Streaming Is To Audio What Red Plastic Cups Are To Wine

Streaming will never give you this. 

Or this: 

At the same time, the right music on my 'phone sounded wonderful on the balcony in Luang Prabang.

@devinplombier wrote:

Unpacking and going through my vinyl collection, it occurs to me that vinyl is it, whereas streaming is Audio’s red plastic cup.

The best wines taste low-shelf in the red plastic cup. Yes, the red plastic cup is cheap and convenient, just like streaming. Wine should feel the same regardless of the vessel - it’s the same wine - but it does not. So should music - but it does not. Streamed music may sound (nearly) as good as vinyl, but it feels... disposable. Vinyl does not. Vinyl is the thing. Vinyl is it! Just my opinion, of course.

In As has been said it’s about content, and if for some reason its physical container is preferred as a manual process of handling it for each artist playback session, then by all means. The psychology of it to me however is that streaming (either local, ripped files or from a streaming service) is a freeing approach to listening to music, and not in the least more "disposable." 

It may not be about sound quality, but it is - at the core of things - what’s really implied; there’s the underlying notion that physical media playback, certainly analogue in the shape of LP’s is "the real deal" and will always hold the upper hand in regards to sound quality. Maybe that’s true, ultimately in a more all-out approach, but who among us can really claim that mantle (other than just borrowing it)?

Personally I’m happy analogue has survived and has seen a surge for years now, and it can sound fantastic, but so can digital. It seems rare to see an equal-ish measure of effort invested in both an analogue and digital source for a better basis of comparison. Usually there’s an inkling towards spending more time and energy with one over the other, and maybe that’s the more true marker of the perceived outcome rather than being about one format over the other. 

As for CD-playback vs. streamed content (i.e.: local storage or streaming service), it seems to me each camp has its respective and distinguishable "sound." Whether it’s about the particular jitter signature I couldn’t say, but I prefer file-based playback (local storage over streamed via ethernet) vs. CD-playback. To my ears the latter has more "signature," or at least a signature that isn’t as much to my liking. 

Wow still debating…listen to some music instead.