Streaming Is To Audio What Red Plastic Cups Are To Wine

@mapman 

Streaming sound quality is off-topic here. It isn't the point of this thread.

Ok it’s your thread so fair enough but my point stands.

I view streaming as wine in the finest crystal glassware available.  Red cups are right out!

I think presentation is a big deal. I enjoy playing my CDs, or even ripped copies off my hard drive rather than streaming. For me it has nothing to do with the sound quality. It’s something to do with having a local collection that I don’t have to connect on-line to play, and that I have rights to keep indefinitely. It surely limits what’s available but I find it takes many play throughs over time to really get to know a piece. I’m not tired of any of the albums I own. I enjoy streaming but it’s a different experience. Whether it’s like a plastic cup or a paper plate; Yeah, I think that’s a fair analogy. Playing an LP introduces an almost ritualistic, ceremonial amount of user input requirement to the playback process. Plus there’s the mechanical action that is clearly happening before your eyes, and you can unavoidably hear a little of that during playback. It can strangely bring more life into the recording, the parasitic effects occurring in real time being connected to the recorded content and sort of dithering my sense of disbelief. Seems like it should be the other way around. Maybe it’s just some nostalgia in me for an occasional tick or scratch. I don’t spin vinyl much anymore for practical reasons. I owned so much at one time that I was running out of space in my condo.

If it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, sending shivers down my spine, the source does not matter...

Currently streaming some hi-rez, blues through Tidal, in total nirvana. Might pull that album from my vinyl collection to keep the sensation going...

Another analogy is one that only streams music consumes everything but retains nothing!