Streaming Is To Audio What Red Plastic Cups Are To Wine

@audioman58 

Good digital is better in several ways to vinyl and can hold 80% more information .

with digital no shortcuts ,getit right and it will cost $$ over $10k  minimum 

but that too applies to vinyl. .some people just like the mechanical efforts to play records , that’s fine , for myself judt pick the music on my tablet and done.

digital is always best hardwired, not wifi !!

I give up!

Hav8ng owned a audio store ,vinyl, and digital both have their place 

if you don’t mind the processes  to play records then  fine , good vinyl sounds wonderful, selection is very limited ,  but vinyl  recordings in engineering take 

more time in pressing good recordings , digital  especially older ones have more flaws in the recordings mthats why I look for good remasters when ripping digital,.

newton_john.

So dude bashes streaming for a whole paragraph, then because others comment on it, he writes another with one sentence saying he's not bashing streaming. He still posted the first paragraph, the words are still there. Thats what needs to be addressed. Like I said, newbies are reading these things like, looking for some guidance and the truth is, today's hi res streaming with a quality streamer or DAP has higher fidelity than records. Im very familiar with records as I owned many old ones, many MFSL ones, and newer 180g ones for the records I really liked. I had a high quality turntable, hi fi tonearm and hi fi carts. When I got into streaming, I saw how clean and clear the sound was, and gave my collection and turntable to my son. He loves it. 

@brett1976 +1

It is kind of maddening to have someone bash a medium and then after ardently defending their OP in multiple posts for several days and then with a flick of the wrist say, oh that medium that I’ve been trashing isn’t so bad…

However, I’ve been there and done that.  I frequently rail against vinyl but I have to admit when it’s done properly it sounds pretty good.

  The OP in this case prefers vinyl because of the ritual that is involved in playing it.  That was not clear from his OP but emerged after thread give and take.  Personally I view the whole vinyl ritual as a refined torture, but one man’s pain is another man’s pleasure 

To quote my original post: 

Streamed music may sound (nearly) as good as vinyl, but it feels... disposable. Vinyl does not.

The point wasn’t about sound quality, not even in my hastily written first post, and I took great care to clarify that in later posts. Streaming can sound great. Vinyl can sound great. Both can sound great.

The music is the same. The sound quality is the same. The point was about experience. The vinyl experience is rich and involves all the senses, well except for taste. In contrast, the streaming experience is narrow, limited and only involves hearing. Would you rather hold a gatefold LP cover in your hands, feeling the weight of the paper stock and smelling that album smell, or look at a jpeg of it on a tablet? Etc.

And, as mentioned, the ritualistic aspects of vinyl that are part of the attraction - for some of us at least.

Of course, the big (huge) attraction of streaming is the access to an immense pool of recordings and the ability to discover new music.

Bashing of any media is not welcome in this thread, and I’m still not sure what bashing took place besides some folks jumping the gun and feeling that the sound quality of streaming was being branded inferior. It was not. And again, I myself spend as much time - or more - streaming than I do spinning vinyl, so I’m definitely not a "denier" and in fact, I’d like to think I have a pretty good comprehension of digital audio.

Enjoy the music!