More Consensus That Streaming Is An Inferior Format & Not High End?

[Gregadd]

I did it for $1,200. That includes headphones, a USB cable and an ac filter. There is no way i could build a music library to compete with Tidal. My equipment is bullet proof therefore, I don't think I need vibration control. I could be wrong.
There are excellent dacs for under $500. Topping is one of them. As always pushing the limit is expensive.

 

[Gregadd]

I think its somewhere in that range yes , but Wadax has the advantage that it does sound very good .
If all goes well regarding work planning i ll be in Munchen this year as well , hope to hear some more WADAX

Is WADAX a real-world product for audiophiles. I mean I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know lower price models with 80-90% of what the flagship offers.

 

[Amir]

Hi Amir.
For it to have meaning, better has to have another dimension. Better than ’something’
Then to make it interesting we could discuss why its better. Im not judging the CEC in the least and am perfectly happy to discuss the merits of streaming vs a CD transport like the CEC, which of course I do know by reputation if not in detail.

I would have concern if you were to say ‘better than streaming’ because I personally dont know how far streaming quality goes because I’ve only taken it to a certain point, within my facilities and budget And Ive so far found no ‘law of diminishing returns‘. Taiko is about to take it several steps further and I’ll bet good money the market will find their ‘new‘ system excellent value for money, so still no sight of diminishing returns I believe.

Hi Blackmorec
I think CEC is more dynamic , dynamics has many dimentions like
- big Image scale
- relax Sound at high SPL
- fast jump , slow and clear decay
- feeling unlimited power in music
- deep bass
- right sense of timing pace and separation
- life , energy
- more height of Image

when you switch from Computer to CD (in CEC TL0 3.0) you feel you went from street to a highway with 5 lines , you feel you receive more information from micro dynamics .

 

[Amir]

Hi Amir.

I was looking at the Wadax website and think I read about a €19,000 DC cable. Is that correct or did I misread? . Anyway, it’s made of an exotic mix like a silver gold alloy, has a woven silk body and very very exotic looking connectors. Pure class. But worth mentioning is that the DC supply of my streaming network is wired start to finish in a silver gold based cable by Mundorf, mostly hand built by an extremely skilled and generous fellow audiophile, DIY guru, IT expert and beautiful cable builder Nenon. His cables have quite amazing properties, transforming the sound into something truly pure, 4 dimensional and spatial. The cable imparts hugely increased clarity and transparency. It can be gorgeously delicate or massively robust the transparency and purity and dimensionality remain.

The point is, this is just one area of many areas that can be enhanced on a network. It’s quite boggling how many opportunities there are. Where to start?
Trying to assign a maximum quality to streaming is like trying to assign a length to the proverbial piece of string. ie. any length you want, within upper boundaries we’ve yet to discover

I am not Audio designer and I can not comment about what is the real problem/challenge of designing computer playback.
You can sent an email to Gordon Rankin (first designer who put the clock on dac side not computer side and Ayre , Berkeley and some other used Gordon codes in their usb dacs) and ask him about streaming.
Gordon Ranking is expert in this field

 

[Mike Lavigne]

i have a few hundred dxd and quad dsd albums on my hard drive. the idea that a CD or even an SACD, at their best, will equal or surpass the better dxd and quad dsd files just shows a lack of experience with those files. and yes; they are computer audio.

some of these files are tape based; with really fine iconic performances and top recording quality. and these are the best of the files. not because native dxd or quad dsd does not sound good. more because the recordings and performances. when you can choose from 40 years of millions of analog recordings and choose the best they will be much better. it's still the recording than matters most. all of those recordings have good sounding CD's based also on those tapes.

get your $30k disc transport and do a head to head with those files. maybe you are in love with the artifacts of your transport. we cannot eliminate personal preferences. but for musical value the dxd and quad dsd versions will be better. mostly much better. in my experience close to the vinyl or tape in ways the CD will not be.

i do this compare in my system.

 

[Audire]

i have a few hundred dxd and quad dsd albums on my hard drive. the idea that a CD or even an SACD, at their best, will equal or surpass the better dxd and quad dsd files just shows a lack of experience with those files. and yes; they are computer audio.

some of these files are tape based; with really fine iconic performances and top recording quality. and these are the best of the files. not because native dxd or quad dsd does not sound good. more because the recordings and performances. when you can choose from 40 years of millions of analog recordings and choose the best they will be much better. it's still the recording than matters most. all of those recordings have good sounding CD's based also on those tapes.

get your $30k disc transport and do a head to head with those files. maybe you are in love with the artifacts of your transport. we cannot eliminate personal preferences. but for musical value the dxd and quad dsd versions will be better. mostly much better. in my experience close to the vinyl or tape in ways the CD will not be.

i do this compare in my system.

