The Audiophile's Dilemma: Streaming Convenience or Sound Quality?
To me, streaming is simply a modern variation of FM radio. In my experience, it doesn’t sound as good as playing a local file—a conclusion shared by other respected audio critics. While streaming is convenient and accessible, it falls short as a true audiophile experience.
Here’s how I arrived at this observation.
My son, Lucca, is starting a speaker company, and I’ve listened to countless versions of his speakers, testing various brands and sizes of internal speaker cables from the crossover to the drivers. Despite identical setups, we consistently hear significant differences between wire configurations, even when measurements suggest they should sound the same. To clarify, we’re not conducting formal double-blind testing here; one person plays the files while the other listens, drawing on our experiences as listeners. With over 50 years as a pianist, composer, orchestrator, and producer of nearly a thousand albums, I trust my musical memory, which I believe extends to tonality as well. In music, we accept pitch memory as valid—so why not tonal memory? I believe that all serious audiophiles who have done critical listening to hi-fi systems over time have developed tonal memories, which is why we might prefer one amp over another.
While testing the speakers, we began comparing streaming audio to local audio files using the same listening methods we applied to the cables. In every case, local files consistently sounded richer and more nuanced, much like live music. On one occasion, we noticed an even greater degradation in streaming quality when another computer in the house was uploading simultaneously. And this listening was done with state-of-the-art audiophile D/A converters that re-clock the data. In spite of this, the stream and local files still sounded different.
This raises a key question: What defines "better," and why do local files sound better to my ears? For a benchmark, I rely on the sound of live music. Streaming files often have an "etched" quality, a kind of artificial resolution, like turning up the contrast on a TV. By contrast, local files offer subtle, rich tones without exaggerated sharpness. Think of it this way: apparent resolution is like fluorescent colors, while real resolution is akin to examining the fine weave of a sweater in real life, where every detail is visible, but nothing unnaturally jumps out. This brings up an aesthetic question as well—do people prefer the "etched" sound of streaming (like canned peas) or the natural, fuller sound of a local file (fresh peas)?
The real mystery to me is that when we capture both files in a Digital Audio Workstation, they null out. So what causes the difference in sound? Even though it’s a digital signal, could it be some triboelectric effect over long wires? Could all the complex connections across the web be picking up electrical noise along the way, degrading the sound during playback?
After downloading and confirming that the files were identical, the streamed version still sounded different in real-time playback. Perhaps there's an "X factor" not yet captured in current scientific testing. But with my extensive experience in live and recorded music, I trust my ears over any graph. The new question for me is are there limitations in current digital audio measurement techniques that fail to capture all perceptible differences in sound quality?
In the end, for casual background music, streaming is fine. But when I want to truly listen and assess the quality of a system, I’ll always opt for a local file.
David Chesky |
