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Why is Streaming so much better than anything else?

Danathepill said:
Any time i compare any other source to streaming it’s always a night and day difference that streaming is WAY better. I have a decent system with decent sources but it’s really that big of a difference that it blows me away. Are streaming sources just better now or am I doing something wrong?
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Yes and no, and also neither.... I like collecting CDs personally (others collect vinyl) and a part of the appeal is the ability to physically touch the medium. I also have a large, very substantial music (and music video) library on my multimedia computer. That method is probably better than streaming, typically larger files.... instant access, especially the music and videos, in form them being on SSD. Playback via an excellent, higher-end stand-alone soundcard. What music databases often do is remix the files they stream, boosting both bass and treble. You may have a preference for this and this may be the reason it sounds "better" to you. Many of the streaming services stream at 192/kbs or 256/kbs. This of course is rather modest in comparison to many FLAC files I have that are 1300+kbs.

The real advantage to streaming is the availability of practically every piece of music you can think of. That is certainly something to consider. Yet, if the site goes down, or decides to remove the music you like (or restrict it)... It would not be a pleasant experience. :oops:
 
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Motobiker said:
I’m massively in favour of streaming because it’s having an entirely positive effect on CD.

It’s not there yet, but CD is transitioning from being a mainstream source to a ‘niche’ source or product and this is an entirely positive development.

It’s actually quite fantastic. Probably the best thing that could ever happen to CD as a medium.

Streaming - you’re welcome to it. I hope it gets ever more popular.
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I think that transition is done, and has been for a number of years.

You understand that many of us stream our locally-stored CD collections, right? And that many of us continue adding to those collections, ripping them to local storage as we go.
 
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spark1 said:
The DAC in the Pro doesn't measure nearly as well as the DAC in the Pro Plus, per Audio Science Review (ASR. The DAC in the Pro Plus measured in the top tier of DACs.
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I get you. ASR is all about measurements and many are beyond the range of human hearing. It doesn't surprise me the Pro is hard to discern from the Pro Plus. We are getting into indiscernible differences in the human audible spectrum. I find a lot of things good enough and I never worked in hearing damaging environments. Just stupid kid **** like fireworks, guns, lawn mowing but exposures were short. Yes, some rock concerts thrown in there of course.
 
Bill S said:
Honest question. So is the DAC in the Wiim Pro so sub standard that an additional piece of equipment is necessary to pass signal through? Can you hear the difference? I have a Bur Brown DAC in my streamer and my phone has a good DAC in it and honestly, I can't hear the difference. Are we splitting hairs or is there really an audible difference to 65+ year old ears? Do I need to upgrade??
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I think the DAC in the WiimPro is probably fine, BUT - I do like the absolute digital display of what the actual bit rate is on the Topping DACs,
and its worth it for ME to see what each song checks in at ... I'm generally listening to HiRes streams on Qobuz or other quality streams like
GD Radio, Radio Paradise and a few others - I don't use low res streaming services like Pandora or Spotify.

I do have 2000+ of my own albums (CDs) loaded on my local server in lossless format, and they are more convenient than getting up to grab a CD,
load it in the Oppo, and play it back, especially since I rarely want to play a CD end to end ...


Topping-GDRadio-96k_5645.jpg
 
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Natasha Bell said:
Yes and no, and also neither.... I like collecting CDs personally (other collect vinyl) and a part of the appeal is the ability to physically touch the medium. I also have a large, very substantial music (and music video) library on my multimedia computer. That method is probably better than streaming, typically larger files.... instant access, especially the music and videos, in form them being on SSD. Playback via an excellent, higher-end stand-alone soundcard. What music databases often do is remix the files they stream, boosting both bass and treble. You may have a preference for this and this may be the reason it sounds "better" to you. Many of the streaming services stream at 192/kbs or 256/kbs. This of course is rather modest in comparison to many FLAC files I have that are 1300+kbs.

The real advantage to streaming is the availability of practically every piece of music you can think of. That is certainly something to consider. Yet, if the site goes down, or decides to remove the music you like (or restrict it)... It would not be a pleasant experience. :oops:
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You state that music "databases" remix music files and boost the bass and treble. Remix? Really? How do they remix without the original, "master" recordings?

And why would they need to remix just to apply equalization?

Can you refer me to your source(s) for this, especially any that pertain to high-res streaming services?
 
hjames said:
The disadvantage of the WiimPro is it doesn't have this nifty display to show me what is actually playing
(which I can see on my iPhone or iPad when using it like a remote control to manage the WiimPro)
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I don't understand. If you stream from a phone for example, into a Wiim wifi mode, don't you have the app on your phone and doesn't it display artist, song, etc? And doesn't your phone display artist, album, discography, related artists, etc as a result of your streaming provider even without using the app? I mean unless you're using a PC, your not anchored, correct? Maybe I'm not understanding the benefits/relevance?
 
Bill S said:
I don't understand. If you stream from a phone for example, into a Wiim wifi mode, don't you have the app on your phone and doesn't it display artist, song, etc? And doesn't your phone display artist, album, discography, related artists, etc as a result of your streaming provider even without using the app? I mean unless you're using a PC, your not anchored, correct? Maybe I'm not understanding the benefits/relevance?
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I'm not streaming FROM my phone or iPad.. The stream is the WiimPro picking it up directly from the service (Qobuz, Radio paradise, etc).
Sometimes I may use my phone (or Emma's iPad) like a remote control to control the Wiim, but unlike the raspberry Pi with the display,
the Wiim has no real display of its own. Qobuz may show the HiRes logo next to an album cover, but the DAC tells me what it actually is.

