How Good a CD Transport is Required to Sound Better than Streaming?

There seems to be a fairly solid consensus (Lucasz Ficus, LL21, Al M, etc.) that CD playback or computer file playback, or perhaps both, sound better than streaming (assuming, of course, that all other variables, including the DAC, are held constant).

But I assume that one cannot assume that any device that can spin a CD necessarily will achieve better sound quality than will streaming.

So how good a CD transport does one need to achieve CD playback which sounds better than streaming? Where do the lines (rising sound quality of better transport and streaming sound quality) cross?

 

@ tima Here's another

Roon in your Car sound systems

Dear rooners Have you all ever try put roon Core on your car? Cause, im working about it right know. Im using intel NUC10i7FNH 16GB of RAM and ssd 250GB, I already built it as my roon ROCK Using routers+modem to CHORD 2go2yu and then to my car audio systems And BeelinkGTkingPro as my roon...

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Your simple characterization of the Roon Algorithm is simply untrue.

Where your own personal use of metadata, where your own natural course of discovery through research, is propped up by artificial instigations craft a mindless path more readily prone to introducing untruths. You are trusting an environment that introduces vital elements as easily as removes awareness of them to large undiscoverable tracts of hebetude. OS/programs limiting thought that can be put into decisions requires only the most simple characterization as an ill pervading our lives at this moment.

We as humans are unfortunately defined in no small part by our diet. No doubt you retain ability to exit at will or consume from a new (data) table. Equally, nobody should expect only the core rigid practices to be upheld with no ease or room to simply sit back and be enriched. We are some ways off from qualifying every listening choice to some authority on the internet.

I believe he is simply asking if you ever step outside of the circle of truths to examine your bliss.

I’ve discovered many esoteric music connections in classical, jazz and otherwise that I bet even your favorite FM disc jockey from the hazy nostalgic past wouldn’t have a clue of.

How exactly do you visualize FM disc jockeys from the hazy nostalgic past created a long stream of broadcasts that never grew dull or unimaginative in their programming?

Those willing to do the work in order to reap reward do still exist is the moral here.

 

Where your own personal use of metadata, where your own natural course of discovery through research, is propped up by artificial instigations craft a mindless path more readily prone to introducing untruths. You are trusting an environment that introduces vital elements as easily as removes awareness of them to large undiscoverable tracts of hebetude. OS/programs limiting thought that can be put into decisions requires only the most simple characterization as an ill pervading our lives at this moment.

We as humans are unfortunately defined in no small part by our diet. No doubt you retain ability to exit at will or consume from a new (data) table. Equally, nobody should expect only the core rigid practices to be upheld with no ease or room to simply sit back and be enriched. We are some ways off from qualifying every listening choice to some authority on the internet.

I believe he is simply asking if you ever step outside of the circle of truths to examine your bliss.



How exactly do you visualize FM disc jockeys from the hazy nostalgic past created a long stream of broadcasts that never grew dull or unimaginative in their programming?

Those willing to do the work in order to reap reward do still exist is the moral here.

Channeling Cogito Theory to undermine profiled, passive library discovery? Seems a bit much.
I listen, therefore I relax.

 

Relax is a very apt term.

CD transport never relax. Streaming only awakes briefly before shutting down as fully as possible.

 

Good point. There is one advantage to discs though…you can find the best masterings a bit more easily. Some of the mastering on Qobuz and Tidal can be mediocre.

actually with roon/qobuz/tidal and my hard drive I have them all available in one place to try if one wants to do that. Me, I prefer to listen to music not spend my life comparing but that's just me.

 

i have an Oppo UDT-203 now if i'm in the mood for discs. it does not suck. i had a Playback Designs MPS-5 for 9 years, which was good. and a Aqua La Diva transport with an Aqua Formula dac a few years ago. also good. so i have a base line knowledge of a good CD player in my system. and how those compared to my references at that time. and how those references compare to my current ones.

and my conclusion is that none of those disc experiences enter the realm of my Wadax Ref dac and sever with files or streaming.

my point is not that CD's don't sound wonderful. they do. but files ripped from CD's are as good. so why should i mess with discs? unless i can't buy the file. or it's not streamed. or i'm hooked on the muscle memory adrenaline rush from loading CD's.

but i applaud disc enjoyers.....knock yourself out. it's music. but let's not claim the high road of better sound with discs. it's simply one way to get your music. no worries.

I too have listened to CD's versus the rips I have done to my hard drive and I no longer care about playing discs.
I still don't get why people have such a hard time realizing that things change and perhaps there could be a better solution.
I have tried using a few quality Cd players and or transports versus the hard drive...I don't have them any longer.
My first statement when I first got my Wadax still applies , it is a transcendent product and one that redefines IMO what is possible in digital playback.

 

Yes Charles, there is. That is of course the reason why almost all (or maybe all?) audio manufacturers add a coating to their copper products/chassis (including my Kondo (pre)amps). So I definitely need to polish these copper platforms now and then: I suppose that is the price one must be willing to pay for ‘copper purity’.

