Vinyl vs Streaming
Hey,
Hope this is OK to post here.
Do you ever find yourself questioning Vinyl in the face of Streaming?
And question yourself, why am I going through all this struggle when streaming is so much easier.
I was sitting on my couch streaming some hi res music, which was sounding great, asking this to myself.
It's just so much easier to stream and get from one song to another.
I know for some, their analog rig is much better and stronger than their digital side (if they even have one) and for others it might be the opposite.
Regardless, just wondering if you ever feel if it's worth all the extra work.
I've never understood the streaming paradigm. Pay as you play, rather than pay once and play many times. Some older LPs that I enjoy are just not available streaming. Seems that the tradeoff is between convenience and quality. It may take me longer to cue up some music on my vinyl rig than streaming a selection, but I have the satisfaction of knowing the quality of playback for every LP I choose to play. This is an extreme position, I realize. Pig headed I may seem. Hey, maybe I am. |
A couple of years ago, I spent around $4500 to upgrade my vinyl playback system. Not super high end compared to other systems, but certain albums do sound as good, or better, than streaming. My streamer/dac setup also sound really good, so my choice usually comes down to convenience. Streaming is much easier than vinyl and in my system, it's not a compromise in sound quality. I very rarely play vinyl. |
@sls883 Yea, that's what I am talking about. I'm afraid I might get to the point where I don't want to put in the effort and just use streaming more cuz it's so much more convenient. By the way, I am not dumping on vinyl in any way, hope my post does not come across like that. |
The transformation from analog being superior, to digital equality, and now supremacy has been going on for twenty year (seriously for 20 years... you can argue for much longer... but it was not close back then). I’m not sure when equality was reached... but I would say in the last five years. It has not occurred up and down the investment level at the same time. Some important qualifiers. You have to be comparing the same kind of house sound. The goals of different equipment makers are different... so, you can easily prefer one over another because of their design goals. But assuming you know what you are doing, at most price points, in general, you can assemble an equivalent or better digital end for about the same price at most levels of investment. Currently I have a very good analog and digital end... each cost about the same at $45K. Each time I think that vinyl would sound better... I pull one out... then to check I’ll find the same recording on Qobuz and I find it sounds as good and sometimes better. No surface noise on the digital. I have have friends with less expensive system and better system... so it is not just at the level of my system... that’s just an example. What your analog or digital end sounds like is completely the result of your component choices.. not of the media. Although vinyl has surface noise and is dependent on the pressing number from the master that pressed your copy. But the analogy / digital better is over... except with some old die hards that are romantically attached or like some old recordings not available in the millions available in streaming is over. You can see my systems under my user ID in virtual systems. |