IMO, some audio files sound fake using higher resolution. This is especially true for the older CDs I enjoy. I‘m use to hearing them as close as possible to the way I originally did many moons ago. That’s the sound in my head and so it’s what I expect. While I have enjoyed other music that I’m not as familiar with played at higher resolution, my Transport excels at playing my older songs. No higher resolution needed or desired on those….

 

[Mike Lavigne]

IMO, some audio files sound fake using higher resolution. This is especially true for the older CDs I enjoy. I‘m use to hearing them as close as possible to the way I originally did many moons ago. That’s the sound in my head and so it’s what I expect. While I have enjoyed other music that I’m not as familiar with played at higher resolution, my Transport excels at playing my older songs. No higher resolution needed or desired on those….

do you realize what you are saying?

i guess if we view musical truth as our decades old CD performance reference, we are then doomed to view high quality tape sourced transfers as false.

our reference is hopelessly corrupted.

forget what is actually on the tape, and believe perfect sound forever.

OTOH if it makes you smile....then go with it. i can see i'm not changing your mind.

 

[Audire]

do you realize what you are saying?

i guess if we view musical truth as our decades old CD performance reference, we are then doomed to view high quality tape sourced transfers as false.

our reference is hopelessly corrupted.

forget what is actually on the tape, and believe perfect sound forever.

OTOH if it makes you smile....then go with it. i can see i'm not changing your mind.

Yes, I realize what I’m saying, the CD quailty doesn’t need to be improved upon. If your have a quality playback system then CDs of older music the way I use to hear them is all that is necessary or desired. When you add additional digital sound to the recording it sounds off to me.

I didn’t say this was true for all formats. If I was accustomed to hearing an album on vinyl than that is my reference and the sound I desire.

 

[dminches]

Yes, I realize what I’m saying, the CD quailty doesn’t need to be improved upon. If your have a quality playback system then CDs of older music the way I use to hear them is all that is necessary or desired. When you add additional digital sound to the recording it sounds off to me.

I didn’t say this was true for all formats. If I was accustomed to hearing an album on vinyl than that is my reference and the sound I desire.

Wouldn’t your frame of reference of “older” music be analog (vinyl) and not CD?

Also, if you record something to, let’s say, 24/96 instead of 16/44 (CD), aren’t you capturing more of the information and getting closer to the analog source? I am not sure what “additional digital sound” is.

Just trying to understand your logic here.

 

[Audire]

Wouldn’t your frame of reference of “older” music be analog (vinyl) and not CD?

Also, if you record something to, let’s say, 24/96 instead of 16/44 (CD), aren’t you capturing more of the information and getting closer to the analog source? I am not sure what “additional digital sound” is.

Just trying to understand your logic here.

A lot of my early listening was on vinyl. However, when CDs first came out I jumped on the convenience bandwagon of CDs. While my 60-70s music was mostly analogue, my 80s music was mostly on CDs.

Since my early listening (60s-70s) was on vinyl that‘s the way I prefer it now. I own a lot of old vinyl recordings. Though some have been given to me on CD, I don‘t particularly desire those on CD or Streaming. They don‘t sound right to me on those mediums, esp. on higher resolution streaming. I don’t prefer digital records either.

On my CD music I like it to remain CD quality. It’s the natural sound of those tracks that I’m used too. If I hear them at a higher resolution then they sound off to me.

Newer music like Fourplay, Diana Krall, etc. sound good on higher resolution as I’m not accustomed to hearing them at only CD only quality. I do have some of them on vinyl though and I do prefer that medium when it is offered.

Natural sound to me means the way I’m accustomed to hearing a particular track. While I attended a lot of live concerts those were isolated incidents. However, the medium I used to listen to the same songs day and night is my actual overall reference ….Though people won’t often admit it, it’s theirs too….

 

[PYP]

I am not Audio designer and I can not comment about what is the real problem/challenge of designing computer playback.
You can sent an email to Gordon Rankin (first designer who put the clock on dac side not computer side and Ayre , Berkeley and some other used Gordon codes in their usb dacs) and ask him about streaming.
Gordon Ranking is expert in this field

And there are some very fine designers who build streaming systems. And all these experts have their own subjective opinions. Just as we mere mortals do.