Thanks again.
Kondo and other manufacturers utilizing copper may have concluded that protective copper coating has minimal or perhaps no sonic penalty.
Charles

 

Thanks again.
Kondo and other manufacturers utilizing copper may have concluded that protective copper coating has minimal or perhaps no sonic penalty.
Charles

Maybe but it seems much more likely - to me anyway - that manufacturers do not want to sell or (I suppose rightly so from a commercial perspective) believe that most customers are not interested in (audio) components that tend to tarnish over time. But I suppose we must go back to the topic of this thread.

 

Where your own personal use of metadata, where your own natural course of discovery through research, is propped up by artificial instigations craft a mindless path more readily prone to introducing untruths. You are trusting an environment that introduces vital elements as easily as removes awareness of them to large undiscoverable tracts of hebetude. OS/programs limiting thought that can be put into decisions requires only the most simple characterization as an ill pervading our lives at this moment.

We as humans are unfortunately defined in no small part by our diet. No doubt you retain ability to exit at will or consume from a new (data) table. Equally, nobody should expect only the core rigid practices to be upheld with no ease or room to simply sit back and be enriched. We are some ways off from qualifying every listening choice to some authority on the internet.

I believe he is simply asking if you ever step outside of the circle of truths to examine your bliss.



How exactly do you visualize FM disc jockeys from the hazy nostalgic past created a long stream of broadcasts that never grew dull or unimaginative in their programming?

Those willing to do the work in order to reap reward do still exist is the moral here.

Using streaming to enjoy and discover music is only as "mindless" as the listener allows it to be. I choose to be stimulated by the process.

 

I too have listened to CD's versus the rips I have done to my hard drive and I no longer care about playing discs.
I still don't get why people have such a hard time realizing that things change and perhaps there could be a better solution.
I have tried using a few quality Cd players and or transports versus the hard drive...I don't have them any longer.
My first statement when I first got my Wadax still applies , it is a transcendent product and one that redefines IMO what is possible in digital playback.

Interesting remark Elliot. I agree with you as regards file replay with the Wadax reference components. But I was really amazed how good cd’s can actually sound when one uses a good cd-transport in combination with the Wadax reference dac and raise the performance of the cd-transport significantly with high quality footers and platforms (and yes, I raised the performance of the server in a similar way, albeit I used RevOpods for the server in stead of the Hifistay Absolute Point footers that I am employing for the cd-transport). After this experience I am not so sure anymore that high quality file reply ‘beats’ high quality cd-reply under all or most circumstances. But of that is of course just my opinion based on only one comparison, while I have not yet heard the Wadax reference server with its dedicated PSU.

 

I’m not sure if many Roon users are constantly in radio mode or feel at all enforced in their listening by Roon. It’s the opposite for me I feel freedom in Roon and less trapped by what is near limitless music.

When streaming about 70% of the time I’m choosing something already in my library (which for a large library is really easy to sort through) and probably 25% of the time I’m exploring more music to build into my library under my own steam playing new music searching either composers names, compositions, performers or new releases in genres. In building or refining what I have I’m working to get to the best performances of a piece of music or hear alternative performances and also then learning more about composers and performers and music by constantly hearing a broader range. Streaming teaches you more about music.

I’d say less than 5% of the time Roon radio kicks in for me which then allows suggestions from people (dare I say it possibly even music lovers) who do the various tags for music and who build the lists that often create a highlighted source of well aligned valuable connections with the kinds of music and the performers that I regularly choose to listen to. There is no big terminator like AI computer somewhere systematically governing my music with a big stick for me. If something comes up that I don’t connect with or don’t like I just (gasp) change the music… this freewheeling expansion of music understanding stops me from being caught unmovingly within some musical past with the parts of it I’ve outgrown and growing in an expanding library that is affordably being actively curated by me and refined and redefined. Streaming for me is about opening horizons and not being stuck mainly in just that I mostly already know. It can also stop you from becoming musically something of a bit of a fossil which can be one of the dangers for us as audiophiles if we end up spending a lot of time comparing gear always using the same focussed reference tracks.

Over the last decade streaming has taught me way more about music… so much so that I love my system even more now just because I’m playing the music that I love even more.

 

Assuming the internet is working. A file that cannot be streamed has no data on the receiving end - a non existent file has no integrity. I don't need to justify my preferences nor look for a justification - they are my preferences. I'm talking about the pros or cons of the mechanisms associated to different digital delivery technologies.

This is absurd. The point is that internet is not fragile, on the contrary. Surely if you are addressing the usual desert island where audiophiles imagine to go to evidence their preferences, you have a point.

BTW, digital physical media is fragile and has variable lifespan - this is well documented and studied, although we see lot of disagreement on it. A good site for information is the page of the US Library of Congress on material preservation - see https://www.loc.gov/preservation/scientists/projects/index.html.

