I am in shock how much better it sounds spinning a silver disc via the Audiolab 6000T via audioquest diamond spdif vs the same music streamed from a Roon nucleus plus via audioquest diamond ethernet into my router and then audioquest ethernet into my DAC (DCS Rossini) I'm not sure if there is some kind of degradation because of the way the cables come into the router then to the DAC but it's not even a close call here, drastically better via the spinning silver disc. Discs are cheap and I've started adding to my collection once again
CD Quality Versus Streaming Quality
I realize this will be a contentious subject, and far be it from me to challenge any of the many expert opinions on this forum, but if I may offer my feedback vis-a-vis what I am hearing, and gain some knowledge in the process.
i will begin saying that my digital front end setup is not state of the art, but i have had the good fortune to listen to a number of really high-end systems. I guess the number one deficit in my digital front end is a streamer server, and no question about it that will improve the sound.
My CD player is a universal player; Pioneer BDP-09fd. It uses Wolfson DACs. It has been modified to a degree. I have bought and sold other players, but kept this one, because it has a beautiful sound that serves the music well.
Recently, i ventured over to my son’s place and we hooked up my player (he doesn’t have one and rely’s on streaming only) We compared tracks / albums of CD quality and master quality streamed on Tidal with ‘redbook’ CDs I have. For example, some Lee Ritenaur CDs and some Indian classical and the wonderful Mozart and Chopin.
His system is highly resolving.
we were both very surprised to find the CDs played on the player to be the better sound. And not just by a little. The sound was clearly superior, with higher resolution and definition, spatial ques, much better and clearer imaging. Very surprising indeed. Shouldn’t there be no difference? This would suggest the streaming service is throttling the bandwidth or compressing the signal?
i am most interested to hear others’ observations, and suggestions as to why this might be? I do love the convenience aspect of streaming, but it IS expensive for a chap like me of fairly modest means. The Tidal HiFi topline service is $30 per month I believe, something the good lady is not too thrilled about. God forbid I should suggest Roon on top of that I may likely get my walking papers. I jest, but only partially LoL. My point is, if I pay this sort of money, isn’t it fair to expect sound to equal the digital stream from the CD player and silver disc?
Thoughts?
AK
i will begin saying that my digital front end setup is not state of the art, but i have had the good fortune to listen to a number of really high-end systems. I guess the number one deficit in my digital front end is a streamer server, and no question about it that will improve the sound.
My CD player is a universal player; Pioneer BDP-09fd. It uses Wolfson DACs. It has been modified to a degree. I have bought and sold other players, but kept this one, because it has a beautiful sound that serves the music well.
Recently, i ventured over to my son’s place and we hooked up my player (he doesn’t have one and rely’s on streaming only) We compared tracks / albums of CD quality and master quality streamed on Tidal with ‘redbook’ CDs I have. For example, some Lee Ritenaur CDs and some Indian classical and the wonderful Mozart and Chopin.
His system is highly resolving.
we were both very surprised to find the CDs played on the player to be the better sound. And not just by a little. The sound was clearly superior, with higher resolution and definition, spatial ques, much better and clearer imaging. Very surprising indeed. Shouldn’t there be no difference? This would suggest the streaming service is throttling the bandwidth or compressing the signal?
i am most interested to hear others’ observations, and suggestions as to why this might be? I do love the convenience aspect of streaming, but it IS expensive for a chap like me of fairly modest means. The Tidal HiFi topline service is $30 per month I believe, something the good lady is not too thrilled about. God forbid I should suggest Roon on top of that I may likely get my walking papers. I jest, but only partially LoL. My point is, if I pay this sort of money, isn’t it fair to expect sound to equal the digital stream from the CD player and silver disc?
Thoughts?
AK
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- 239 posts total
What gets streamed you, you cannot find it’s provenance, which date re-release your getting, it’s usually the latest or close to the latest Which means it’s probably far more compressed that the earliest releases. Here’s what I mean, they only made the one album, but it was re-released many times, and got more and more compressed the later the release gets. https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/year?artist=Traveling+Wilburys And the Boss. https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/year?artist=Bruce+Springsteen&album=Born+To+Run https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ&ab_channel=MattMayfieldMusic Cheers George |
Fellows, I have an update. In lieu of a dedicated streamer on my list of must-haves, I may have corrected the inconsistency of streaming quality. More available bandwidth and also noise reduction. As a point of reference, currently streaming Apple Music (the newly improved Lossless / Hi-Res service). Cannot say yea or nay if this service equals or beats Qobuz or Tidal, but am hearing great sound. So, two major changes that have affected change; 1. Got replacement router modem from Frontier. This time, went into the software admin application and enabled the separation of 2.4G from 5G. Allowing selection of 2.4G or 5G. 2. My son gifted me an Asus RX3000 5G WiFi router with excellent WiFi and 5G performance. Plugged that in to an ethernet port on the Arris NVG468MQ Optical Fiber (ONT) router, now operating in 5G mode. The Asus is well reviewed. My rationale for an additional router is to extend the performance over the the Frontier router and gain performance by connecting to the Asus RX3000 5G network. I don’t watch TV regularly - a couple of times a week really. Kicked things off first with video content, a show on YouTube, streamed from my computer. launching from the Brave browser circumvents continual advertisements, I watched a beautifully filmed Turkish drama serial called Karadayi. First indications positive. Things were on the up and up. The show was streaming in full HD 1080p. It has until now almost always down-converted resolution to 720p, maybe a sign that I have been dealing with bandwidth limitation all the while? And that is what has happened. I am hearing better sound more consistently from streamed content than I did before. Much closer to good Redbook CD quality. I think that the improvement is down to more consistent bandwidth availability, enabled by 5G perhaps? Also, could it be that by plugging in the Asus RX3000 somehow EMI /RFI noise is being more effectively addressed? Any views are welcome. |
- 239 posts total