I'm assuming that when you describe your preferred sound from the transport, that the end result is that you are better able to engage with the music and enjoy the performance. Is that what you are saying?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

A lot of my early listening was on vinyl. However, when CDs first came out I jumped on the convenience bandwagon of CDs. While my 60-70s music was mostly analogue, my 80s music was mostly on CDs.

Since my early listening (60s-70s) was on vinyl that‘s the way I prefer it now. I own a lot of old vinyl recordings. Though some have been given to me on CD, I don‘t particularly desire those on CD or Streaming. They don‘t sound right to me on those mediums, esp. on higher resolution streaming. I don’t prefer digital records either.

On my CD music I like it to remain CD quality. It’s the natural sound of those tracks that I’m used too. If I hear them at a higher resolution then they sound off to me.

Newer music like Fourplay, Diana Krall, etc. sound good on higher resolution as I’m not accustomed to hearing them at only CD only quality. I do have some of them on vinyl though and I do prefer that medium when it is offered.

Natural sound to me means the way I’m accustomed to hearing a particular track. While I attended a lot of live concerts those were isolated incidents. However, the medium I used to listen to the same songs day and night is my actual overall reference ….Though people won’t often admit it, it’s theirs too….

not everyone pushes things along the way, with every format. so i respect you have a fondness for how you like to hear your most familiar CD music. it's one way to go.

however; when there is a thread about superior/inferior formats i think that your approach to what is most right verses what is most familiar and comfortable takes you down a different road away from this discussion. not to say that your preferred CD experience is not satisfying or sounds bad, it's just you are not even pretending to claim it sounds better. it's just what you like.....and what you know.

i do appreciate your transparency and happy for you that you are getting the sound you like. i wonder how many others are really doing the same but not realizing it about the CD/disc experience?

 

[Blackmorec]

Hi Blackmorec
I think CEC is more dynamic , dynamics has many dimentions like
- big Image scale
- relax Sound at high SPL
- fast jump , slow and clear decay
- feeling unlimited power in music
- deep bass
- right sense of timing pace and separation
- life , energy
- more height of Image

when you switch from Computer to CD (in CEC TL0 3.0) you feel you went from street to a highway with 5 lines , you feel you receive more information from micro dynamics

Hi Amir,
I wouldn’t doubt what you say for one second. However, switching from a dedicated, built for purpose, highly optimized streaming system may well work the other way. Computers are not and never were designed and built for high-fidelity music streaming….they were built for hundreds of other tasks so have huge amounts of superfluous, non-audio related tasks going on that all add noise to the final stream. The goal of streaming is a quiet, audio-only data stream with as little non-audio work as possible going on. The more you can reduce that work, the better the final data stream that the DAC uses to create the music.

When you switch from a computer, to a CEC TLO 3.0 you are switching to a cleaner, audio-only stream. You can do exactly the same thing, only more so with streaming, because you dont have all the mechanical and extra control electronics noise to deal with and you can remove/avoid all the extra traffic and non-audio computer related activity.

Why would I want to talk to someone like Gordon Rankin, who hasn’t gone to the trouble of make streaming work optimally, when I could instead talk to Emile Bok from Taiko or Nuno Vitorino form Innuos, who very obviously have?

 

[Blackmorec]

Yes, I realize what I’m saying, the CD quailty doesn’t need to be improved upon. If your have a quality playback system then CDs of older music the way I use to hear them is all that is necessary or desired. When you add additional digital sound to the recording it sounds off to me.

I didn’t say this was true for all formats. If I was accustomed to hearing an album on vinyl than that is my reference and the sound I desire.

The thing is Audire, you are not adding digital sound…..you’re removing it. You hear more of the music and what was on the original recording as removing digital noise increases resolution and increasing resolution increases the amount of original detail and information.

If you were used to listening to symphony concerts by standing outside the window of the concert hall, would you be reluctant to step inside because it no longer sounded like you were used to? It amounts to the same thing as saying that old CD players don‘t need improving.

 

[Gunnar]

i have a few hundred dxd and quad dsd albums on my hard drive. the idea that a CD or even an SACD, at their best, will equal or surpass the better dxd and quad dsd files just shows a lack of experience with those files. and yes; they are computer audio.

some of these files are tape based; with really fine iconic performances and top recording quality. and these are the best of the files. not because native dxd or quad dsd does not sound good. more because the recordings and performances. when you can choose from 40 years of millions of analog recordings and choose the best they will be much better. it's still the recording than matters most. all of those recordings have good sounding CD's based also on those tapes.

get your $30k disc transport and do a head to head with those files. maybe you are in love with the artifacts of your transport. we cannot eliminate personal preferences. but for musical value the dxd and quad dsd versions will be better. mostly much better. in my experience close to the vinyl or tape in ways the CD will not be.

i do this compare in my system.

