Old CDs and records

 I don't think streamers are amongst those who've trashed cd sound quality, most have long incorporated digital in their systems. Its just once we discovered streaming and cd rips sound quality could equal or surpass playing cd's over transport that cd physical media became obsolete.

@rvpiano

I have 90% classical CDs and records. Maybe rock and pop are desirable, but I don’t think my collection is that viable.

I participate regularly on the Talk Classical Forum, in the ‘current listening’ thread of the forum, many are posting CD’s, and quite expensive CD sets at that. I would say it is at least 50/50 CD vs streaming, perhaps CD’s more.

Now, I am one of the very few who post LP’s regularly, but the members seem to enjoy seeing the LP’s I listen to daily.

I would say classical is played on my rig at least 85% of the time. My vinyl simply satisfies like no other. That said, yes, I still have a nice CD collection and stream as well.

(One of) My problem with streaming, and perhaps it’s just me, but I find myself easily switching to another selection mid-performance. With an LP, or even CD, I stick with what I pulled and listen throughout. I never pull an LP off the turntable, or remove a CD in the middle of a performance, but do find myself doing that with streaming. Perhaps that says more to how I view streaming vs physical media. Also, with my new CD transport, my CD’s often sound better than streaming…..again.

@rok2id

We are in transition… so not surprising there are various takes on the current situation. The hierarchy used to be really simple, vinyl was simply the best by a long ways at nearly all price levels, then came CD, and finally streaming. Things have radically changed.

I have a good contemporary system and for the last couple years: streaming is generally superior to vinyl which is superior to CDs and playing of std Rez files. Since streaming (Qobuz) has 1/2 million high resolution albums… this means most of the time streaming is best. If the same files are being streamed as are on a CD… then it will sound the same.

So, what does this mean? Streaming and vinyl are “superior” as they can sound better up to the level of investment you are willing to make in your audio system. Vinyl can best streaming with the appropriate investment, or visa versa.

Vinyl still has an edge: large in the <$10 - $15K system range. But that edge becomes smaller as your system gets better. The thing that kills CDs is their restricted resolution and cost (space and $). For the price of one new CD per month you get access to nearly all music. Once you have that… there is no going back… unless for reasons of nostalgia you like fiddling with disks.

The ambiguity occurs because many folks here have varied levels of equipment, experience and skill. So someone may have a particularly great CP Player and thinks it blows away everything else, some may have terrible DACs… there are so many ways not to get the very best sound that it covers up the underlying differences in the media… the current high Rez formats are streaming and vinyl and the long run winner will be streaming.

@ghdprentice 

Thanks for the post.   Sometimes I am tempted to set up my vinyl rig again to do a comparison between LP and CD.  In the meantime I will just agree to disagree with those that prefer LP.  Although I do miss the album cover art and the liner notes /  booklets of LP.

I have also learned that there are so many factors involved in all this, that just using logic and  or technical specifications and even sound quality is just plain useless.  We all have perfectly strange reasons for doing and thinking as we do.

You say you have access to thousands of tunes on Qobuz, and I'm sure they sound great, but, they would not belong to me.  I would be renting them by the month. I would not own them, and that's important to me.   For instance, to not have physical copies  of the Karajan 1977 Beethoven cycle, on both LP and CD, would be unthinkable!! :)

Cheers

somebody will love your collection.