Streaming Is To Audio What Red Plastic Cups Are To Wine

@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! 

@brett1976 @mahler123 

This is getting annoying. Are you guys incapable of staying on topic so I can get back to enjoying music?

You can’t tell bashing from exploring the differences between two formats and expressing preferences. The latter is what this thread is all about. There is no bashing of either from me - I love both. It’s others who have tried to take this thread off topic with irrelevant talk of streaming having better sound quality and vinyl being too expensive.

Refusing to bash one is not the same as bashing the other. There is a good deal of projection going on here. Stop trying to gaslight me. It won’t work. 

I defy anybody to say one is definitively better than the other. They are just different. Each has it’s own strengths and weaknesses. 

MASTERING IS KING so there’s a lot to be said for having both to cover all the bases. But there’s no shame in choosing to have either one only.

I can hardly remember which one you are accusing me of bashing. If it’s streaming, you need to know that I did nothing but stream for five years up to 2024. Over the previous decades, my preferences have swapped back and forwards many times, but I am not married to either. They are just ways of listening to music.

I have recently made a change that has transformed the sound quality of streaming in my system after it has been disappointing for a while. This has delighted me so much - I am hardly going turn round and bash it now, especially after the huge amount I have spent on streamers, DACs, switches, servers, etc.

Is that clear enough for you?

Please either talk about the subject of the thread or let it rest, but for goodness sake stop going off at tangents. 

@devinplombier 

Well said! I am really impressed by what you write.

If we can get all the nonsense that is polluting your thread out of the way, I’d like go back to what I actually wanted to say about the topic in hand.

It occurred to me earlier today, that there is a curious pattern in my music listening. This may reflect the differences between streaming and vinyl.

If I sit down in the early part of the day, my listening tends to be exclusively streaming of ripped CDs, etc. Their sharp, precise, clear immediate sound seems to suit my wide awake state at this time. My mind is usually on other things, but the the sound cuts through even though it starts out as background wallpaper. The convenience of streaming matters at this time.

However, when it gets into the late afternoon/evening and light fades, I am far more likely to put on vinyl records. Here the more organic richer sound of vinyl suits my more relaxed state. This is more thoughtful and critical listening where I am aware of imaging and the texture of the sound. My active involvement in the process and greater absorption in the music is more appropriate than would have been earlier in the day.

To go back to the beverage cup analogy, the streaming early on seems to go with my morning Espresso. Yet later in the day, I am far more likely to be nursing a glass of red wine. Again, these feel like they suit the two respective formats.

I have never before thought about this dichotomy my in listening habits. It’s not something I’ve planned, it’s just what I tend to do without thinking. I rarely miss the vinyl slot, but often I’ll have other things on early in the day and my streaming sessions  are quite intermittent. This probably explains why I listen to more vinyl than streamed albums.

I wouldn’t say that I enjoy one way of listening more than the other. They are just different and match my changing mental state throughout the day.

To quote the original post:  Streaming feels disposable “

Sorry, @newton_john , that’s bashing.

And who is anyone stopping you from listening to music?  

@newton_john thank you for the kind words. 

Very interesting! I too find my listening habits changing with the time of day. First thing in the morning I most enjoy gentle, upbeat, unamplified music. As caffeine first hits, the bassist’s fingers hitting the strings, the trumpet player’s catching their breath, the cymbals’ brisk cascades of harmonics are all palpable.

Later in the day, if I’m working from home, I like to blast noise and sludge and electronic at unreasonable volumes. Paradoxically the sonic barrage helps me focus.

Late at night, I like to wind down with the kind of music you’d associate with driving home before dawn on the deserted, rain-soaked streets of a European capital.

I find that I use media pretty interchangeably, based on which one the music that fits the mood happens to be on. But when I do meaningful, intentional listening I tend to reach for my vinyl.