Fully agree !!

 

[Gunnar]

The question was. Is streaming inferior and not high end?

For me, in my setup, streaming is High End. I had problem with the quality when streaming from Spotify and Tidal but when I moved over to Qobuz HighRes things changed. Really good.

I have compared a couple of albums bought from HighResAudio and downloaded into my Melco with identical albums from Qobuz. Format 96/24. I am fairly sure there are from the same recordings. When listening and comparing, impossible for me or my wife to hear any difference. Both versions “sounds“ High End.

i have no technical skill but a couple of switches with one of the them with a first class clock powered by external power supplies made a huge difference. For sure cables matters also….

But. For me downloading DXD and listen is even better. The details from DXD …… logical in one way. Just compare the size of files. So still a downloader.

 

[Audire]

The thing is Audire, you are not adding digital sound…..you’re removing it. You hear more of the music and what was on the original recording as removing digital noise increases resolution and increasing resolution increases the amount of original detail and information.

If you were used to listening to symphony concerts by standing outside the window of the concert hall, would you be reluctant to step inside because it no longer sounded like you were used to? It amounts to the same thing as saying that old CD players don‘t need improving.

With higher resolution I do hear more - thus the adding digital sound to my ears - and it’s not the sound I’m accustomed to hearing particular music in. Thus, the music sounds off to me.

Your concert analogy begins with the point that CD sound is inferior to higher resolution sound, which isn‘t an argument I agree with.

 

[PeterA]

With higher resolution I do hear more - thus the adding digital sound to my ears - and it’s not the sound I’m accustomed to hearing particular music in. Thus, the music sounds off to me.

Your concert analogy begins with the point that CD sound is inferior to higher resolution sound, which isn‘t an argument I agree with.

Joe, I understand what you are saying. We have all heard recordings that are close mic’d and others that are not. And there is gear that makes the presentation seem like it is close mic’d or hyper detailed. I don’t hear this level of detail when sitting in the middle of the concert hall at the symphony, but I hear more when I sit close to the stage, and microphones hear even more if placed within feet of the instrument. I can imagine scenarios with different seating positions different genres of music in different settings that I would prefer with different types of presentation in my listening room.

On the other hand, since I only play vinyl records, I always prefer a more resolving turntable cartridge and tonearm combination. I want to hear as much of the recording as possible in as natural a presentation as possible.

 

[Blackmorec]

With higher resolution I do hear more - thus the adding digital sound to my ears - and it’s not the sound I’m accustomed to hearing particular music in. Thus, the music sounds off to me.

Your concert analogy begins with the point that CD sound is inferior to higher resolution sound, which isn‘t an argument I agree with.

Actually no, my concert analogy is based on the premise that exactly the same music can sound different, depending on what is getting in its way. In my concert analogy its walls. In the CD discussion its noise and jitter.
I spent the first few years of my audio journey listening to 78s on my grandmother’s radio gram. I still remember a green box full of needles with a shaded-dog logo. That was the sound I got used to initially. Then my Grandmother bought me a Dansette record player, which I probably used for longer than any subsequent hi-fi (ha ha), so I certainly got used to that.
During the next 40 years I must have bought and sold 15 different CD players. Bought because I wanted perfect sound forever. Sold because it wasn’t . The point was, it wasn’t better or more enjoyable than my vinyl, so I do get your point. The problem however turned out to be the amount of noise and jitter that got in the way of the music played via those CDs. Remove that and CD sounds a lot, lot better and can finally compete with vinyl.

 

[rando]

I'd have gone with a second tier symphony orchestra followed by one of the best. Having both played in the latter's hall on following evenings.

Without much imagination one could level that playing field. It comes down to actual musical appreciation.

Despite broadcasting more noise. Today, there is a very good chance of my enjoying the second tier SO in this depiction transposed to digital.


Signs of actually being on stage, carrying over the energy, are wholly lacking from overproduced perfect top tier recordings today. Systems accommodate the composite choices of their era. I'm merely noting the trouble of reproducing the sound in vogue across multiple decades. As much as what resonates with any one person. Reading any further into this would be looking for confusion.