Streaming Is To Audio What Red Plastic Cups Are To Wine

My experience is that my CD’s ripped to the NAS as AIFF files sounds way better than Qobuz . I just did not enjoy it or connect with it emotionally. I actually really enjoy listening to streams for radio stations. And I gave up vinyl years ago,

The original posting of wine / plastic cup analogy resonated with me. I LOVE my vinyl collection, and concur with many respondents on their reasons why they like vinyl. 
But... as a PhD university professor chemist, I have to throw a little water on the analogy to remind everyone: vinyl IS plastic!

Unfortunately, a lot of music is not available on vinyl - especially going forward in the 21st century.

So I guess you could say, "limiting yourself to vinyl is the red plastic cup of wine for people who truly love music and being part of the world of music."

"Vinyl is it!" 

Oy vey.

I LOVE vinyl. I've been collecting since teenage years quite a few decades ago, except for the years when CD's took over.

I have a collection I love - after all I selected what I like, so I ought to love it. And when I say collection, I mean vinyl, CD's, and cassettes. As well as my curated music on Tidal/Roon.

When it comes to "quality" sound, of course the cassettes are lacking. Yet, I love the way they sound. It has a familiar and I suppose nostalgic sound for me that is familiar and enjoyable.

I'm a Music-First audiophile (a John Darko philosophy). And I only take audiophilia so far - I'm not out for the ultimate magic, just want to do the best I can under my various limitations, such as not being able to acoustically treat my listening areas, or buy all the latest and greatest.

Another limitation is the cost of media. Albums have gotten damn expensive and there's just too much music to hear. That's where CD's come in at a much lower price, and I can still select something and put it on and play it through and look at liner notes, lyrics, etc.

On another note. I'm not so thrilled by the trend of single albums being spread across two disks, resulting in a lot of 12-minute LP sides. I can't say I hear higher quality sound from the disks that way, and it IS a pain in the butt to either let the needle run in the out-groove or get up and stop it. Besides, choosing a side with two or three songs isn't the same as playing Side 1 or Side 2 with a good 5 or 6 songs on them. Roon will play a whole album and I have it set to go right into "radio" mode where it plays complementary music. It's great for discovery and often hits a good groove.

AND - streaming is the best for checking things out. The radio days are long gone for the most part, unless one is committed and adventurous. But I can check stuff out on streaming and then purchase. Just had a recommendation to a band the other day and will listen on streaming. I may end up buying vinyl and seeing them in concert and buying their merch. But I may say, eh, not my thing. Doesn't cost any additional money to check them out.

it's all good. Just went from Tedeschi Trucks on vinyl in my living room to The War on Drugs on CD in my home office right now, and I love hearing music pretty much wherever I am.

I was recently comparing the official studio masters (some 24 bit files) to the vinyl master for a couple of albums. 

Stuff on the low end’s gone, stuff on the top end’s gone (this album really needed it not gone, certainly not artist intent)....with a pestilent midbass and bizarre eq sht done to it...pure trash, i seriously can’t believe some of the TRASH masters that get pressed on the vinly plastic.

Some mind numbing bozos will deliberately lose things that were present in the music, so they can stick to their faulty bozo medium of loyalty, i suppose....It is no freaking "real deal".

I’ve been tinkering with some AI tools to reclaim the sht that was lost on some very old vinyl i’ve been trying to archive....rather not name any of the botched recent albums because the starving artist relies on some physical medium purchases to make a living wage. Streaming didn’t pay diddly. Buy the CD or the digital hires album if you like the album you heard/sampled on qobuz.

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)?