Suppose you want to compare his phrasing at a particular point such as 9 min 48 seconds on one vs 9 min 30 seconds on another. Nothing but your physical media will let you do this
Actually you can do this with streaming quicker than you load a CD.
I Sold my CD Player!!! Streaming sounds so incredible!!!
Several years ago, was the very first time I had the opportunity to hear a very high end, high quality, streaming audio system. Once I heard it, I was smitten, and I knew right then and there that this was me all the way!!! I was absolutely blown away by the handy convenience of the little iPad (or cell phone) used as remotes to control the otherworldly access to a virtual ocean of music via Tidal, Qobuz or downloads. I immediately recognized this new technology as the future of my own audio system, especially with all the new hi rez stuff out there that was now made available. I gave up vinyl when CD came on the scene (yes, I'm an old guy), and, now, perhaps, it would be finally time to retire my beloved CD player. Long story short: What put my streaming audio system over the top, as far as sound quality is concerned, was the assemblage of these core streaming devices-----( #1) A superb DAC, by Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty streaming DAC (#2) An outstanding music server, by Roon Nucleus Plus (#3) An outstanding Audio Switch, by Pakedge Devices (#4) Excellent Ethernet Cables, by Shunyata Sigma. I also utilize numerous other tweaks and filters that further purify the streaming audio signal within my room and audio system. At this juncture in life, I am just mesmerized by the combination of sound quality and convenience that I get through my streaming audio system. I'm also happy and pleased to report that, I don't miss my old beloved CD player one bit. Happy listening.
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@fpomposo Sounds like you don't believe in FLAC. I've never used an Aurender and I hope they don't have conversion problems making FLAC back into WAV. I upgraded my Innuos with onboard drive and a nice ripper to a grimm with onboard drive. I don't use the drive much since it offers no audio benefits. Sounds like you really believe your WAVs are superior so that is what you are hearing. Enjoy the music. Jerry |
@carlsbad it's not that I don't believe in flac or aac, I have half my music collection ripped in aac because many years ago I need to save disc space, so I have heard lots and lots of "lossless" audio, and I have extensively compared albums in aac vs WAV and WAV sounds superior, again it's a drastic difference. The entire point of flac and aac was saving space back in the day, but now there is no point, I have maybe 800 CDs ripped and it's under 1 TB, my Aurender has a 2 TB SSD hard drive in it, my computers all have 2 TB SSD, my entire library is backed up to Dropbox which I have a 6 TB limit. I have no use or need to try and save disc space by using "lossless" compression formats that actually sound much worse than just doing bit for bit copies of the original CD without ditching half the bits using flac or aac.
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I find the same thing as fpomposo. On my Eversolo A8 the ripped CDs on the internal SSD - in my case FLAC - sound markedly better than anything from Tidal and Qobuz, even the high res stuff, and even the downloads. There is more substance and depth with the local rip. And I agree with the technical reasons he stated as reasons for it to be so. And vinyl sounds even better still. I'm surprised at this though "When I listen to a CD at WAV resolution it’s anywhere from 500 to 800 megabytes of data, if you stream the same album it is going through lots of compression algorithms and you are downloading maybe 50 to 80 megabytes.". ....it seems like others would have seen this also. Seems too obvious. I'll have to compare the file sizes of downloads to the ripped if possible.
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Streaming is the nexus between wealth and luck in America. You need the luck of access to hard wired fiber optic service and the wealth to express the data on a fancy system, like the person who began this thread. Coaxial cable was invented in the 1840's and it is in the lion's share of American households. A coax modem is a digital sphincter that does a mediocre job and wears out in a year or two. The cable tech in my old neighborhood told me he had a job for life replacing coax connectors under the side walk. They fail like clockwork. Streaming was misery. |
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