More Consensus That Streaming Is An Inferior Format & Not High End?
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The person who wrote claimed he heard ‘more noise on the stream that came from the internet”. I highly doubt that.
It’s nice to see Paul admit that he doesn’t know. It’s a complex problem that only a few manufacturers seem to have figured out.
It’s nice to see Paul admit that he doesn’t know. It’s a complex problem that only a few manufacturers seem to have figured out.
Not a fan of his work… but great to see that he admits he doesn’t know anything about this for sure
but he’s developing a product that will fix it anyway… hmmm subscribed uhmmm errrr not.
I am always open to a discussion that realizes a format is not perfect and how we can improve it. We have two discussions going on. Bob Dylan suggesting the streamers are doing something to make music sound "smooth and painless." Then we have Paul suggesting the streamers are damaging the music by unknown (to Paul at least) compression algorithms.
To me at least, the term "CD quality" is an oxymoron. CD has never been my standard for anything. CD is an example of the problems of digital. I find Tidal has addressed many of those problems. As I frequently say when man cures a problem, he creates another problem.
I am all for making streaming better. I worry that it will follow the path of FM radio. When Tidal becomes truly successful, I worry that an Elon Musk clone will pay too much to acquire it and cannibalize the company to recoup the cost.
Here is to making streaming as good as possible. Please don't make CD the standard. It was a bad idea from the beginning and should be allowed to wither on the vine. MO YMMV
To me at least, the term "CD quality" is an oxymoron. CD has never been my standard for anything. CD is an example of the problems of digital. I find Tidal has addressed many of those problems. As I frequently say when man cures a problem, he creates another problem.
I am all for making streaming better. I worry that it will follow the path of FM radio. When Tidal becomes truly successful, I worry that an Elon Musk clone will pay too much to acquire it and cannibalize the company to recoup the cost.
Here is to making streaming as good as possible. Please don't make CD the standard. It was a bad idea from the beginning and should be allowed to wither on the vine. MO YMMV
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Exactly.Not a fan of his work… but great to see that he admits he doesn’t know anything about this for sure
Streaming is a wonderful and cheap way to to try before you buy. Likewise I can get hold of South Indian Carnatic music which I can’t get anywhere else. It's in its infancy - let’s face it - vinyl was pretty lowsy until post war so it took a fair few decades to sound good
I did extensive testing over the course of the month. And I made significant improvements in the sound of my streaming with $500 with common gear when added to my Paul Pang high end switch and Rose 150b.
It can easily be done - it just requires thinking outside the box and doing a little bit of experimenting.
It can easily be done - it just requires thinking outside the box and doing a little bit of experimenting.
The big problem with streaming is buffering obvious I know - but being at the end of my road and despite various guarantees I still encounter the wheel of death regularly. During music highly annoying. It may be better that I download music but I had in my mind the logic of streaming to hear it first before buying on vinyl. If I download I am paying more for no real reason
Not a fan of his work… but great to see that he admits he doesn’t know anything about this for sure
To be a successful inventor do you need to be successful inventing the problem you solve?
Streaming is high end. Not being the highest in the high end, is still high end.
At some point digital in it's entirety wasn't thought to be high end. Which was obviously not true.
I believe streaming can sound amazing, and often does. But it has a ways to go, and I applaud the people that are working on improving it.
At some point digital in it's entirety wasn't thought to be high end. Which was obviously not true.
I believe streaming can sound amazing, and often does. But it has a ways to go, and I applaud the people that are working on improving it.
It sure can sound amazing. I think we've arrived at the point where one can go all in with streaming from Qobuz and be treated with world-class high-end sound. As with everything in this hobby, all it requires is proper care in selecting gear.
It's been my experience that the difference between various music players is larger than the difference between playing a file off of my hard drive vs streaming it from Qobuz. It's more so the music players that have a ways to go, IMHO.
Would you consider a $500 vinyl based system to be high-end?
How about a $50,000 record playing system?
And how would that compare to a carefully constructed $500,000 turntable, support, cartridge, phono cable and phono stage?
Turns out, local and remote streaming is no different when you judge it according to the sound quality its capable of producing.
The problem with networks in general is that they were originally designed for an altogether different task. Sound quality played absolutely ZERO role in the development of networking standards and associated equipment and the concept of digital streaming was a late development in the digitisation and distribution of music.
At first it was assumed (and still is in certain quarters) that all one needed for digital streaming was a bit-perfect copy of the original digital source material; usually a CD. It was accepted that compression was a bad thing, but the ultimate was considered to be ‘uncompressed bit-perfect’ files.
