Quality is what I’m looking for. I’ve had good sounding records and bad sounding records. The same with cassettes, reel to reel, CD’s and even some HD downloads! Poop in, poop out, no matter the format or in some cases, reformat.
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? |
@mirolab Everything has absolutely not been remastered — that’s ridiculous. Switch to Qobuz. My DAC says everything is 16/44.1 or better, and my streaming now sounds better than spinning discs. Tidal sucks as does their absurd and total BS MQA algorithm. It needs to die. Feed that into your Audio Workstation. |
@soix Don't mean to drag this out, but I think maybe you don't understand what remastering is. It has nothing to do with bitrate. I've done remastering (& recording, mixing & mastering). I've done some great stuff, but I've also been paid to do some really terrible things to audio.... against my audiophile sensibilities! I do want to try Qobuz, as I really dislike Tidal's interface and music suggestions. They don't seem to tune into my preferences, and push modern rap & R&B music, which I don't like. Lately I've enjoyed the free version of Spotify more, just because they have better playlists than Tidal. I also don't care for MQA. |
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