Genesis, Talking Heads, Dire Straits et al). The converse, naturally, being "garbage in, ..."

I stream through an Aries Mini into a Weiss DAC2. The amplifier is a Jolida 302b tube. Speakers are a brand new pair of Tyler Acoustics Linbrook Signature monitors, PS Audio and AudioQuest cables. Not super high-end by any stretch, but the system is balanced and the sound really works in my space. (Tube amps are incredible. The warm-up time isn't, but... tradeoffs.)

And with all that, I have a question: when I first signed up for Qobuz back in 2020, the 16/44.1 versions would read as just that on the Weiss DAC. But beginning a couple/few months ago, even the lowest end recordings appear to be playing at 44.1 x 4 (176.4 kHz). And I'll add that just about everything sounds better playing at that higher resolution than it did prior to. I can hear it. I'm thinking that Qobuz must have done something programmatically, but no idea what it was. (I even asked their support folks, got an initial reply saying they'd ask, then... crickets.) Anyone here know? ...and thanks for the great discussions, always.