A real problem with CD is that due to aging or mishandling the block error rate (BLER) can increase, reducing the sound quality without clear evidence of it.

 

actually with roon/qobuz/tidal and my hard drive I have them all available in one place to try if one wants to do that. Me, I prefer to listen to music not spend my life comparing but that's just me.

Snarky as ever.

A good mastering makes a huge difference so I don't mind spending a little time finding what's best!

 

I think one thing for me in favor of discs has been that I have collected them since they arrived at the end of 1982 and my dad put me in charge of finding them. Since then I have amassed 6K+ discs so I really do want to enjoy those even if it is a bit more work to load. I have collected great masterings from folks like Steve Hoffman, the MoFi guys, Classic Records, Sony, Glenn Meadows, Barry Diament, and many other great engineers.

I do appreciate streaming quite a bit now, especially with the Rossini Apex connected to an Ansuz switch. Can't beat it for convenience and the ability to build and share playlists and when on Roon explore new albums.

But there is still something wonderful about those little silver discs.

 

This is absurd. The point is that internet is not fragile, on the contrary. Surely if you are addressing the usual desert island where audiophiles imagine to go to evidence their preferences, you have a point.

BTW, digital physical media is fragile and has variable lifespan - this is well documented and studied, although we see lot of disagreement on it. A good site for information is the page of the US Library of Congress on material preservation - see https://www.loc.gov/preservation/scientists/projects/index.html.

A real problem with CD is that due to aging or mishandling the block error rate (BLER) can increase, reducing the sound quality without clear evidence of it.

I can assure you this is way overblown. I have only had two fail in 6,600 discs. And those were the notorious "target" era pressings.

 

Microstrip [Text omitted]
"what is the point of developing a new transport if we already have SOTA servers/streamers.?"
There is no point unless you possess a huge CD library. If that is the case, you should probably burn them to a "server" any way.

 

I can assure you this is way overblown. I have only had two fail in 6,600 discs. And those were the notorious "target" era pressings.

My statistics are not so enthusiastic - I had to replace around 20 CDs in a total of around 1500. Most wee classical music and half were rotten CDs due to a Polidor manufacturing problem - poor seal of the layers. The question is that we usually only consider fails when they do not read or skip - interpolation is not easily noticeable but affects sound quality. In the 90's some Philips IC decoders used in players had separate output lines signaling fully corrected errors and interpolation - I connected them to counters and could check for their number in CDs - the rate fully corrected errors was very variable, fortunately interpolation was extremely low. Although fully corrected errors theoretically do not affect sound quality, in this hobby everything counts and if a CD had an higher than average rate of them I tried getting a replacement.

A short pragraph from a Library of Congress study on CD longevity: http://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rt/CDservicelife_rev.pdf

""The test population selected for this experiment was extremely diverse; representing discs constructed using different materials, from different manufacturers and record labels. Although the selected discs covered a relatively limited period of manufacture the wide distribution of life expectancies demonstrates the effect of these varied construction parameters on disc life. 10% of the discs failed at an estimated life of less than 25 years, including 6 discs (5%) that failed too early to obtain meaningful data or a meaningful lifetime estimate. 23 discs (16%) had insufficient increase in errors during the test, and thus, had infinite lifetimes, by the standards of the ISO test method. These results illustrate why it is so difficult to make broad generalizations about the lifetime of optical media."

 

Lp's won't last forever; but assuming proper care, temps and humidity my guess is a few lifetimes. possibly a dozen lifetimes......if some sort of radiation does not appear that hurts them.

we know they last for nearly 70 years already. i have a few of those.

 

Can I stream Roon in my car?

Yes

I'm in the same "boat" as you. I googled your question and found this :

Listen to Roon in a car?

I have a nice new car with the latest of MERIDIAN audio equipment. And I am testing Roon with TIDAL on my Mac. How would it be possible, to use Roon in my car? No chance? Thanks Bluesy

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@ tima Here's another

Roon in your Car sound systems

Dear rooners Have you all ever try put roon Core on your car? Cause, im working about it right know. Im using intel NUC10i7FNH 16GB of RAM and ssd 250GB, I already built it as my roon ROCK Using routers+modem to CHORD 2go2yu and then to my car audio systems And BeelinkGTkingPro as my roon...

community.roonlabs.com

Looks like you can use to Roon to hear music in your car. It does seem over wrought in terms of connections and devices involved -- in effect its computer networking with a non-driver-friendly user interface. I'm guessing there other choices

I was thinking maybe a 'radio' with a Roon feature as Sirius has. I wish the car makers would put CD players back in cars. Mine will take an SD card but no CD.

 

I have two players to do this it’s pretty simple if Yiur files are local be it memory chip or internal memory of tge player. Connects via blue tooth to car audio.
tidal is even more easy most new cars have tidal app built in and one of my cars has cell service built in
there is also XM app as well.