Happily for audiophiles this has proven not to be the case. Why happily? Because a bit-perfect stream can sound pretty poor and certainly not what would be considered High-End. But streaming is like any other branch of hi-fi In that bit-perfect is only a small part of the equation when it comes to the sound quality achieved. Noise, in all its different forms, network traffic, vibration, timing inaccuracies and the ’audio quality’ of ALL the hardware employed play exactly the same role in streaming as the quality of turntables and associated equipment play in analog music reproduction. A top class streaming system is most definitely High-End, to the point it can get close to establishing a new SoTA in reproduced music quality.
How about a $50,000 record playing system?
And how would that compare to a carefully constructed $500,000 turntable, support, cartridge, phono cable and phono stage?
Turns out, local and remote streaming is no different when you judge it according to the sound quality its capable of producing.
The problem with networks in general is that they were originally designed for an altogether different task. Sound quality played absolutely ZERO role in the development of networking standards and associated equipment and the concept of digital streaming was a late development in the digitisation and distribution of music.
At first it was assumed (and still is in certain quarters) that all one needed for digital streaming was a bit-perfect copy of the original digital source material; usually a CD. It was accepted that compression was a bad thing, but the ultimate was considered to be ‘uncompressed bit-perfect’ files.
Happily for audiophiles this has proven not to be the case. Why happily? Because a bit-perfect stream can sound pretty poor and certainly not what would be considered High-End. But streaming is like any other branch of hi-fi In that bit-perfect is only a small part of the equation when it comes to the sound quality achieved. Noise, in all its different forms, network traffic, vibration, timing inaccuracies and the ’audio quality’ of ALL the hardware employed play exactly the same role in streaming as the quality of turntables and associated equipment play in analog music reproduction. A top class streaming system is most definitely High-End, to the point it can get close to establishing a new SoTA in reproduced music quality.
to the point it can get close to establishing a new SoTA in reproduced music quality.
ready for a demo of that
ready for a demo of that
streaming is good enough that my visitors on Saturday were fully engaged for 90 minutes with our streaming choices, plenty of great performances and great sound. lots of music not available from other sources. each of us had our streaming preferences and particular cuts. a seamless way to any music we could think of with remarkable sonic quality and musical involvement and satisfaction.
then we switched to vinyl for 2 hours and it was lots better, but that did not diminish the streaming experience. the streaming was not wrong, it was simply not as good by degrees. there were things the vinyl did that was special. and then we played a tape that was better still by degrees.
streaming is part of the full meal musical deal.
we can throw rocks and stomp our feet if we like. but it does not change the fact that streaming is really good. streaming does not need to fully meet or exceed analog to be worthy of high expectations. but i suppose it depends on your relationship with listening to reproduced music. what is most important?
then we switched to vinyl for 2 hours and it was lots better, but that did not diminish the streaming experience. the streaming was not wrong, it was simply not as good by degrees. there were things the vinyl did that was special. and then we played a tape that was better still by degrees.
streaming is part of the full meal musical deal.
we can throw rocks and stomp our feet if we like. but it does not change the fact that streaming is really good. streaming does not need to fully meet or exceed analog to be worthy of high expectations. but i suppose it depends on your relationship with listening to reproduced music. what is most important?
Sometimes more money equals better sound quality not always, personally I equate high end with sound. quality not price. A $500 piece of equipment outperforming a $50k one sonically isn't that uncommon. Maybe we should define what high end means to everyone first?
david
this past summer i stumbled across a streaming 16/44 file of a live 90's grunge concert that really touched me. could not get enough of it. so in July when i went to the Seattle Audio Fest audio show in each room i asked for it to be played to give me a sense of each room relative to my home experience. honestly, none came close, but more to the point, none of the analog experiences at the show equaled it either.to the point it can get close to establishing a new SoTA in reproduced music quality.
ready for a demo of that
does this mean my streaming is better than vinyl? no. but it does speak to what is possible with streaming.
and it's neat that streaming travels, and you can be confident you can access it anywhere in any system. gives us all a reference. and great recordings sound great streaming.
I could happily live with Taiko streaming to Lampi. Analog is more itch and some records are lovely. When one Lampi guy who is not into analog asked me if he was missing out, I didn’t recommend he get in unless he wants to extend his hobby. For those not looking at recordings Analog imo is pointless. Streaming to Lampi is great with piano, violin, orchestra. And then rock is just better on vinyl like a slam dunk due to the old recordings bass
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Hi David,
Interesting. So which TT system costing $500 outperforms one costing $50K, both optimally set up obviously?
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