WiimProToppingE30II_0783.JPG
 
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One of greatest audio memories I have is getting my SOTA TT in 1984. Another equally happy day was a few years ago selling it locally. My earlier <$1K dacs were not equal to the performance of my TT. That all changed about 8 years ago when I got an Ayre QB-9 dac. It had a completely analogue sound with no surface noise. A couple of years ago I upgraded to an Aqua La Voce DAC and that was a nice improvement, too. I have 8TB of digital recordings on my external HD and stream Tidal Hifi. My 2,100 SACD recordings take up a lot of storage, but storage is very inexpensive these days.

I make the following analogy. I was a film camera buff since I was a wee lad. Then I got first digital camera many years back and immediately loved the convenience of it. Current digital cameras have benefitted from tremendous technological improvements in the past ~20 years such that is exceedingly rare to see anyone using a film camera... my Canon F1 sits in my closet gathering dust while my Canon G12 and my iPhone camera gets used all the time with splendid photos.

I hear friends' systems with pricey TT set ups and to my aging ears, I very seldom discern any difference between analogue and digital playback, except that there is no surface noise with digital music. The "needle-droppers" all agree that they like the participatory experience of vinyl and that is great for folks that like to... fiddle... Not me. I have heard stellar dacs such as those in the Lampizator line and they are breathtakingly realistic! To wit, the $900 Topping dac I recently heard was very musical and natural sounding. Believe what you want about the SQ differences between the two playback processes, but I conclude my abandonment of analogue playback in favor of the digital alternative is akin to the difference between film vs digital cameras. Who among you still uses a film camera? Yet the offerings of uber mega-bucks TT increase year by year. I just scratch my head.
 
Kodaline said:
Any digital source since about 1990 does not do this. Everything is remastered, or brickwalled, or both, to sound ok on crappy systems.
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Any? Everything? Every time I read or hear words like these, a red flag goes up in my head. I can tell you that hasn't been my experience with just about all of the CDs I've purchased that are within the time frame you mentioned, and I do believe I have a good audio system where such digital audio would reveal itself to me. I myself am wary of the seemingly continual remastering of popular classic artists from the past. Maybe there can be a certain amount of improvement to some people but it could be made worse too. This is however a different issue than that of newer artists where the most important issues are how they are recorded and mastered. All of this would of course apply to other digital sources such as streaming as well, assuming that the streaming provider isn't messing with the source material in some way.

Kodaline said:
This is what the OP likes, big sound.
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Big sound is nothing new. It's been around for years and dominates popular music.

Kodaline said:
An original CD and a good condition vinyl of the same masters should sound identical.
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Not necessarily. The vinyl version must be made to sound good within it's inherent limitations of which the CD doesn't have.
Kodaline said:
to sound ok on crappy systems.
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Nothing new here either. Even back in the "good old days" of "classic" rock, music producers were trying to make their music sound good on crappy systems too, simply because there were more of them than the good ones.
 
Lux Man said:
WOW! I guess I like shite! All these years of listening to so many things and it comes down to I like Shite! THAT explains a few things.....

Sorry but I guess I should have quoted Kodaline above since he first offered that piece of wisdom. I must be totally delusional to think what I am hearing is not shite.
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That's not what I meant, and I think you know that. I said your sources could be shite, not your media. Your media could be shite too, in terms of quality. I am not criticizing your musical tastes, rather, I am suggesting that a possible reason for your enjoying streaming more is that there could be a quality problem with your local sources or media. You can understand that, or remain upset if you wish.

intro6 said:
Not necessarily. The vinyl version must be made to sound good within it's inherent limitations of which the CD doesn't have.
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<snip>

I don't really do point by point refutation, so you'll pardon me if I don't address much of your reply. I do wish to correct you here. When I said:
An original CD and a good condition vinyl of the same masters should sound identical.
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I was referring to an original CD made of an existing album. The majority of the original CDs were reissues of existing analog albums and they put them, with very little or no changes, straight from the existing tape masters onto the CD. It was later when they started packing bonus content and remastering onto them. The point is not the limitations of the vinyl, but, rather, the problem with digital is not the medium, it's the maddening urge to tinker with something that is already good by remastering when you don't have to do so.
 
Long thread so I won't read it all...but I would say in general, with even modest equipment, I find no huge quality difference between streaming, a good CD deck, pretty good cassette deck with Dolby C and HX Pro recorded tapes and a decent modern turntable with a microline stylus. If streaming sounds MUCH better than your other sources, something may be able to be improved with those sources - or, you have perception bias, and are expecting to hear the streaming source as best.

I stream about 60% of the time now but still enjoy using all legacy sources mentioned above, and have a big music library. So I'm happy that I don't feel like I'm dropping down in quality when I listen to something I've purchased.

That being said, even Spotify sounds pretty good - I stick with it because of my wife. I've given up on them ever implementing higher res files. (But I've used Qobuz and Tidal for periods of time and my remarks above still stand.)
 
Easier is not necessarily better.
I like books, I like records, I like hard copies, I like glossy prints from varilux film, I like original mixes the way I remember them. I’m an old guy who’s set in hs ways.
Any other questions?
 
I mean...the short answer is...it's not! How can it be "better than anything else"? However...if you feel you're streaming sounds and/or for whatever other reason(s) (ease of use; elimination of physical media; less equipment; cheaper) is "better" than your cd and or vinyl playback...well...good for you!
 
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