I love my CDs and I love streaming. CD quality at 16-bits/44.1KHz was not arrived at lightly. In the late 1970s much research was done on how "good" digital needed to be in order to sound, well, "good". At the same time the technology of the day had to be considered as well - and meeting price points that consumers would adopt. So yeah, CD quality is what we got. I like it just fine. High Rez files might be better, and yeah, I've tried DSD256 files for what it is worth. But I keep coming back to my CDs because I have more than a few that are out of print, the labels went belly up, and they will never be on any streaming service. So there is always that to consider.
If you like something - really like something - buy it. It is yours. No lawyer, label, or even artist can take it away from you. And you won't have to go on Discogs and cough up $114 for it either (plus a ridiculous amount for shipping).
Maybe if my ears were younger, I'd be more into the High Resolution stuff, but I simply can't hear a significant difference. Heck, vinyl albums sound fine to me.
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.
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@larry5729 keep up Spotify really was the pioneer of streaming music. Really the first successful commercial streaming platform. |
In my system I still believe CD's sound best, but by an increasingly small margin. However paying $20 a month for essentially unlimited access to music close to, at or above CD quality is a bargain. Access is great, do everything from your tablet, if I didn't own a CD player I now wouldn't buy one. The record companies In my opinion are a necessary evil, we would not have high quality recordings without them and probably very little access to good music. |
I’m just about to get into streaming (late bloomer). I own lots of CD’s and have pretty good equipment and they sound pretty good (except for poorly produced ones). The advantages I expect from streaming will be (i) increased access to a whole world of music for a small monthly fee with the option to buy what I like, in CD form or otherwise, and (ii) claimed higher resolution that what I experience already. |
Cd quality has not been the standard for several years now ,a disc rotating with wobble is very hard to accurately read . a quality recording on a SS drive is far more accurate , the dac a is far better implementation. The key is that it takes quality throughout ,Ethernet cables , Hub usb cables most important the quality of the dac ,and the computer-streamer imo around $10-$12k minimum to achieve a pretty respectable digital setup which I am nearing that goal , but much more $$ can achieve much better results still, the Denafrips Terminator anniversary dacs, and Holo spring May KTE dacs are without question best of in class $4600-$7k range the Bricasti M1SE streamer-Dac has lots of filters and is very good at $12k and a very good buy .that may be on my short list for next year.
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