"CD Quality" is nothing more than a bitrate. (which happens to be 1411 kbps). The audio that comes over those bits is what you should REALLY care about.... and what comes over the streaming networks is NOT the same as what you get from the actual CD.... much less if it's a 20+ year old CD. Nearly everything on streamers has been remastered to be very loud and compressed, BUT I'd rather hear an old 80's CD recorded with primitive A/D converters, that still retains it's natural dynamics. Some remasters are done sensitively, but not often in popular pop & rock genres.
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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@mirolab That’s just not true. Sites like Qobuz and Tidal exist to stream content in full CD 16/44.1 resolution. And a lot of music is available in hi-res that you can’t get at all on a traditional CD. You seem to be referring to highly compressed MP3 streaming that really has no place being discussed on this site because it sucks and nobody serious about audio would listen to it critically. |
@soix I have Tidal, and it's absolutely true. Everything has been remastered. I have many many original CDs, and what's on Tidal does not sound anything like the originals. I can pull the audio into my Audio Workstation and show you literally hundreds of examples of New vs. Old mastering jobs, where the new audio is much louder and compressed. And I mean dynamically compressed & limited, not data compressed which is a different thing. And as for Hi-Res..... same thing. What good is Hi-Res if the dynamics have been squashed out of the music? |
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